Jejudo

Ten of us EAPSI students flew to Jeju island on Friday. Most of us met at the airport around noon and deciphered the bus routes to hit some sights on the way to our hostel on the opposite end of the island. Jeju is a small island off the southern tip of Korea, known for it's oranges & horses (or the big 3 as my labmates liked to remind me: rocks, wind, & women). It takes about 3 or 4 hours to circumnavigate the volcanic island, and there are dozens of museums, volcanic rock formations, and beautiful vistas along the way.

Half of us arrive at Jeju International.

Our first stop was Halaa Park on the northwest beach. Fishing boats could be seen on a smaller island just off the coast. Our group split up to check out a nature museum and the beach. I went with the latter. We certainly stood out as tourists in the area, but its mostly a honeymoon retreat anyways so only a few people stared. It was starting to look like rain and our hotel was still a 2 hour bus drive away, so we decided to cab it and save some time. Besides, we were all getting hungry.

First stop: the beach.

Practicing teh seksee pose.

Find the white girl in the sea of Asians!

Pretty view of the fishing island from Halaa beach.

We checked in to Tae Gong Gak, a hostel in the city of Seogwipo. The owner, Sylvia, was the sweetest little Korean lady I've ever met. She was very concerned about our health and would volunteer, almost unwittingly, to do our laundry for us or give us detailed, turn by turn directions to anywhere we wished to visit. Some of us took her suggestion for seafood, and we spent 150,000 won ($124.50) for four of us to eat the most ridiculous dinner since the 11-course meal during orientation.

At least 3 of the dishes here were so fresh as to still be moving.

I don't even know. This one was actually good when roasted, though.

Most of the dishes I had already tried with E-mo and family at Jagalchi, but some foods were much stranger (and quite unpleasant, to be honest). But it's all about the experience, right? It was fun to see Viktor and Lindsay's responses to the various dishes. Casey seemed in his element, often explaining or asking how to even eat some of the hard-shelled foods. It was all raw, by the way. Unless we didn't finish it--then they took it back and deep fried it for us. We probably ate for an hour and a half, at least. What's pictured is only about a fifth of everything brought to us.

Viktor unscrews a creature from its shell.

What, couldn't finish it? Here, now try it--tempura'd.

That evening a handful of us visited G ba (I guess G bar?) and met some very friendly bartenders who helped us practice our Korean. Their English was limited, so we both resorted to the few phrases we knew, and lots of gesticulating, to tell them where we were from and why we had come. Nobody knows where Arkansas is, so I have to say "near Texas" and that seems to get the point across. Sad.

On Saturday we took a bus to the eastern side of the island where Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak) overlooks Udo (Cow Island). After hiking up the amazing crater, it began to rain. We trooped back down to find some food, then made our plans to visit Udo.

At the foot of the crater.

Looking down from near the top.

Where the sunrises. Too bad it was cloudy.

Kim and Danni wait for our unknown lunch soups.

Farzad kept Abby entertained dubbing the K-dramas.

The rain had let up after eating, so we decided to go ahead and rent ATVs around the tiny island. We got ferried over, suited up on the tiny four-wheelers, and tore off. We took plenty of goofy pictures, but 30 minutes in to our 2 hour rental the torrent started. All of us being thrifty (i.e. poor) grad students, we weren't going to let our 30,000 won ($25) per vehicle go to waste. We made 2 full trips around the island and then some before deciding it was too damn cold to continue. Fortunately we had all brought bathing suits, but instead of wearing them while in the rain they became our dry change of clothes.

Ferry ride to Udo.

Laughing because the locals were laughing at us.

We each took identical shots.

It was awesome...

Until it started raining.

Dinner was less spectacular on Saturday but more satisfying. A spicy chicken dish with rice cakes, followed by the addition of cheese and ramyun made for a much more familiar dish than still-moving mussels and octopus. We finished off the night with ice cream from a nearby convenience store (I like that about the culture here) and chatted with our friends at G ba again.

Mmm, chicken.

At G ba for the last night.

Sunday morning we returned to the airport at the north end of the island with just enough time to see the Mysterious Road, a wonder of Jeju that still baffles tourists in rental cars. On foot it was decidedly less exciting. Farzad and Viktor and I stood in the rain trying to figure out where the optical illusion started. Walking back, we finally saw the incline that was actually a decline. A taxi awaited us just down (up?) the street at LoveLand, a sex-themed art exhibit. I was mildly interested, but we all had a plane to catch.

Yup. That's it.

Thanks to Viktor, Lindsay, and Sunny for taking most of these sweet pictures. I'm glad others own DSLRs, so I show up in their shots :)