The flight to Jeju was 45minutes long, and I arrived by 10:00. Mariana and Amanda were there to meet me and we promptly rented a car and started our adventure. Luckily, Mariana has her international drivers license so there were no issues with the car rental. It was the first time renting a car for all of us, so it was a monumental experience… hence the need to take a photo in front of our ride for the next two days.
The driving was still a bit chaotic, but much less severe than on the mainland. Mariana did a great job weaving in and out of traffic and we soon arrived to our first destination: Loveland.
Loveland is an erotic theme park and is one of the most popular sites in Jeju, It has over 140 exhibits and attractions. Upon arrival, we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but were soon bombarded with figures, statues, paintings etc.
It was surprising to me that there was such explicit art there, because Korean culture is very sexually reserved. Furthermore, while we were touring around, we noticed that most of the other visitors were middle aged Koreans… not what I had expected at all. The tour book that had recommended Loveland had said that it’s a hot spot for Korean Honeymooners “looking for inspiration and education”. It surely would educate!
After Loveland, we headed to a nearby hedge maze called Kimyoung Maze. While we were there, we met a couple of American travelers who challenged us to a race, to see who would finish first. It was on! The winner would go to a platform and ring a bell signaling that they had arrived first. Well our opponents split up and one arrived before us, but he didn’t have his partner with him, so we claimed victory!
The maze was followed by a trip to the Manjanggul Lava Tubes which is claimed as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tubes were formed by hot lava rushing through during the volcanic eruption on the island. Some areas are 23m high! The area accessible to the public was about 1km long, and we walked there and back. It was surprising how much cooler it was down there… a very nice refresher from the overwhelming heat on ground level.
As a reward for our strenuous efforts walking through the lava tubes, we decided to indulge in a Korean treat called Pot Bing Sue. It’s basically shaved ice with red bean, condensed milk, fruit and corn flakes—surprisingly delicious!
A little while later we were on our way to a garden filled with Dol Hareubangs, also known as Jeju’s Grandfather Statues. The Dol Hareubangs are said to said to be gods that offer fertility as well as protection against evil demons that travel throughout the island. Directly translated, their name means stone grandfather. They are carved out of porous volcanic rock and have distinctive facial features. The mushroom head is often said to me a phallic symbol. These are the top symbol of Jeju and are sold in almost every store on the island.
Later, we decided to go for a scenic drive. We stopped on a beach and had a wonderful view as the sun was setting. It would be dinner time soon, and we found this restaurant in our travel book that boasted about Frisbee sized hamburgers. We decided this would be the perfect dinner, so we set it into our GPS and off we went.
About an hour later we were still driving around and becoming increasingly hungry and irritable. The sky was now dark and we weren’t sure where we were going as we could not find the restaurant. We ended up stopping and I asked for directions. It was then that I was told that the restaurant was no longer open… apparently it had closed down some time ago. AHHH!
Hungry and tired, we decided to opt for the next culinary thing on the list…. black pork. We arrived to the restaurant the Lonely Planet: Korea book advised only to discover that they no longer served black pork. By this point, we were quite on edge. We travelled on foot until we finally found what we were looking for…. Hallelujah!
The meal was fabulous. Jeju is known for black pork galbi (where you get raw pork and cook it yourself on a hot grill at the table). It is said to have a very distinct flavor… I didn’t notice the difference in taste so much, but it was divine! The galbi was served with many little dishes including kimchi, mushrooms, onions, lettuce, pumpkin, garlic and several sauces.
It wasn’t until the end of the meal (after I had thoroughly stuffed my face) that Mariana pointed out to me that if you looked closely, you could see little black hairs in the meat….DISGUSTING! I was not impressed!
We had a bit of a difficult time finding accommodation that night. We had decided not to pre-book a room because that would mean that we’d actually have to find it, instead of just stopping wherever when we were tired and finding a random place to crash. The thing we hadn’t really banked on was the fact that this was high season and things were quite filled up. We found a few rooms available but they looked quite dodgy and several of them had cockroaches… something that we were not prepared to deal with, since one of us would be sleeping on the floor.
Eventually we found a place that was reasonably priced, clean and had many blankets to build a makeshift bed on the floor. I was the one who slept there and it wasn’t too horrible.
The next morning we woke up bright and early. There were no grocery stores around and so breakfast consisted of milk, cookies and chocolate from a nearby convenience store… very healthy! We drove Amanda to Mt Hallasan which is the tallest mountain in Korea. She was inspired to try to climb to the top… I was not, so Mariana and I went Scuba diving.
Yet again, our Lonely Planet Korea guidebook was no help in finding the SCUBA shop, but after some searching, we found another SCUBA instructor who personally guided us to where we were supposed to be.
Our instructor was a German man named Ralf. He was very friendly and spoke good English. He was about 50 years old and reminded me so much of my Onkel Heinz from home… I felt a strange sense of familiarity with him, which I had to keep reminding myself wasn’t actually real.
After all of the legalities were finalized, we got all of our equipment and headed for the ocean. A boat took us to “little moon” island and we were joined by quite a few other SCUBA groups.
Our instructor taught us how to use all of the various equipment and then we each went into the water one at a time. The dive only lasted for about 25 minutes but apparently that’s standard.
We went to a depth of about ten meters and it was amazing. Certified divers can go much deeper for longer amounts of time, but that’s an incentive to get certified I guess. Nevertheless, the dive was amazing. I was surrounded by hundreds of different fish that would swim right up to me. I saw a blowfish and tons of other aquatic life. It’s amazing underwater… it feels like you’re on a completely different planet. I loved it!
We got back from the dive trip at around 3pm and went to pick up Amanda from the mountain. From there we went to the Chocolate Museum.
The Chocolate museum was said to be one of the top ten in the world so we were all expecting a fabulous establishment. The reality wasn’t so impressive. It was nice and educational, but we drove an hour each way to see it, which in my opinion wasn’t really worth it at all. It was interesting to see the chocolates being made… it reminded me of my mom (not that she makes chocolates, but the chocolateers were in a very impressive kitchen being meticulously careful about the products they were crafting).
In the gift shop, I thought to buy some chocolates as souvenirs and possibly to send home, but the prices were astronomical and they weren’t sold individually, so that plan didn’t go through.
Once we left the chocolate museum, we decided to keep on with our museum phase and go to the Teddy Bear Museum. This was actually a cute and delightful experience.
Due to the fact that we’d eaten junk all day, I was really craving something remotely healthy. Jeju island is known for their home grown tangerines. I made Mariana pull over at the side of the highway so that I could buy some. They were expensive but worth every penny. So sweet and delicious; they definitely hit the spot!
A short while later we arrived at the museum. It was three floors and was filled with different types of teddy bears. Some were very historical and most were just scenes throughout history portrayed by bears. It was very cute and charming. We didn’t stay too long because we wanted to see the volcanic rocks before sunset.
(yes, this is the scene from the Titanic)
The volcanic rocks are said to be quite a sight. They are known to have very obscure shapes and rounded edges, unlike regular rocks. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the sun had set and it was quite dark, but it was enjoyable to be in a nice park overlooking the ocean.
The last thing we did for the evening was to head back to the north of the island. We all had flights leaving early the next morning so we thought it would be good to crash close to the airport. This worked out very well because our good friends Ross and Nicole (the couple I met one my flight to Korea) had just arrived in Jeju for their belated honeymoon. We decided to meet up and have dinner together (very romantic for them, I know!)
We found a cute little Korean restaurant and blindly chose two dishes off the menu not knowing what to expect. The food was surprising good and was made even better by the great company. It was very nice to meet up with friends especially since we were far from the mainland.
After a crazy day packed with activities, we were all pretty tired, so after dinner we found a love motel and crashed for the night.
The next morning came way too soon and soon I was on my flight back to Busan. After landing, I went to find the Airport Limousine to take me home, but one was leaving just as I bought my ticket. A bus driver saw that I missed the bus and asked where I was going. I told him and he said that I should just get in his bus. My area wasn’t one of his stops, but he seemed to say that it didn’t matter. I was the only person on this huge bus and he dropped me off right in front of my street… so helpful…And very surprising.
My boss was kind enough to give me the morning off because due to a scheduling miscommunication, I was actually supposed to start work at 9am on Monday. I quickly went home and showered and got to work for 1pm… it was a long day but a very rewarding weekend!
I LOVE JEJU!
The weekend was just AWESOME!!!! Thanks for every single minute that we spent together!!!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE JEJU TOO!!!! =)