Jeju: Day 2: Lunch and Hiking

Date: 12/26/2010

We had lunch at a big restuarant that was next to miniature land--don't know the name, but that it had a big replica of a Roman fountain out front.
Group photo:

Sarah and I both want boy children, apparently:

During lunch, Ange was wearing this shirt, saying "What are you looking at?"

 After lunch, Sarah, Scott and I popped out to walk around.   Lady Liberty was standing in the parking lot--which seems very strange because I thought she was suppose to hang out in NYC--or France....but it seemed like a great photo opportunity so Sarah and I posed.

We got back on the bus and headed to a Uido Mountain.  (At least, I think it's Uido Mountain.  It's where the famous Jeju Woman divers are...)

The Hike up was fun...sort of.

I'm on top of the world! (sort of).

The view was beautiful!

At the summit. 

So pretty!

At the bottom of the mountain, this was where the world famous Jeju Haenyo (Women Divers) swam. These women dive into the ocean and can hold their breathe for an insanely long amount of time.  In the 19th century, they became the main bread winners for their family, which created an Matriarchal society in this super man-centered nation.   In the 50s there were as many as 30,000 women divers.  In 2003, there were only 5,600 left--with most of them being over the age of 50.

The beach where they dive:

You can also see the Japanese Tunnels in the above picture.

Japan and Korea have not had a pretty past, to say the least.  During WWI, Japanese soldiers dug these tunnels into the side of the mountain to hold weapons.

Other cool sites on the beach:

This rock looks like a face...and I think a fairly friendly rock....

I have only ever seen white sand--but this beach had black sand.   It makes sense--the rock that the water is eroding from (thus creating the sand) is basalt--which is black.  Thus, you get black sand.  I just thought it was really neat.  

This is the island that we were all suppose to focus on.  I think it's called "Cow Island" (I could be wrong).  But it has this really odd shape were the left "island" is partially flat.  Nothing grows on it: no trees and nothing can really live there.  But one wonders how it formed.

Jeju: Day 2: Lava Tubes

Date: 12/26/2010

We had planned to go to Loveland that afternoon, but it was too snowy.  Loveland is basically in the middle of the island, next to Hallasan--and the roads were too treacherous for our bus to traverse.  So we went to a botanical garden instead.  I don't remember the name of the garden, but it had some cool lava tubes.  Basically I remember three things:

1. Getting lost in the cactus garden:

Which way is out!!???!!

2.  Random Iguana Fight

Count the Iguanas: 1, 2, 3, 4!  Were all vying for the branch closest to the heat lamp.  They were not very happy.   It was the most random thing....

The Loser: not a happy camper.  He ended up getting revenge though, by biting the tails of his fellow iguanas until he was back up near the top.  

 3.  The Lava Tubes.
The following is a quote from the entrance of the lava tube:

"Ssangong Cave: Korean Natural Monument No. 236.
Here is Ssangyong cave.  Ssangyong means two dragons.  This cave is shaped like two dragons.  This cave was formed by the eruption of Mt Hall about 2.5 million years ago.  his is the only in the world where lava cave and limestone caves are joined together.  We can find stalagmites and stalactites in the cave, which aren't grow in a lava cave.  Rain has melted broken shells covering the cave area and formed limewater.  This limewater has filtered into the cave and has transformed the black lava cave into golden limestone cave.  Lava shelves show the path of ancient lava flows.  Fossilized sea shells including abalone were found in the cave, leading many to believe the cave was under sea when it was formed long ago.  According t a survey of this are in 1986, the lava cave system surrounding the area consists of 20 caves, 17,000 meters long."

So, after typing that, I appears that I walked through a pretty cool cave.  There were signed pointing the "two Dragons" ...and you could imagine two dragons--roughly.  It was bit of a stretch to me, but if it made them happy, sure.  Twin Dragon Cave.  Yep. Sure.

Walking into the cave.

The cave

This was a "living rock."  It had fallen from the ceiling a long LONG time ago and now, due to the dripping water, was slowly "growing."  If you looked at the hole in the ceiling, it was shrinking, due to the dripping water (limestone formation) and the rock on the floor was growing.  It also had mini-corals growing in the pond on the top of the rock (the calcium in the water was forming a microcolony.)

This is a Korea thing.  Of course there are christmas trees and a merry Christmas display in the bellow of the twin dragons lava cave.  

That basically concludes Day 2 of the trip.  Our trip consisted of 2 groups (a 2 day group and a 3 day group).  After this botanical garden, we dropped the 2 day group people off, and then headed out for dinner.  Traditional Korean food.  We got back to the hotel and pretty much crashed.  Well, my room stayed up talking for a good while (it felt like the first day of camp, all the girls sitting in their beds and sharing stories).  I could only stay up for a little while though, because I'm pretty I was the first to fall asleep.  I think I tried to be sneaky about it--but no.  I just feel asleep in front of my 3 roommates.

Jeju: Day 2: Tea Farm

Date: 12/26/2010

After the Acrobatic Show, we went to O'Sulloc's Tea Farm.  I don't really understand how a Korean tea farm has such a Irish sounding name, but *shrug* oh well.

We got out of the bus and it was snowing like mad!  But we huddled around the giant tea pot and cup at the entrance and took a group photo:

Say Kimchi!  

Then we had an hour to goof off around the Museum and farm.

Sarah in the tea field.  

It basically stopped snowing directly after we took the group photo (our lucky, right?), but everyone was scattered so nothing we could do.  A group of us walked up the road to take some photos of a cool looking tree.  The snow was beautiful on it because it fell only one direction so half the tree was white the other half was green....

Sarah and I <3 pretty tree.

Then we went into the tea musuem, which presented the history of tea in the Asian culture.  It was neat, but a lot of reading and I didn't really feel like reading.  You could buy some tea grown at the farm--but everything was SUPER expensive.  Sarah and I got a little bored so we reverted to our natural state--Children.

We played Hide 'n' Seek in the Bamboo:

And started another snow ball fight.  What can we say?  Sarah and I love snow.  And in our minds snow = fun = play time!

And we weren't the only ones who thought so.  See the young girl in the photo?  Her brother is standing right outside the frame.  Sarah and I both have really bad aim and "accidentally" lobbed a snowball at him.  He didn't really mind, though.  In fact, after we ran down the mountain, he followed up, ended up cornering me in some shrubs, and threw a couple snow balls at me.  Which prompted me to run after him like a crazy...err...waygook (foreigner)--which, for some Koreans, that might be redundant.  Crazy = Foreigner.

It was great.  The tea farm wasn't really a high light, but the snowball fight at the farm definitely was on my top 5 of Jeju Vacation List.

Jeju: Day 2: Morning

Date: 12/26/2010

After my morning wake up call, I got up and got dressed.  I had the attitude, "I'm in Jeju, let's go exploring."  The sun was coming up, or at least the sky was getting lighter, and I could see the ocean from my window.  So I decided I was going to go check out the beach.  Or...the "beach."

I bundled up and proceeded to make my way down the side of the hill that our hotel was perched on. It wasn't exactly an easy descent.

Hotel way up top....Ocean behind me...

My "beach"  

Jeju has a whole bunch of these rock walls.  They basically line all of the roads and pastures and everything.  Some are just big rocks like these above, while others are real walls (but the rocks are just stacked on each other, not cemented--at least, it doesn't look like it.)

Obviously, I stole this picture...but this is what I mean by them not being cemented.  

Anyway, I climb my way down to the beach and am confronted with a really pretty view.

What I was walking over...had to be careful--I really didn't want to get wet.

The view...very pretty.  There's a (probably) fishing boat way out in the horizon.

Hello!

Jeju: Internet

Date: 12/25-6/2010

I have heard that South  Korea is one of the most internet connected places in the world.  So, because it was Christmas over my Jeju trip, I decided to take my computer.  Some people thought this was stupid (I had one fellow Adventure Korea traveler do some snotty, "Really?") comment, but I have a general policy of ignoring ignoramuses.  But I had planned to Skype my family after dinner/kareoke on Christmas Day.  I would have been midnight for me, but only 10 am for my family in America--which is when they generally start opening presents.

Long story shortened: I could not get my computer to connect to the internet at the hotel.  They had a wifi system (the housekeeper told me they had a famous Mongolian artists last summer so they had internet set up--my response: "of course...famous Mongolian artists...").  But I could not get my computer to connect--which was very upsetting.

Granted, in the past 5 hours Sarah and I had split 2 bottles of wine.  We weren't drunk, but we were pretty relaxed.  So when I couldn't get internet, it was a very easy slide into being very not happy.   I sniffled a lot, and my mascara ran.  But then I remember, I have a CELL PHONE!  Surely I can call them.

That led me to go to the "party room" and ask if any of the foreigners were American--which it turned out quiet a few were and they were able to help me figure out how to call home.

Which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake.  My family, who is forever giving me hell about not carrying my cell phone, didn't have they're phones on them.  Which, I understand because I said Skype--not phone.  But, that left me even more sad...and it left me talking to voice mails.

This was the mistake--I left a message. Being a little tipsy.  And being sad.  So I'm talking into the phone, "Hello *Sniffle sniffle* Merry Ch-*voice break*istmas!  I'm doing *sniffle sniffle* good.  I really *hiccup* miss you.  Can't get *sniffle* internet on Jeju.  I'm having a really *sniffle sniffle* good time--had Turke*voice break*y for dinner.  Talk *Sob sob* to you later.  Miss *sob!* you!"  "

Not exactly the most upbeat Christmas message.

But it resulted in an unexpected Day After Christmas walk up call.

5.45 am:

RING RING!   RING RING!

Me: "What the?....Errg....."Hello?"

Phone: (Shouting)"Maggie?  Mah-ggie?!"

Me:  Whispering (My roommates were still asleep...and hello, EARLY!) "What?  Dad?"

Dad: "Hello!?  Maggie?" Louder shouts " Can you hear me?"

Me (getting up and walking into the hallway) "Dad!" (I start sobbing again) "Dad!  I can hear you!"

Dad: "Maggie?  You there?  Hold on, let me get Mom.... MARTYY!!!!!  How are you?"

Me: "I'm....*sniffle sniffle....sob sob* good.  Merry Christmas."

Dad: "MARTY! ....  FINE, I"LL TALK TO MAGGIE ALL BY MYSELF!  That's good.  We got your messages."

Me: (weakly whispering) "Oh.  Sorry about those.  I'd had a little bit of wine *cross between a sniffle, hiccup, and laughter* "

Dad: "You doing okay?  Having fun?"

And then the conversation proceeded like normal.  There were some more tears when Mom got on the phone.  But looking back, I know next year I'll be telling that story over the Christmas table.

Jeju: Horseback Riding & Sunrise Peak

Date: 12/25

After Trick Art Museum we went horseback riding.  This was the only part of the 3 day trip that was disappointing.  I had read in some travel guides that you could ride a horse on the beach.  This is one of the things on my "To Do" list for LIFE so I was really excited.

The "ride" was maybe 7 minutes total.  We went up, did a photo shot, and came down, looped the carrol twice and were done.  I understand that there were 40 of us, but really, it was sad.  But!  There was a really cool/hot Korea who was on horseback--and let me tell you--that's how I passed the 30-odd minutes of waiting after riding on the horses--watching him!

Hot Korean + Pretty Horse + Actual horseback riding skill =  Merry Christmas Maggie!

We piled back on the bus and head over to Sunrise Peak (or Seongsan Illchubong in Korean).  This was an impressive piece of geography.  Basically Jeju is a bunch of peaks of volcanos, and this volcano just happened to have exploded and left a giant crater at the top.   I just looked up the Korean for Sunrise peak and saw that the technical word for Sunrise Peak is a tuff cone--just in case anyone was interested!

These statues dot the Jeju landscape.  They are called Hollabong (which, I think, ironically is also a type of orange that is native of Jeju).  As you can see, the left statue has his left hand higher--which means scholar.  The right statue has his right hand higher--which means he is a warrior hollabong.  You always see these guys in pairs so that the scholar and warrior balance each other out.  

Jeju: Trick Art Museum

Date: 12/25

We only spent an hour or so at the Trick Art Museum, but it was a place to take pictures so there are sooo many from this place.  It was a lot of fun!