Our new Motto " It's Korea, Why Not?"
Hello all! So we are back from our six day vacation on the lovely island of Jeju. Chris is grateful that this week is only a one day work week because we ran around so much for the six days. I am going to divide our island get away into two blogs for the sake of the the amount we have to cover and the craziness involved in our trip. During this trip the Germans and ourselves developed a new motto that all Foreigners in Korea should live by " It's Korea, Why Not?" This can be applied to just about anything from food to people to crazy events" After all, It's Korea, why not? 
This trip was the closest we have ever come to experiencing a hurricane or typhoon. We were just on the edge of the typhoon but it was entertaining to watch the palm trees bend and the waves get larger and larger. One of the beaches we were at was closed two days in a row due to strong undertow conditions.
So what do you do on an island that is 45 kilometers long and 17 kilometers wide for six days? If you are like Chris and myself you keep busy and try to see as much as possible.
Saturday - On the advice of our Korean friends we left for the airport almost four hours before our flight was to take off because we kept being told that traffic would be horrible since the entire country goes back to their home towns for Chusak. Apparently, last year there were reports of people sitting in bumper to bumper traffic for fourteen hours in a country that only takes four and one half hours to cross from north to south. So following the advice of the Koreans, Chris and I got up bright and early and headed out. Contrary to the doomsday tales, traffic was perfectly clear, we made it to the airport in 45 minutes. Making it in before even the first flights had taken off that morning or the check in counter was open for that matter. This left us three hours to sit in a pretty much empty terminal.
As I am a breakfast person, I went around to try and find something to eat for breakfast, since Koreans do soup for breakfast and I did not want soup, and no bagel or croissants or toast could be found I opted for the choco cookies (chocolate chip cookies for those of us in the States). I know the breakfast of champions. Nothing like having bad chocolate chip cookies for breakfast at 9:00 in the morning with some crushed pear juice. Chris had grape juice with a little surprise in it. Apparently, he had several whole grapes in the can which he did not discover until he was almost finished and was startled by the large round thing that had entered his mouth. You think we would come to expect the unexpected here and stop buying new drinks in aluminum cans. Chris had a similar experience with Aloe juice a few weeks ago when he encountered aloe pulp in the can. But after all, it's Korea why not take the surprises as they come? Go blindly with enthusiasm and swallow carefully is the second motto when it comes to food.
The funny thing about the airport is that not only is it a commercial airport it is also a Korean Air force base. There is nothing like watching fighter jets take off while you're waiting for a flight or seeing anti-aircraft weapons and barbed wire fence near the ends of the airfield to make you feel all warm inside.
The flight was good and the sky was clear. All was smooth sailing until the rental car. We get to the rental car area and the rental car guy meets us at the entrance to the lot. He walks us over to the car and loads our luggage into the trunk. He then asks us to step into his mini van to fill out the paper work. This is the funny thing about Korean car rentals on Jeju-do most of the rental companies have the minivan rental office with no permanent desk in the terminal. This maybe because the terminal is not so big. After all who needs to pay for a building when you can just have a mini van and a cell phone for an office. Buildings are so impractical. We step in the van and start going through the paper work. The car rental guy asks for Korean driver's license or international license at which point we realize that we left our international driving licenses in the car at the airport in Cheungju. O.k. so Chris and I start devising a plan B since we think they are never going to let us rent a car now as the rental car guy kindly drives us to the hotel in the rental car he was going to give us.
Plan B - Luckily, two German families that Chris works with are coming to Jeju the next day, so we call one of them in a desperate attempt to see if they would be willing to pick up the spare key at at the office and pick up our driver's licenses in our car at the airport. We manage to get a hold of them and they agree to help us in our plight. Whew, o.k. so that means we just need to figure out how to get around town for a day and a half. But wait, while we were on the phone with the Germans, the rental guy was on the phone with the secretary from the office at Chris's work who helped Chris arrange a car. I don't know what kind of deal they worked out but for another couple of bucks a day, the rental guy agrees to let us have the car without having the international license after all it's Korea so " Why Not?" On a side note one of our Canadian friends topped this story by renting a car with an expired Canadian driver's license. Which I thought was even funnier.
We head off to the west side of the island after checking in to the hotel. There are several small fishing villages in the western portion of the island and several cactus farms. Yes, folks you heard me right cactus. They are also farming some kind of wheat or barley which they dry on mats along the side of the road much like the red peppers on the mainland. Farm fields are separated by walls that are built from lava rock which make the fields look interesting.
We head off to a city called Hallim and head into a park to see the lava tubes. These lava tubes are supposedly rare since they also have limestone deposits bleeding through the lava as a result of the limestone from shells. There are stalactites and stalagmites present in the tunnels. We get to the park and realize that it is the three-for-one exhibit. You get a botanical garden/aviary, a folk village, and the lava tubes. The funny thing is you don't really get to pick the order that you see these things in. The Koreans always seem to be very regimented on the way they want you to go through an exhibit. We took some cool plant pictures in the botanical gardens. The most stunning plant we saw was the Yucca plants. For those of you who have been to our house, we have them in our yard but by no means have we managed to pull off these sizes ( 8 to 10 feet tall see the pictures). We took pictures of Chris and I standing next to them for size comparison. Norm, get cracking on the miracle grow or whatever you "think" they need because I expect our Yuccas to be this tall when we get back ("Feed me Seymour")
The lava tubes were very cool and you could get pretty close to the ostriches in the aviary portion. Chris also took some pictures in the lava tubes to see give you a feel for them.
We drove along the coast and tried to catch the sunset but it was a bit cloudy. However, we did get some neat pictures of the windmills during the sunset. We also saw the squid boats on the water. When you see them on the water at night it looks like there is some goof ball driving with his brights on in the middle of the ocean. Check out the photos to see the light bulbs on these boats. This is definitely a job where you would need sunglasses even if you are working the night shift.
We had dinner in Jeju City along the coast. We have come to realize that a higher price usually means a ridiculous amount of food. The restaurant we stopped at for dinner was a sashimi restaurant with a few cooked sides. Thankfully, we had a great waitress who could speak some English and she helped us pick out something that had something for me and something for Chris. I ate the cooked sides and Chris got his fill of raw fish so much so that I don't think he needs raw fish again for a while. I even tried a few pieces to see if really fresh fish would change my mind about raw fish. And I mean really fresh fish like the fish was literally pulled out of the tank after you ordered it and killed for your dinner. Even after Chris was done eating there was enough fish for someone else to sit down and eat who had a healthy appetite.
Sunday - Up and at 'em off we go. This time we decided to do the east side of the island. During our aimless wondering we came across a Buddhist temple that was domed shape. Seeing as how this was the first temple we had seen that was not doused in celadon green, we thought it was pretty cool and pulled over for a quick look around. After perusing the temple grounds and walking in to view the lower level, Chris and I hopped back in the car and continued our drive east.
We decided to check out another lava tube, a garden maze, and Sunrise Peak. Sunrise Peak is a smaller volcanic crater that was pretty cool. The winds were pretty strong as you can see in the picture where my hair is standing straight up. The funny thing we saw at sunrise peak was this small restaurant right down next to the water. After all you need to be able to eat sea side right?
We went back to JeJu City and had dinner at a pork BBQ restaurant. Korean view of a good cut of meat is different from ours. We literally had several pieces grilled for us where there was maybe one half inch of meat and an inch and an inch and one half of fat with the skin still attached. Luckily not all the meat was like this so we tried our best to eat around the fat portions.
Monday - In the morning, we went to see one of the water falls and on a submarine tour. This was a pretty cool morning. The tour boat takes you out to an island off the coast and then you transfer over to the submarine that is designed for sight seeing. The sub dives down the side of the island and stops at 10 meters, 20 meters, and 30 meters below sea level. You get to see the soft corral and the fish up close and personal. They have divers dive with the ship and feed the fish shrimp so you get to see them. After the ride they bring you back up you switch back over to the ferry boat and they tour you around the out skirts of the island. After the sub tour, we went to see the hexagonal stones along the southern coast. These were very cool check out the pictures.
Monday afternoon we met up with our German friends at the beach and enjoyed a nice swim before we got booted out of the water by the rescue crew. Apparently, some Korean was not responding to calls and was presumed to have been sucked under the water. Not surprising since most Koreans don't know how to swim and the undertow was pretty ugly. We had dinner with them at their hotel so the kids could go to bed at a reasonable time and we could spend some time with them at the outside bar. We got to try dried squid as a snack. We found it chewy and not so bad. I thought it tasted better when dipped in the sauce that came with it.
Tuesday - Chusak. Lots of things are closed but not everything. We went to a large botanical garden. The Koreans seem to be smitten with Agave cactuses because they had several dozen of them around. After the botanical garden we headed back to the beach to see if we could get some more swimming in. No luck. The beach was still closed due to the undertow from the typhoon that was in the area. We ended up sitting on the beach and watching the water and playing with the kids in the sand. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel where our friends were staying for dinner and drinks.
Wednesday - Chris and I hiked Mount Halla. Some of our friends decided to join us. I had to laugh, the Koreans are so obsessed with cell phones that I literally had cell phone reception at 1600 Meters in the middle of the woods. Pretty impressive huh? I only lost reception for about ten minutes on the mountain. But it's Korea, so Why Not? Unfortunately, the lake at the top was closed for restoration but it was still a beautiful hike up to the 1700 meter mark. After the mountain hike, we had lunch with our friends at the base of the mountain then met up with the our other friends at another beach on the east side of the island. Chris got in some snorkeling. I opted out because I could already see that this was going to be one of those days where if I got completely wet I was going to be chilled to the bone all night. We saw a beautiful sunset then parted ways with our friends and had dinner at our hotel.
Thursday - back to the airport return the car and back to Cheungju and Daejon.
It was a fun trip on a beautiful island. Chris and I really enjoyed ourselves. I had never been to an island created by a volcanic eruption and I was really amazed by the beauty of it. We did not get to see everything on the island but we did get a good taste of what the island had to offer. I am glad we had the opportunity to go.
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