Jeju Island...fantastic

First, I posted lots of pics in Picassa....I suggest you read this post first before looking at them...some of you may be a bit apalled from a certain museum we attended.
Today is the 23rd of July.

On last Thursday night Mong and I went to Busan and boarded a ferry that took us to Jeju Island (or Cheju, Cheju-do, Jeju-do), a small island formed entirely by one volcano which last erupted between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago. The island is off the south west side of Korea…we arrived at about 6am Friday morning. To start, it was awesome…it was absolutely beautiful…subtropical/warm temperate climate. That meant there was an extraordinarily large number of different plant species…so much biodiversity!! Also, the island is tiny, I’d say it would take about 2-3 hours to drive around it completely, on the costal roads.

So I suppose I will just write down by day what we did…the highlights I suppose…

Thursday night we took the ferry, and had an awkward nights sleep in a large hard-carpeted room on the 2nd deck with about 80 other people in it…capacity was over 200, so we had nice space. There were pillows but no blankets or pads, because Koreans are highly capable of sleeping on absolutely anything, no matter how hard or strangely shaped it is. The pillows were little rectangular cube type things, about a foot long and 6inches wide—just a hard chunk of foam with a vinyl cover. I sorta slept. However we had both applied those sea-sickness patches behind our ears as we had heard the ferry can cause pretty bad seasickness. I had never seen nor heard of such a thing, and just hoped it would work. I was kind apprehensive that some kind of sticker put on 3 hours ahead would seriously change the motions of my inner ear, but I did not get sick. Although the side effects just downright sucked. Not until we got home yesterday did I find out that my horrible case of dry-mouth that lasted 24 hours after removing the patch was caused by the patch. And then when we came home I used it again. This time the dry mouth was worse, and my vision blurred---couldn’t read up close and when I read it can cause blurry vision yesterday, I looked in the mirrors and my eyeballs were horribly dilated. Then, all day yesterday I felt like my balance had been stolen and replaced with alcohol…I almost fell over walking down the hall, two times, when the ship was completely still after it had docked…nor could I see that straight. It was rather interesting…although I don’t think the dry mouth makes it worth it…I probably drank 15 glasses of water yesterday!!!! After reading about it, it’s no surprise that you need a prescription in the US to use them! They were only 1500 won for 2 patches here (about $1.50).

Friday: After arriving at 6am, the town was dead…we arrived in Jeju city, the largest city on the island but still much smaller than Masan or Changwon…which together make a metro area over a million, I think Jeju city has 200,000 or so. We had reserved a scooter online for our mode of transportation, a 2-seater. We took a taxi up to the place where we were renting the scooter and he gave us a tip as to where to eat. After eating udon noodle soup and kimbab (like sushi rolls, but only with vegetables, Koreans like them with tuna, carrots, pickles, cucumber, and strips of flat cooked scrambled egg) for breakfast (I still prefer bread, toast, and cereal type foods), we wandered around and sat in an internet café for an hour to kill time. They’re super cheap here---50 cents an hour and open 24 hours…there were about 7 other guys in there---probably between 14 and 45 years old…4 of them were passed out over the keyboard with their hands on the controls and their battle games frozen in the scene. It was funny.

We went up and got our scooter, strapped our lightly packed backpacks on (yes, mother and father, I CAN pack light), put on the helmets and zoomed off. There aren’t real highways here, so that was a relief to me. Just small streets…not too many main roads and very little traffic…most cars you see are rentals. We headed up to the “Ghost road” which is a mysterious road where things roll uphill. Of course, it’s not true, but rather and optical illusion. From the “bottom” of the hill, it REALLY looks like the hill is going up and I set down my water bottle and there it went…began to roll up the slight incline. Several tour busses, vans, and cars drove from the bottom end, turned off their engines and began to roll “up” the hill. It’s really cool looking, but after hearing and reading the explanation, it makes sense. The surrounding trees and small lumps of dirt that line the road make it appear as if its uphill, but when you go to the “top” you realize you really are at the bottom of the hill, although it pretty much looks flat from that angle. It was cool though. And, there were cows next to the road, which made me realize that living in a city for the first time in my life really made me appreciate and LOVE the smell of fresh cow poo. It was a blessing and smelled like Bella vista, Palo Cedro, Finland, and Germany all in one big swirl. That little area actually looked like Finland, too.

After, we headed down the road towards the beach and came across an outdoor museum called Loveland. Basically, it was a museum full of “erotic” statues so we went in to see what there was. It was quite amusing. Really, it was just a pretty park like area with ponds and grass and trees decorated with statues from 2 feet to 30 feet long (oh, and one mosaic structure that was probably 50 feet long shaped like a large, ehm, libido) of people…you get the gist. There were also many sculptures of just women’s legs, from her belly button down, in high heels…most of them were upside-down, which was just kinda bazaar if you ask me. The funniest part was the sculptures of “love” portrayed in different countries. The American love sculpture had the man and woman dressed in colonial clothes, so he looked like George Washington and she had a lacy garter around her leg. The Japanese one was very Asian looking, with the man and woman’s hair pulled up and tied on the top of the head. There was a Greek one too—the man was half centaur so he had horse legs, hahahha. There was an African and Indian one too.

After that we went to a beach---I swam but Mong was too frightened from the sun after last weeks burn so he sat in the shade. It was nice…the water was perfect and beautiful. Further down the road we came to a realllllly pretty beach called Hyeopjae beach and ended up going back there our last day…it was the prettiest one in the entire island---green and blue teal like waters…clear and perfect temperature, with white sand. It wasn’t coral sand, but it was still white and soooo pretty. There is only one coral beach and its on a tinyyy island off the coast of Jeju island but the ferry wasn’t running the day we wanted to go because their was a typhoon near!! We were soo bummed…although the typhoon was rather west of jeju, closer to China and was headed North they wouldn’t run the boats on the east side. Oh well.

Then we went to Mini-land…which was an outside museum with mini structures of the most famous buildings and things in the world…scaled down from 1/15th to 1/40th of their real size. We saw the Taj Majal, great wall of china, Eiffel tower, Egypt’s pyramids, Aztecan pyramids, mount Rushmore, leaning tower of pisa, Notre dame, some Korean buildings, white house, Sydney’s big white opera house, part of Machu Picchu, a huge Buddha (but we didn’t walk up to it, we saw it behind trees…so I’m not sure where it is, but I think in Southeast Asia somewhere) and many many more things.

Then we drove down to the southwest corner of the island and checked out one of the many waterfalls Jeju has to offer and then went to another beach. After, we drove to Seogwipo, the second biggest city. But then again there really only two cities, Jeju and Seogwipo. The hostel we were staying at was in that city, which became quite hard to find but after asking the police station we found it. It had a kitchen in it we could use too, so we went to the grocery store and bought spaghetti sauce, ground beef, and noodles and I made spaghetti. We got some breakfast food too, and that covered lots of food for the next day. I had brought peanut butter with me in a small container so I bought bread and it became my snack if I was hungry. We met some French people there too, and Mong tried to pretend like he was American but eventually his accent gave way and the French guy asked Mong where he was from…we think he thought Mong was from Thailand or Malaysia or something because he’s now so dark. Mong kinda stuttered and I said, he’s Korean. It was kinda funny.

Saturday: Saturday we went to two more waterfalls, one in the midst of the subtropical forest…SO PRETTTTTTTYYYYYYYY. The other was pouring out over rocks and then the water ran down right into the surf of the ocean on a lava rock beach (many are made of lava rock). Quite beautiful as well, actually I liked that actual waterfall the best. We also checked out this famous cove of the ocean where a 20 meter tall chunk of lava rock protrudes straight up out of the ocean, it was created when the volcano last erupted. It goes straight up, pretty cool. The waves are intense their, crashing and super strong, surrounded by cliffs upon which we stood. That was also verrrry green and I saw a couple banana trees growing, one of them bearing the beginning of what would become a bundle of bananas. I jumped in and took a picture pretending like I was gonna eat it and then look to my left, and then to my right, and saw two large spiders…two different species. Kinda scared me, since I shoved my head in there within a few inches of each one, but I felt no bite so I decided to take pictures of them instead. In that rainforest-ish environment I felt so properly dressed---I wore the maroon tank top I took with me, the colorful toucan bird earrings I made, and bright colored scarf tied around my head I acquired some years ago from I have no idea where (probably a thrift store). And I was so thankful by this point that I took my cushy running shoes (saucony’s) rather than my flat black adidas sambas.

After that, we started to go towards the west side, and witnessed a large number of old women gathering seaweed in the ocean…wallowing through the water washing up on the lava rock (no big waves), and heaving it over their shoulders. Then they go and lay it out on the side of the road to dry. End of the day they scooter themselves back to home. Don’t know if I mentioned it, but tons of people here drive scooters, especially around the fish market. All along the southern part of Jeju, people are selling mandarin oranges. They are the most famous thing to buy here, and the oranges make up the second largest industry after tourism, I’m willing to bet. They are very delicious though, and they make mandarin chocolate too, which is tasty! Most of them are grown in greenhouses, but I saw many trees along the road also…but there are tall greenhouses everywhere.

When we made it to the town with the Jeju traditional museum, it started to sprinkle. We pulled out our plastic parkas which we had to use the day before in a 15 minute downpour (remember, its hot, humid, and clouds are constantly rolling in and out…so the island gets thunderstorms probably every day), put them on and arrived at the museum. We got our tickets and then went to a room with lockers where we left our backpacks and helmets. Mong put his flip flops on, and even though it wasn’t raining that hard I decided to also. Thank goodness, because after our 2 minutes in that room, we opened the door, and no joke, there were literally 2 inches of water on the ground…so it was kinda like wading through a museum rather than walking. To be honest though, it was kinda fun~! The rain stopped after 10 or so minutes then it cleared up and our little rivers drained away to feed the lush variety of plants. The museum basically just had reenactments of the buildings and villages of Jeju a few hundred years ago. The most interesting part was about the pigs. There is a special kind of pig that lives on the island, a black pig. Back in the day in the villages, the people didn’t have toilets of course, so they all peed in one pot. And if they had to go number 2, then went to the “bathroom,” where they sat on a pile of rocks that made a hole in the middle, and when one relieved himself the droppings fell right into the pig stall. Absolutely disgusting, the pigs are, but yes, they ate the human feces, and the urine jars would be poured into the stalls as well. That must have really stunk. Grosse, but interesting. Then the people ate the pigs.

That night we stayed at a jimjilbang, actually, that was the smallest one in all of korea, in the middle of the countryside. So small, we drove right past it and then at the stop sign we saw the sign that pointed backwards to it. A jimjilbang means steam room, but what it is, is you go there, they give you shorts and a tshirt to sleep in. Girls and boys go to separate sides, you shower (in open stalls...showers here are completely un-private, so I had to quickly get over my American privacy needs and just be like everyone else…take it all off and who cares), then go to the main lobby area and chill out in the clothes you were given. There is usually a variety of different saunas and steam rooms, although this one, being the smallest, only had one steam room, which we didn’t even go to because we were too tired and were actually only staying there for the price. Jimjilbang’s are very cheap…this one was 7,000 (about $7) per person per night. Of course, we slept on the floor, but the sweet old lady that owned it laid down a blanket on top of her bamboo mats and gave me a regular pillow. J There was one other man there, a 37 year old used-to-be stock broker (one of the ones in the pit) who hated his job, quit, and decided to wander around jeju for a couple weeks. He and Mong talked a lot before I fell asleep. It was really pretty there, the east side of the island is allll countryside. They don’t really have regular fences here, 90% of fences are made from stacked up black volcanic rock…most about 4 feet tall. Even for cows and horses they usually just use that, unless it’s near a road. It looks really cool though, really natural. Also in Jeju, there is a famous color: mud brown. There is a special kind of mud here that they use to dye all their clothes…so many Jeju people wear that color of clothing. She mixed it with her stucco and smeared it on the inside of the jimjilbang main room. Grandma Carolyn, you would LOVE IT!!! Before we left, the lady was concerned with my neck getting burned (even though we made sure before leaving that we were completely covered with sunscreen, spf 50), and she wrapped a scarf she mud dyed herself around my neck and gave it to me. She was so cute!! She reminded me A LOT of Grandma Carolyn; she had decorated the entire place herself. Also, it was funny to listen to her talking to Mong because she spoke Jeju dialect which I could easily tell is quite different. Example: thank you = komapsuhmnida. Jeju dialect thank you: kom’apsuudah. That isn’t actually that different, but it’s the only thing I can remember. Most times Mong asked for directions, they always asked him to repeat, and he visa versa. I heard “weh” a lot, which means “what.”

It is now the 25th. I took 2 days off between writing this.

The next day, Sunday, was a bit windy and overcast (although still not cold) because a typhoon was sweeping through the sea between korea and china. Originally, it was suppose to go right over the island, but it slowed down a bit and went slightly east. That night at the jimjilbang it rained pretty hard and a lot, but all day it didn’t rain! It was nice. That day we went to a big cave that was formed by the lava rivers when the volcano was last active. Mong told me they’re closing the caves in 2010 because the volcano, Mt. Hala (or Hala-san) has started to move very slightly and they predict an eruption within 10 years. He said something about it not going to be bad…im not sure what he meant. I asked if all the people are gonna move back to mainland korea but he said the scientists don’t think it will be really bad…I’m not sure.

We wandered through a 10 foot tall hedge maze near the caves that was fun. Mong won, but only because I helped him. He kinda cheated in that aspect, plus, he jammed my finger so I was temporarily stalled.

After that we really just hit the beaches along the coastal roads. That night we made it back to Jeju city and stayed in a much much larger jimjilbang. Once again, not so good sleep. But we were able to catch a spot on a bamboo mat rather than the granite floor…where most of the Koreans were sprawled out, sleeping like babies. Mong also stole a blanket from someone in the middle of the night to have some more padding for me to sleep on. There were only a limited number, and it was rather warm in there…he said the guy wasn’t really using it. Heheh

Monday, the last day, we went back to the beautiful beach we saw the first day. We swam, sat on the lava rock, and chased little creatures in the rocks (it was fun because I felt like I was in Washington again…I forgot how much fun it is to find rock crabs and hermit crabs and catch little fish!!! We also made a little sea creature zoo at a beach on Sunday too.

After that, we went back to jeju city, bought some mandarin chocolate, ate at the place we had breakfast at, and then got on our ferry and came home with dry mouth, blurry vision, and no balance.

All in all, it was awesome, a really fun trip, and a BEAUTIFUL PLACE!!! We kept it really cheap too! Hope you enjoy this longggg post.

Jeju Island

Thursday evening Mong and I are boarding a ferry to Jeju island (or Cheju) until Monday evening...its a little island off the south west coast of korea, a commonwealth of korea. It should be fun, I'll post pictures next week when we come back when i have time. look it up on google images, its really pretty there!

PS Pop, if you meet the President, do me a favor and say, "Nice to meet you, George." It would be quite funny...just like saying What's up to Wally Herger!

Haeundae Beach

I posted pics on picassa.

Mong and went to Haeundae Beach today, with 5 or 6 of his friends and one of their girlfriends. The beach is in Busan, and it's supposed to be the most popular beach in Korea (on the mainland). Despite it not yet being peak season (high schoolers have another week or so and then it gets realllllly crowded), there weer still sooo many people there. Yes, the most crowded beach i've ever been on. Everyone rents an umbrella, and with it they get a kind of foily padded tarp thing and two tubes--so the 8 of us rented one and Mong brought another mat thing too. The most interesting thing to me at the beach was people watching. Koreans wear bathing suits. And then they wear shorts, tshirts (short and long sleeved, button up, polo shirts, guys tend to wear tank tops) in the water over the top. These clothes dont look like "swimming clothes"---you know, a pair of thin shorts are considered swimming apparell for a girl, and maybe a halter or tank top. No, they just go in fully clothed---most of them wear jean shorts or normal, everyday, rather thick shorts. I assumed rght of the bat it was for sun protection---and i know also, especially for the girls, that they dont want to show to much. But even the guys tend to wear shirts too. Guys in the twenties not soo much, but still probably t least half of them.

Throughout the day---we were there 5 hours or so, I probably saw 15 girls wearing only bathing suits (bikinis). That made me feel a little better about standing out at the beginning. Unlike everyone else, I only brought two sets of clothing: 1. my bathing suit. 2. shirt, shorts, underwear. The girls go there, then they change into a different pair of shirts and shirt, with the bathingsuit under them, and then swim (i dont know how swimming in jean shorts and a colored button up shirt can be comfortable), then they shower and put the dry clothes on. Oh, they also go in wearing hats most of the time, and not only sunglasses, but their regular glasses too. Lots of Koreans wear glasses--somewhere I heard, and confirmed with the eye doctor at Lenscrafters, that Asians are more prone to needing eye correction---I forget why thought. One day I counted out of 17 males I saw in range, 12 were wearing glasses (it's harder to count with girls, because most of them wear contacts as I've learned). I can assure you that not only do many Koreans need glasses, but they wear them in the ocean, with waves. I was wading through the water and something hard hit my leg. I blindly reached down and pulled up a pair of glasses. Cute frames too, dark reddish color, rectangle shape---cant see out of them but I think I'll get the lenses changed (its absurdly cheap for lenses that cost $310 in the states--they are 20 here) and wear them.

MOng is now in deathly misery, as he waited an hour or two to put sunscreen on, and now he looked like a roasting cherry. I only burned on my shins and a little on my chest, not so bad. But he appears to be on his death bed and doesn't let anyone get in the air stream of his fan, as it blows air onto the ice water soaked towel on his back. Needless to say, his parents are too thrilled that the originally dark son came back beat red and the orginally pale me came back barely pink on the shins. Now he'll listen to me when I say he needs sunscreen (last summer he was adamant he didnt need it---then he peeled). I think after he saw his friends using it, he decided to also.

It was overcast at the beginning, and rained for about 15 minutes, in which I volunteered to be buried in sand. After being burried and having sand shaped on me, I was a he-she, if you know what I mean. After that the clouds blew in and out and the last hour was nice and sunny.

In conclusion, This is a very NON provocative society. Even if it's 85 or 90 outside with 80% humidity, people generally don't wear tank tops. In fact, with middle ages and older women, they tend to wear long sleeves in that weather, with a scarf around their neck and gloves, with a massive 10inch visor. If you remember my post about hiking and sun protecting clothing , this is how the women are starting to dress now since it's raining less and being sunny more.

Machang Bridge and the Army Base

We ate eel again, but I decided that I don't like it. It's just got this strange flavor and mixed with the unordinary amount of fat, and roasting eel stomaches dangling from the bloody curly tubes which are the eel, my stomach didn't want to take it down and instead forces me to gag. Not too pleasant. Kinda like what some people ahve with lamb I suppose. Plus, its overly expensive, so all around it's just not worth it. I think it's just one of those things you like or you don't.

Mong, Hwayon, Jongwon (mong's friend) and I also went to the movies yesterday (saw the new will smith movie, Hancock, which had a cheesy storyline but it was done well and funny) and then went and drove over the brand new bridge in Masan. It's called the Machang bridge because it links MAsan and CHANGwon so it saves people considerable time and mileage from the regular route. It's a relly cool bridge, I posted a pic of it earlier that I took from the window balcony. AND it's pretty famous beacuse it is now the tallest bridge in the world, measuring 68 meters from sea level to the deck. There are two massive towers and they are 164 meters tall. The most intriguing thing is the lighting though. Instead of just having yellow or which lights on it, the lights are a bluish purple. When we went last night, it was a little foggy, but was blowing fast and the moment I looked up, I just said, "Oh my goodness it looks like the doors to Heaven." It really does---completely cosmic, just makes you think you'll sprout angel wings and fly away, aside from the bumper the bumper traffic and the camera flashes here and there. Anyway, it was really cool. Hereis some information: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=22231438

Then today Mong and I went with his cousin to Busan. Mong's cousins little brother (obviously also mong's cousin) is stationed in the army in the base right next to Busan. People are allowed to visit on weekends and everyone brings in pizza and chicken for their beloved soldier (boyfriend, son, brother, friend.....) We just hung out there in the grassy area on a big wooder round thing (i forgot what those are called) and ate pizza, mandarins and bananas. His brother gave him a bunch of crackers and snacks and juice and fruit and then before we left, he fetched some newbies and they carried it all up to his barracks like little servants. I suppose the green bands on his shoulders signalling he's a captain means something (although mong said almost all soldiers become captains their second year, and they are the captain of 10 first year soldiers). He only has 3 or 4 weeks left though, then the 2 year service is up. He and his brother and mong all look a lot a like, all tall and dark with stong cheek and jaw bones. The girl cousin from the buffet dinner pictures is their sister, who also matches that identity, only female--exceot she's not dark because korean girls are obsessed with perfect white skin. I was also informed the difference in serving an army service on the DMZ, like Mong, and serving in thesouth next to the second largest city. They don't get to pick where they go, but mong said usually thetaller and stronger end up clser to north korea. Not always, but I did notice a lot of the guys at the base here were smaller and skinnier. Weekends here they get free time, get to sleep in, can wear their green or orange tshirt and camo shorts rather than the camo shirt, pants, and boots. Althogh many wear that attire anyway, as I noticed today. At the DMZ, they get up everyday at 5 and run for 2 hours, including weekends. Here, mong said only some have to run Mon-Fri, but if they have a specific job, like his cousin gets to drive around the high-level colonels and seargents and such, they dont have to run at 5. Also, they are never really at any threat of being shot when they patrol or stand guard, because no one can shoot them. Mong informed me that he usually had to patrol the DMZ fence from 12am to 5am a few nights a week, and if that was the case he didnt have to run, but if he patrolled the daytime, he still had to run. They alternated. And, there is always the possibility of being shot at, as they could see the North Koreans patrolling their side. Actually, Mong told me a while back that he had befriended a North Koeran. Technically, they weren't supposed to talk, but he said they both patrolled at the same time often, so they would walk back and forth on either side of the fence telling each other about their lives, family, exchanged north and south korean snacks. The South Koreans cannot shoot unless the North shoots first, but he does have little scars on his arms and back and legs from tiny bullets jetting by (from grenades mostly) and skimming skin.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson and depressing information. It was cool to see, but I am much more excited to see the DMZ---I hope we are going, but I don't know for sure. We were going to go on a road trip with Mong's friends but they don't want to go, so we have to use the trains and busses, which is fine, but to take a bus up to the DMZ it requires a special tour pass thing which is kinda expensive. Oh well, well see. It's worth it I'm sure.

Well, that's all for now, and, I posted pictures.

I ate EEL! BBQ Eel, fresh scallops, fresh clams, a KING clam, and even a butterfly cocoon.

Well, butterfly cocoon was a bit, em fibery and proteiny, wasn't too keen on it. I liked the clams and scallops a lot. The eel was good too but I don'tthink I can eat it often because it is wayyy to fatty. Apparently eels have the most fat of almost all fish, and it's definitely true. When the little pieces cook, they curl up and so when you bite it, it almost pops in your mouth---too much oil for me though. The good part is that it's natual and not unhealthy because it is cooked over a grill. That was last night--mong's dad took mong and I to a bay-side restaurant (they are all along the bay, but it was outside; just tables under plastic canopies (because it rains a lot in the summer here)...nothin fancy, but fresh eel---then again any seafood here is fresh.

Tonite we went to a super nice buffet at the new City7 shopping/apartment/hotel complex. I think I may have posted pictures of it---ther are 4 or 5 super tall reallllly nice brand new buildings. They are studio apartments, hotel rooms, and business offices, with mirrored walls, very modern. Below there is CECO-the Changwon convention center, which is a super longgg building with clean tubes to walk from room to room, its cool. The buffet is there, its very new because all the restaurants and stores just opened 3 weeks ago. It was Mong's aunts birthday (his mom's sister) and so the entireeee family came---there were about 30 people including 8 2 to 10 year olds, who were very fun to play with. The food was excellent, especially the part that consisted of FRENCH BREAD AND CAESAR SALAD. I never thought I would miss such things sooooooooooo much.

Anyway, I have also posted pictures, but not here. I am using Google's picassa web gallery, which is super simple, and way more efficient. I can load way more pics in less time and they have captions and such---the link is on the right hand side of my blog under the links option, and I will post it here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/karmesan

I will also update here to let you know if I post pics in picassa. okee dokee, off to bed soon, night night!