Jeju

Chuseok (Chew-sock) is the Korean’s Thanksgiving holiday. We were thrilled to find out that we would be having a five day weekend in honor of this holiday and we decided to do something with it. We went to Jeju Island, which is Korea’s version of Hawaii except much closer to the mainland.

Jeju Island is a large island just south of the Korean peninsula. It is a beautiful place and much larger than I had originally thought. It is home to what seems like a million different landscapes and attractions, and Sean and I were on a mission to see and do as many of them as possible!

We opted out of flying to Jeju because of the prices and the sold out tickets. Instead with the help of our super awesome, amazing, beautiful, fantastic coworker we bought two tickets on the speedy ferry, which ended up being totally worth it. We left for Jeju on Saturday morning.

We left our city on the direct bus to Gwanju, which was an hour and a half long. The bus we took got stuck in horrendous holiday traffic and we arrived in Gwanju about two minutes late for our free three-hour shuttle ride to Wanju where wqe planned to catch the ferry. We found the free shuttle bus help desk and they ended up literally running us across the bus terminal to get us on another bus to Wanju which would hopefully arrive in time for the ferry. I will have you know that I fell flat on my butt in the middle of the Gwanju bus terminal… Very embarrassing. People laughed. Sean assured me they weren’t but they did, I know.

We got on our new bus and did in fact make it to Wanju in time to get to the ferry. In fact the ferry left twenty minutes later than it should have! Anyways, exciting thing about the ferry was there was room to hang out outside, and we met a dude from FSU. Although it was a chilly ride, this large boat did not treat its passengers kindly and standing outside was the easiest way to avoid motion sickness. Sean’s FSU hat attracted the attention of another passenger and we ended up talking to him and his friend for the duration of the ferry ride. Seminoles are slowly taking over the world, apparently we are starting in Korea.

I would like to make a side note of how beautiful the ocean aand the ferry ride were. It was a great day and it felt really good to relax on the boat and enjoy our surprise vacation.

Apparently where we had been planning on staying was destroyed by the typhoon that came through only a few weeks before. We found out pretty quickly that the rooms offered to us were not what we had in mind and left to scout for a different venue.

Walking down the road we went into the first hotel we saw, Motel Samoa. It was a five story building facing the ocean. The lady at the desk gave us a rate we couldn’t refuse and gave us a key to go check out the room to see if it was good enough. We took the key up to the fifth floor, walked into a clean room with the biggest T.V. I have ever seen in a hotel room ever. The room was clean, and the pillows were fluffy so I was sold. The T.V. was giant and the cable had about a million channels including many high definition ones so Sean was sold. We had saved money and gotten a better room!!! It was very satisfying.

During our stay in Jeju we did tons of awesome things. We went horseback riding, zip lining, hiking, and sightseeing. We rode the bus all over the island, e even rented scooters in the city on the southside for a day.

Jeju island is supposedly pretty well known for its horses so of course it was on our list to go riding. Sean has only been a few times and although I am no professional I am comfortable on the back of a horse. The first place we showed up to would not even let us get on horses because apparently Sean was too “Fat”… Jerks. The next place we went to we were not even allowed to hold the reins of the horses because it was “too dangerous”. We had rode the bus to the middle of the island to be thoroughly let down by the two businesses.

We decided to go back to the first place and just have me ride. We scouted out back to see if this place let you hold the reins and found that much to our disappointment they did not. I was so upset. One of the men working there approached us and said he could speak English. We told him how we wanted to actually ride, not just be led around in a circle. After giving it some thought he agreed. He also said Sean could ride! I was much happier. It wasn’t until we got on the horses that I realized what he had in store for us.

He had procured the three fastest horses on the little ranch and took us away from where most of the tour groups walk. When we were out of sight of the groups of people we took off!!! Yelling back at Sean I gave him firm instructions to hang on tight and not fall off. We raced our three little Jeju horses across fields and over hills. The guy took us through winding paths and only slowed down when we climbed a steeper hill for a great view. It was so amazing!!!

Our zip lining adventure wasn’t as exhilarating for me but I think Sean got a rush from it. We spent hours trying to walk to it from the nearest bus stop. We went down small back country roads passing all sorts of fields of flowers. Of course we stopped and had random photo shoots because how could I resist such temptation.

It felt great to walk and breathe the cool air. Our hotel may have been near the ocean but this was all open fields and mountains. After walking for a couple of hours we stopped and realized if we didn’t call somebody quickly we would miss our reservations. We called the place up and they offered to come pick us up! We only had to wait another fifteen minutes before they arrived and took us to the location (we were still about another hour away by walking). Seeing how they spoke broken English and they found us on the side of a random road near a restaurant/ factory/ building I was already impressed.

The zip lining consisted of four simple runs from one tower to another. They suited us up in full body harnesses and snet us on our way. Apparently Koreans’ thrill tolerance is easily met because we weren’t allowed to do no hands or go upside down. It was still fun though! We went over small tea fields, and the sun was setting so we had a great view from the tops of the towers. Every time Sean and I went first and the other riders all cheered for us for being so brave =]

One of the restaurants we went to twice ended up serving my all  time for favorite breakfast of Eggs Benedict (that’s not entirely true as I also am a corned beef fanatic/ B&G’s kinda girl). It also had some sort of Korean fettucini alfredo which was alright and an odd take on ceasar salad. It was called the Lighthouse Restaurant and we had a coupon for it. A big plus was that the chairs there were actually couches! I was sold.

Our trip to Jeju introduced us to gas station “gimbab” for a grand total of 70 cents. Apaprently on the actual holiday absolutely nothing is open! We ate at fast food joints and from 7-11’s all day. “Gimbab” is a seaweed wrapped snack with rice and something on the inside. We had Triangle Gimbab with some tuna and chicken salad. It was way better than I expected.

One of the other big adventures we went on was to this giant cave! “Manjaggul” is a pretty big lava tube formation on the island. It is a neat little outing. You have to walk about a mile and a half to get to it from the bus stop but the walk is gorgeous! The cave is not particulary well lit and is very wet but I would go there again.

In the same area is a giant maze park =] This was tons of fun. They give you a map in case you get hopelessly lost and you enter a hedge maze about twelve feet high. Sean let me take the lead and I ran us around the maze for twenty minutes until he took over. The entire time kids were zooming around and the sound of a bell was clanging in our ears (when you reach the end of the maze you get to ring the bell so it was irritating to hear it being rung so often). The lady who had given us the map was actually a native English speaker and had given us a bit of a hint at the begnnign. Unfortunately we forgot what it was until we found it. Apaprently there was a bridge you have to go over! Once we found the bridge it didn’t take us long to find the bell.

The area around the maze had little gardens. The lady who gave us the map worked in the store. Her boss and her gave us traditional Korean Chuseok food when we came in! The food is called “Song-Pyeon” and is always made and eaten on Chuseok.

One of the days we spent over on the far side of the island in Seogwipo. We found a little sketch scooter rental place that would break the law and rent us a scooter. We motored all around that little island! (We did have to sign every right away that we ever had or didn’t have to begin with but it was so worth it).

Having one scooter ith both of us on it and neither of us having any experience was definitely a relationship building activity. We had to trust one another not to kill us while clutch to them with everything we had. After having the scooter for an hour it was easier to breathe and the ride was more exhilarating.

Busses and cars fly past as you travel on the big roads. There’s a lot of congestion was so we had to fight our way through traffic jams as well. We found tons of cool things including a couple waterfalls.

One of the more surprising places we went to was called “Love Land”. Love Land is this odd park filled with sexual pornographic statues. Korean culture is so subdued and conservative that finding this park here was a complete shock! I posted a couple of the photos we have, I would hate to ruin the surprise slash make anyone blush too much.