Summer Vacation in Jeju-do: The Hawaii of Korea

Hello again all! A couple weeks ago we had one of our 2 vacations for the year, totaling 5 days off (including the weekend). We have been planning on heading to Jeju-do for this vacation all year because Jeju-do is THE vacation destination of Korea. It is commonly referred to as "The Hawaii of Korea." Although, aside from being an island and a popular vacation destination, it is hardly like Hawaii.

We had a string of Couch Surfers the 2 nights before we left. Joy the traveling Korean and Ryan who is teaching in Seoul and was on this summer vacation as well. Ryan was also Jeju bound the next day so we traveled on the boat together. Ryan was an awesome guy and cool to hang out with. We were a tad late after going to the wrong ferry port. We asked our co-workers to write the name of the Jeju Ferry port on a post-it that we could give to a taxi driver. The note they gave us brought us to some random fishing boat port somehow. Either our co-teachers have no idea what the name of the Jeju Ferry port is or our taxi driver was illiterate. Either way, we made it. The ferry was a retired cruise ship and larger than expected. There was also TONS of people. Due to the people and it being a beautiful day we immediately went to the top deck of the boat to enjoy the scenery as we headed to see.

Here is couch surfer Ryan and Lindsey on the top deck of the boat. 

and the view of Mokpo from the boat.

We decided to explore the boat a bit at some point. There was this couple preforming some sweet jams and the guy on keys had an awesome pony tail. Also...

Our boat had a suckling room. Why all establishments don't provide this service, I don't know. 

In Korean fashion all of the cabins were just wide open rooms and people bum-rushed the boat in order to secure a good spot in their rooms. They were small and hot and full of people so we didn't spend any time there after dropping off our bags in what we thing was a changing room at the end of the hall. Plus, we had no real desire to get our cuddles on with 40 people at once. 

As we headed out to sea the scenery became a series of small islands of varying size and shape. Covered in rock and trees, near and far. Providing a relaxing view while taking in the sun atop the boat.  Occasionally, there would be a small settlement on one of the islands but they seemed few and far between. A person could spend years boating from island to island and exploring. 

After 4 or so hours and getting pretty sunburned we arrived in Jeju city. We had a game plan of how we were going to spend our vacation but the weather forecast for the week was not working in our favor. There was a typhoon heading our way and we had to adjust our plan in the fly to accommodate the storm. Once we had things sort of figured out we headed on our way to the town of Hallim. 

This was the bathroom sign in the Jeju City bus terminal. 

After panicing that we had missed the stop and getting off early and having to wait for the next bus on some random road we arrived in Hallim and found this waiting for us: 

The beach was beautiful and the water pretty clear. There was also a camp ground right next to the beach so we got to camp for free. Awesome. We had planned to camp on the beach most of the trip so this worked out great. We ended up meeting our friend Tia (who had also been on the boat with us) in Hallim and headed to the beach. I was SO excited to go in the water. Could. not. wait. As we got to the beach, we noticed no was in the water. We found this strange but finding something strange in Korea is nothing new. Tia and I charged into the water and by the time we were into knee deep water we were met by the sound of police whistles. We turned and 2 police officers we frantically waving for us to get out of the water. Confused we reluctantly returned and it was explained to us that since a typhoon was coming we couldn't go in the water. Mind, the water was fine. It was clear with little tiny waves. The sky was crystal clear and blue. As far as I could see there was absolutely no reason we shouldn't be aloud in the water. This was certainly disappointing and frustrating. We headed back up to the beach and bought some beers we enjoyed at a picnic table. All I could I do was stare at the beautiful ocean and try to comprehend this ridiculous reason I could not swim. 

After our first round of unnecessarily expensive beers we headed to the 7-11 to grab a few more. Lindsey and I considered dinner several times but somehow managed to not get around to it. We just drank at the 7-11 across the street from the beach for a while chatting it up with Tia. Eventually, another Mokpo native, Alyssa, came and met Tia there and they headed back to Jeju city for the night. Lindsey and I migrated down the road a block to the GS25 (another convenient store) because that is a legit form of bar hoping in Korea. The CVS hop. There were several other foreigners here and we chatted with an English bloke named James for a good while. Until we met a group of people, some of whom lived and taught on the island. They were passing around a bottle of Milkus (basically carbinated milk, Lindsey loves it) mixed with soju. We were all drinking lots of that and one of the girls was trying to convince us that we should come back to Jeju city and stay at her place because she is a couch surfing host and it was going to rain like hell that night. We didn't want to deal with that though, we can tough out some rain. Typhoons can't be that tough. The girl tried to tell us that our tent was a piece of crap and wouldn't keep us dry. Wrong. Also, at this point, I drunkly realized that we had left our camera in Tia's bag which was now in Jeju city and not in Hallim. Bummer. Anyway, we then headed to the Full Moon Party that was going on pretty much next to our camp ground. It was late at this point so we just snuck through the woods. There was a huge stage set up and club music blasting. Loads of people hanging out but no one really dancing. We talked with some people. Lindsey met a guy with a fu-manchu who was clearly on drugs (in Korea?!) who was talking about how rare full moons are. Linds pointed out that it comes once a month. He then decided that full moons were the period of the universe. Amazing. Over all great night and start to our trip. 

The next morning it was drizzling a bit but nothing bad. We slept in rather late. I was pretty hung over. Milkus + Soju = hangover. We woke up and exchanged cards as it was our 3 year anniversary. It is hard to believe we have been dating for 3 years! What a great 3 years it has been too. After packing up camp, we headed back to Jeju city to meet Tia and grab our camera and then headed down to Seogwipo. 

Seogwipo was a nice little city but wasn't as close to where we wanted to be as we thought it was. This was the one night we were planning to stay in a love motel and not camp. Everyone had been telling us that we had to make reservations or there would be nothing. While we doubted this, and occasionally worried, we just winged it. It worked fine. We got a room at the first place we found for just 30,000 won. Deal. 

We went out for a walk around the city and saw some of our first Dol Hareubang. The dol hareubang are the statues above that are only found on Jeju Island and are meant to be protecters from the gods 

offering fertility that were placed at gates. Fertility being on of the statues main offerings they naturally look like giant penis men. While there are only so many genuine statues on the island they are generally found everywhere. 

One of the big draws on Jeju is the Cheonjiyeon waterfall so we went to find it. Along the way we found this giant snail!!

View of part of the city from another part of the city. 

Awesome shark mural

The walkway leading to the waterfall. 

Examine a Ticketing

Cheonjiyeon Waterfall

Standard adorable couples vacation picture

Being an angry penis man

Not such an angry penis man

Our cheap hotel room. 

We got to watch the Olympics a bit that night which was nice. The downside was that it was just constant loops of the Koreans medaling in fencing, archery, and judo. 

The next day we headed a few towns over to the Jungmun Resort. The resort area has a really nice beach to go along with a nice hotel for tourists and honeymooning Koreans. To go along with the resort area there are a series of museums like the Ripley's Believe It or Not and the Teddy Bear Museum. As we arrived I was again really excited to finally go swimming in the ocean. I should have known better than to get so excited. The beach was on the southern shore of the island and the water was much rougher from the previous days typhoon. The police wouldn't even let people on the beach this time. Admittedly, it was more legit than last time but I was still really frustrated. I wanted to swim.  

Here is the beach that day. The waves were pretty awesome. At this point, we were a little down trodden emotionally. We hadn't been able to swim or enjoy the beach anywhere. Seogwipo was nice but there wasn't much there and not near what we had expected. We felt like we had just been riding buses a lot looking for something to do when we had planned a whole trip. We had changed things really fast and now it wasn't going so smoothly. We didn't expected perfection but at this point we needed to do something. Time was ticking by. 

We headed back to the north end of the island where we figured the ocean would be more calm. We had been planning to hike Halasan the following day. It is a big ol' volcanic mountain in the center of the island. It is a biggest mountain in South Korea and it is suppose to be beautiful. We decided to miss out on the hike though. We wanted to relax on vacation and chill on the beach. We wanted to get the hike in but it was more a supplement to the relaxation. So via a bus to the airport and a stop over to check out a different beach we ended up back in Hallim. 

We liked the beach there, we knew we could camp for free, we knew there were restaurants and convenience stores to drink at. It just worked. We got there, got set up, and had a nice dinner of "giant hamburger." This was a nice sunset when we got back to Hallim. 

The next day was beautiful and the beach was crowded with people. We paid 10,000 for an umbrella for the day and spent the day swimming and reading on the beach. Exactly what we wanted!!! That was suppose to be most of our trip but we finally got it. 

The beach was beautiful. The water was nice and clear but not very deep. The waves were choppy but only coming from the police on a jet ski patrolling the boarder of the swim area. The police kept trying to talk to me as I tried to go out further to an area where I couldn't stand. Koreans, as a whole, are not great swimmers so going very deep is not allowed. The water was a nice temp and exactly what we needed. 

The last night we took a long walk down the beach to the neighboring beach. The name of which I forget and don't feel like looking up at the moment. It was a nice walk though.

We came across these ladies doing a performing by the beach. Our blog won't really let us upload videos (or we are just too computer inept and can't do it). I really liked the song they were playing, it was very dreamy and catchy. Just drums and these high pitched haunting chant. 

More penis men!

For dinner we got some ogapsal (spelling probably wrong)(pork belly meat). It was really delicious. I ordered some makoli and the woman came back with some orange makoli. Jeju is known for their oranges since it is the only place in Korea where they can grow. She pointed at the giant orange on the bottle was yelling at me, "Orang-ee makoli! Orang-ee! Hala mountain, orang-ee, makoli! Understand?!" Hahaha Yes! Lindsey wasn't a huge fan but I took care of it.  

After dinner we were greeted with this beautiful scene across the street at the beach. 

We headed to the GS25 for some drinks. We found this Sexy Feel Tanning Oil. To bad we hadn't found this earlier in our trip. 

We got to end our trip with a few beers by the water and were greeted by some surprise fireworks. 

Over all, we had a good time in Jeju. Not amazing, not bad, but we had a good time. It felt great to get away from work and travel a little bit and just get away from the grind. 

Since that was 3 weeks ago and August is essentially we only have 3 months left now. We are on the final stretch of our contract and ready to move on. But we will share more feeling on that later. 

Thanks for reading everyone and hope you enjoy! 

Deogyusan Road Trip

A couple weeks ago Lindsey and I decided to have a pair of Me weekends. For no other reason than that we live and work together and it is nice to get some quality "me time." Lindsey stayed home to take over the apartment. Saturday was spent knitting by America's Next Top Model marathons and having dance parties. On Sunday she journeyed to Gwangju for knitting club. The girls are having their own knitting olympics. They all began projects together that they have to finish by the end of the games.

I took a solo road trip to the central mountains of Korea. I headed to Deogyusan National Park for a relaxing weekend. It took 4 buses and 5-6 hours each way but it was well worth it. The park is not one of the most popular but there was still loaded with people. I didn't arrive until around 2 in the afternoon despite having left the house at 7. I got to the giant campground which they claim can hold 10,000 people!!! At first, I thought that many people were they and it would take me forever find a spot for my tent. Fortunately, all the Koreans had giant tents and had virtually built second homes. Ended up it was easy to find a nice spot to sent up my little 2-person tent.

I had to keep moving though. I still had to get my hike in that Saturday afternoon. After setting up camp, eating a quick lunch, and deciphering some poor directions to the trail head I was on my way. The trail lead for a while along a gravel road that shadowed a shallow river rolling through a valley. After an hour or so the road ended at the foot of a mountain temple. The temple was under construction diminishing some of the mystic of the temple but it was still beautiful. It was a crystal clear day with blue skies and rolling clouds surrounded by green hills.

After a short break I kept going up the mountain trail. Once past the temple the trail became very steep. It took another hour and a half to reach the summit. I had passed a couple people on the way up but had  the summit to myself when I got there. I found a comfy spot to relax and eat while enjoying the view. I enjoyed the slowly setting sun over the mountain ridge for a half hour. Then it was time to get a move on. It was about 6:45 when I left the summit. I knew I would be walking in a dark for a little while and that was what happened. I had about an hours hike in the dark following the river along the gravel road before getting back to camp.

I had planned to head back to my tent and get my towel so I could take a swim in the river. I was to excited to swim though. Knowing I needed to walk back to my tent in my shorts after I swam. It felt fantastic! The water was cool in the dark. It was the perfect ending to a long day. That is until I got back to my tent and realized I hadn't packed my extra pair of shorts.

The next morning I lit a fire to dry my shorts. Well, I had some help from a fellow camper. After my first attempt at lighting my fire my neighbor walked over and showed me a blow torch. I don't know how or why this man had a blow torch. He just told me to step back and started my fire in about 2 seconds.

After packing up camp I was back on a bus headed home. It was a great weekend and a beautiful hike. I hope I can get out to several more parks before we leave Korea.

Bus Station in Namwon...look at the 2nd floor

Its a Neuro-Clinic above a bus terminal!

Bus Station in Namwon 

The style of Namwon