Trip to Jeju for Chuseok 2014

Last Chuseok was our first school vacation in Korea, and we were a little unsure of what we wanted to do, so we ended up going to Seoul. It was an excellent trip, and I'm glad we did that.

But this year, we wanted to go somewhere even better. We took part in the trip run through the tour group, Enjoy Korea, and went to Jeju Island for 4 days. It is located off the south west coast of Korea and is the largest island in the country. It is nicknamed "the Hawaii of Korea" and a lot of people go there on their honeymoon. Jeju was formed by volcanic eruptions, so there are black rocks formed by ancient, cooled lava all over the island.

We left for Jeju at 2am! Maria, Matthew, Gianni, and I didn't even bother sleeping. We met downtown and watched at a movie at a DVD bang for a few hours before meeting the bus. We took a 5 hour bus ride to the ferry station and then a 3 hour ferry ride to get to the island. The ferry was actually very comfortable. We sat on big, comfortable chairs in the raised middle section of seats, and the windows along the sides of the boat were very big. There was a dunkin donuts on board that everyone swarmed to. The staff even ran a giveaway game/contest as we neared the end of our journey. I didn't know what was happening during it, but the games were really funny to watch.

When we got to the island, our first stop was Loveland. As I've said before, Korea is completely full of paradoxes, and that is no more apparent than in this example. Korea, and especially Daegu, tends to be very conservative and sexually repressed. But despite that, they have a park full of statues of sex and genitals. The most hilarious part of the park was the fact that all of the sculptures had the best names ever! At the gift shop, you can buy practically anything you want shaped like a penis, so you better believe I took part in that. It was fun to walk around there taking silly pictures for a few hours. The last part of the park were some statues of big, fat women seemingly torturing small, thin men. It was very strange and a little rape-y. We had a fun time climbing on the large fountain at the center of the park. It was made of stone and shaped like a penis, and it even shot water out like pee into a little pool. Loveland was good, novelty fun. No need to go back again, but it was definitely worth the stop.


After Loveland, we headed to our hotel for the weekend. We stayed at the Blue Hawaii (very appropriate), which was a beautiful hotel complete with a pool, noraebang room outside, and poolside barbeque restaurant. Our room had 8 people, 5 of whom we knew, and our room even had one big bed and two twin beds! In Korea, you come to expect to sleep on the floor, even in the nicer hotels, so this was a pleasant surprise. We only had a few moments at the hotel to drop our things and get changed before we got back on the buses to head to the beach.  

There are excellent beaches all over Jeju, and we went to a different one on each day of our vacation. It really did feel like a tropical vacation since the water at the beaches was crystal clear and very blue. At most of the beaches, we could walk out into the ocean pretty far and the water still did not come up to our shoulders. All of the beaches had volcanic rocks on them, but there weren't a whole lot of sea shells. I did do some collecting, but the shells I got were all fairly small. I should also mention that despite the weather being perfectly warm and sunny, because it is September, it is considered off-season for beaches. A lot of the beach facilities, like shower rooms, were closed to, I suppose, discourage people from going there in the "off-season." The water was lovely and warm, and I would definitely NOT consider it fall yet, especially not on Jeju. It was like they arbitrarily set a date for the beaches to be "closed" or "off-season," which was very strange. Also, at two of the beaches, the lifeguards (who were actually on loud speakers in a building off somewhere far away and probably wouldn't even be able to get to you if you were drowning) kept blowing their whistles and making some announcement in Korean. Eventually, they realized that a bunch of people on the beach were foreign, so they got someone to speak English. They were saying that the tide was coming in, so we had to get out of the water. No one listened to them, but it's completely ridiculous that they would even say that. I am fairly sure that a lot of Koreans either can't swim or can't swim well, so maybe this was the case. Or maybe it's just because it is, technically, "off-season." I'm not sure exactly, but we just kept on swimming and enjoying ourselves. I lathered on the sun screen on this vacation, for sure! For the most part, I managed to avoid sun burns, so I'm pretty proud of myself. We did a lot of relaxing and reading by the beach. Gianni had to teach me to use his kindle though because my Game of Thrones book was misprinted with missing pages, so I had to use the kindle to read what I missed. We watched the sun set over the first beach before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

We all got showered off, and by that time, it was getting pretty late. We decided to order pizza and chicken from the front desk. The hotel was good enough to call a restaurant that was willing to deliver straight to guests' rooms. We watched some TV and talked to the new roommates for a long while before we started to wonder where our food had gone. Maria went down to check on it after an hour and a half. They told her that the food had accidentally been given to another group, so it would be a few more minutes until it was made again. It was frustrating because we were really hungry. After another half hour, Maria went down again to see what the problem was. The delivery man brought the food, and she and the Korean girl who helps on the Enjoy Korea tours explained to the delivery man that we wouldn't be paying for dinner because it had taken over 2 hours to come. They agreed, and we got a free dinner! And the restaurant had already provided us with some extra chicken as an apology. It was a tasty dinner, but everyone pretty much just crashed after eating.


On the second day, we visited Cheonjeyeon Falls. It's a really beautiful waterfall that actually has three falls as a part of it. The weather was hot and humid, and there was a lot of walking and stairs between each of the falls, so that wasn't the best. But it was really beautiful walking in what felt like a tropical rain forest. I was surprised to see how blue the water was underneath the falls as well. After the falls, we went to another beach. You had to walk down a steep hill to get to this one, but we were able to rent an umbrella for only $10 for the day. I love being able to rent umbrellas like this in Korea because it really helps keep my skin from getting burned and makes for a more comfortable beach experience in general. This beach had a lot of reasonably priced rentals, actually. You could rent a surf board and take a lesson, go on a banana boat, or rent a sea-doo. This was the only beach I've been to in Korea with somewhat more substantial waves, so that was fun to experience. On the way back

The beach down the hill

stalactites on the cave ceiling

The lava tube

Lava flowlines

Gianni and I and the lava column

Elephant Toe lava raft

The next stop was Seongsan Ilchulbong or Sunrise

Peak. It's supposed to be a very nice place to watch the sunrise, and I'm sure it is. We ended up getting there at 1pm, which is not the ideal time to do a hike, even if the hike to the top of the peak is only 20 minutes. It was very hot and humid, and the hike is just steep stairs the entire time. The peak is 182 meters high Still, the view from above is very beautiful. Because it is connected to Jeju by just a narrow strip of land, you get both city and ocean views from the top. Seongsan Ilchulbong is a tuff cone, like a crater, formed about 5,000 years ago by a large volcanic eruption underwater. Even though we didn't get to hike the big volcano, Halla, we did get to hike the crater and get a similar view of what the inside of an old and inactive looks like. The top was circular with the typical indent that you see when you picture a volcano. The indent was all covered over with trees and greenery. I've never seen a real volcano, inactive or active, so this was really impressive to me. At the base of the peak, there's a beach with tons of interestingly patterned rocks formed by lava thousands of years ago, and the peak looms over everything there. Also on the beach is a small restaurant run by old women. These old women are actually Haenyo meaning "sea women." Jeju is famous for its diving women. These women will dive in the ocean to collect all manners of sea life to eat. The tradition dates back to the 1700's when men would do more deep sea fishing or would be required to be in the military. Women had to provide for their families, so they took up diving. They are a representation of the traditional matriarchal family structure on Jeju Island. But they are, unfortunately, an aging group of women and the tradition will die with them. Gianni and I were both drained after hiking the peak, so we grabbed some iced coffee. The tour company originally had us scheduled to be at the peak for 3 hours, but we convinced the managers to let one bus leave early since a lot of people were finished and wanted to go to the beach for a little longer. We caught the early bus and headed to yet another wonderful beach, but this time just for a few hours. We grabbed some quick and cheap dinner at a restaurant by the beach. It was actually a really nice, open restaurant that made you take your shoes off before stepping up onto a platform. Usually, you only have to take your shoes off at restaurants where you sit on the floor, but that wasn't the case here. We sat at a regular table. Also, we were served by a girl with amazingly impressive English. She even used colloquialisms! She told us she studied in the US for a few years. She was very kind. We played some card games with Maria and Matthew and the other roommates when we got back to the hotel, and we heard all about Maria and Matthew's 9 hour hike at Halla that day. I'm kind of glad that I didn't take part. I would have been miserable.

On the last day, we had to be at the ferry terminal for our 4:30 ferry back to the mainland, so we spent the first half of the day relaxing at the beach. The last beach was actually my favorite of the trip. The part where most people were swimming was completely enclosed in the black volcanic rocks, making a sort of cove. The water was also deeper than at the other beaches. There wasn't so much of a walk to get to the deeper part. Instead, you were up to your shoulders inside the cove around, but you could still touch. It was very refreshing. After swimming for a bit and doing some beach reading, we decided to get a jump on the crowds and order some lunch to eat on the beach. The tour managers had told us that this beach has the best fish and chips in Korea, so everyone wanted to try them. Unfortunately, those who ordered later didn't get their food because the restaurant ran out, but we did! It was delicious! We ate our big orders of fish and chips and amazing tartar sauce on the beach while drinking some tasty hard cider that we found out is a South African brand. It was a fabulous afternoon.

I don't think we ran into a lot of traffic on the way home, but between the ferry and bus, we arrived back in Daegu around midnight. The only part of the trip that was not planned particularly well was dinner on the last night. We were all very hungry by the time we arrived back on the mainland around 7pm, and some people hadn't been able to get their lunch at the fish and chips place, so some people must have gone without lunch. Unfortunately, we didn't stop for dinner right after the ferry. We stopped at a rest area off the highway several hours into the drive back to Daegu. That would have been fine, except we weren't given enough time to get an actual meal at the restaurant there. Also, we would have swamped the restaurant, so it would have taken even longer to get the food there. Everyone just bought ramen from the convenience store, and then we used up all the hot water from the restaurant to cook it. That was the only part of the trip I can complain about though, so, all in all, it was a wonderful trip. I feel like I saw everything in Jeju that I wanted to see, and I had a great time with my friends. Jeju is a beautiful island that is definitely worth seeing if you come to Korea.