(and in case you all were wondering, now that I have three Korean classes under my belt, I can actually spell that word in Hangul – but the limitations of my western keyboard won’t let me be a show off to you…sigh.)While many kids were traveling north east and west to visit their grandmothers (the most popular answer when asked the question, “And where are you going for Chuseok, Jack?”), my friend, Joy, and I headed south to the tropical island of Jeju. I left Jim behind to write his heart out (which he did – I think he may have only left the house once in five days to get some fortifications for hunkering down in front of the ‘puter for hours at a time; I returned to find him a little dazed and pale, sitting on the couch, downloading a BBC series called “Dr. Who,” but thoroughly satisfied with his voluminous writings. Anyway…)
We left mid-morning on Saturday. Cruised to the town of Mokpo to catch the ferry to the island. Mokpo is a pretty large port for Korea. Fishing is a huge industry there, so as we drove down the wharf area to the ferry terminal, we saw nothing but fish everywhere – huge fish in tanks waiting for you to eat them, fish and squid and octopus drying on racks in the sun, giant stingrays hung out to dry. So much fish. But no time for fish-watching. We were going to an island! An island! So many tales we had heard about the lush vegetation, the beautiful crystal blue sea, the vast differences between Jeju and the mainland. All I could hope for was blue skies and sunny days ahead.
Onto the ferry we went. There were lots of foreigners in line with us. And lots of Koreans. The boat was definitely bound to be packed for such a high-traffic holiday. (we heard that for the
first time in the history of Korea, I guess, more people were traveling out of the country than were staying in for Chuseok. A rarity during a holiday that is expressly meant to be spent with family, honoring your roots. So…many people on the road, in the air and on the seas. )Some of you may know that there was a pretty strong typhoon that hit the southern part of Korea about two weeks ago – Typhoon Nari. It killed 14 people, 8 or whom were on Jeju. There was a second typhoon that came up through Shanghai (over 2 million people evacuated the city) – Typhoon Wipha, but it was downgraded to a tropical storm pretty quickly once it came close to land. Though that second typhoon missed Jeju, there were still heavy rains all over the country and lots of wind. It was kind of yucky weather when we boarded the ferry but nothing too nasty.
Now, I should know by now that there is no reason to imagine at all what experiences in Korea
will be like because, inevitably, those experiences are NEVER what I imagine they will be. Really never. So, I don’t know why it surprised me that when we walked onto the boat we did not find a room with individual seats but rather a big open room with three large islands for chillin on the floor. You see, everyone sits on the floor. Everywhere. So why wouldn’t you sit on the floor on a ferry. Totally logical. Of course. We’ve definitely been Korea to realize that when there is floor to be had, you best get to it quick lest you be left with only a corner and a wall to keep you upright for the 5 hour trip. So, we threw down our bags and made like all the other Koreans – grabbed my trusty beach blanket, pulled out the yoga mat for some cushioning underneath and popped a squat in our very own little square of floor. People around us were doing the same. Getting out their picnic mats (everyone seems to carry these around in some secret compartment in their bag.
Whenever there is a need for sitting on the ground, especially when wet grass is involved, these mats come out of nowhere as do full spreads of food and drink. These people are *always* prepared. Thankfully, so were we. I had brought some snacks including a bag of figs I bought a couple of days earlier. I used the mushy ones to make a very yummy balsamic, fig, honey and cinnamon reduction sauce for some vanilla ice cream as a lovely end of the summer treat. And I brought the rest with me as fortification for our 5 hour journey across the sea. And I will tell you now, dear readers, without the figs, that boat trip would have been a very boring five hours. As it turned out, not a single minute was without its own excitement.You see, though I had lost the sense for a while, my social butterfly tendencies have returned in full beauty. In fact, Korea has pushed them to new heights. I’ve taken to being a kind of welcoming committee. Welcoming who, I’m not sure, but I seem to be finding all sorts of people to welcome to something. And on the boat, I saw a foreigner with a yoga mat. So I thought, hmm, that looks like a nice interesting girl. Oh, and look, she’s made friends with the Koreans next to her. And wait, are they deaf? Yes, yes, I think they are. And are they all speaking sign language? What? Ok, I need to go over there and make friends with them b/c this is too cool. Ok, so, what do I do…oh, right, I’ve got these FIGS! Everyone loves figs. They must. So, I’ll bring the figs and then I’ll be their new friend.
And so I was – we were – and we are their new friends. I sat down and started talking with
these wonderfully funny, incredibly kind, super smart people. Between all of us, we had traveled over 30 countries, speak 6 languages and generally just sort of rocked. They could read and write English and read our lips when we spoke in English. The foreign girl was from New Zealand and the three Koreans live in Seoul. We had great conversations using lots of hand gestures, three languages and various notepads. As you can imagine, many things were lost in translation and topics like astrology led us into really murky waters. I hadn’t laughed so much in quite a while. We had a blast with them. Went out and explored the upper decks in the windy mist a couple of hours into the trip and then everyone settled in to rest for the next two hours before we landed in Jeju.Well, that’s when we hit the rough waters and the storm. Woo hoo. Let me tell you. I had, at one time, considered that taking a boat from Korea to Shanghai would be an invigorating experience. Well, not so much. That would be true except for the part where being on a boat for 36 hours might feel a wee bit icky. Our boat to Jeju was quite enough for me. At about 5:30, the ferry started lurching and diving and rocking and rolling while the wind blew so hard outside that you couldn’t really open the doors to get out. I managed to keep it together for about and hour or so, and then I started sweating and panting and no amount of deep breathing was gonna keep me from losing the lovely snacks that I just recently enjoyed. So, to the bathroom I leaped. But you see, the boat was all over the place, so I kept losing my balance, grabbing onto poles and walls as I walked. Trying not to face plant on the walkway. Which I eventually did, but I was close to the bathroom, so it was ok. And then the bathroom. I had thought initially when I first used it, that
though it was a squat toilet it was quaint – a small porthole window looked out onto the first deck, cool sea breeze streaming in and keeping the requisite bathroom smells at bay. And when you squatted, no one could see you, but you could gaze up at the sky from your, um, position. But now, oh no. Not so romantic. Not so quaint. Water sloshed from side to side in the bathroom as the boat rolled with the sea. I stopped to tie my shoelaces (everyone had their shoes off as no one steps on ground where you sit with shoes on in Asia). I don’t know why. I was definitely over the yucky factor. You have to be when you’re at that point on the nausea train. And lo, wouldn’t ya know it, a western toilet lurked in the corner. No squatters for me (they were, of course, occupied by other unfortunate ferry goers). So, sparing the gory details, I made it back to our little square of tapestry and lay down again, trying to maintain the immediate relief and settling that came from the upchucking. But, you can’t really do that when the boat just won’t f*ing stop moving. Deliriously, I sent some text messages to Jim, just wanting someone to know that I just might die on that boat (a little dramatic, I know). And finally, 5 hours after we departed the drizzling port of Mokpo, we landed on solid ground. I was one of the last people to get off that boat. And when we got to the stairway that would take us to our tropical island destination, I had to hold on to that railing for fear of flying off from the force of the boat which was still jerking up and down. I inhaled deep breaths of sea air and was handed a Gatorade by Joy. And as we walked away, I saw that the boat was actually being fork-lifted onto its final resting place until it made its journey back to the mainland the next morning. Ground was good. Ground was very good.We immediately found some nice Korean people who helped us call a cab to take us to our island accommodations. ₩30,000 later, we arrived at Haewabada Pension run by a nice old Korean
man who has a dog named Jojo. Our little apartment had a distinctly American West theme outside and a country kitsch theme inside. We had a little kitchen and a view of the rocky sea and docked boats outside our window. The pension itself was pretty compact – about 6 bungalows in a row with maybe two on the other side of a garden complete with lovely lava stone sculptures and beautiful, lush grass, trees and flowers.Jeju is a volcanic island and has been called the “Hawaii of Korea” for its many volcanoes, clear blue sea and lush vegetation. Really, everything you need to know about this place can be found right here.
The island has been called Samdado – “The Island of Three Abundances” – for “its ample supply of rocks, strong winds and hearty women.” Love it. It’s also the preferred honeymoon destination for most Koreans, though folks are starting to go out of the country more and more. It’s said that if you see a Korean couple together and neither of them is on their cell phones, they’re on their honeymoon.
Some interesting things of note...
The women. Jeju has a long tradition of women sea divers called haenyeo (haneyuh). They dive year-round to collect treats from the sea with rope baskets when the tide is best, no matter how frigging cold it might be. They traditionally wore thin, white cotton clothing – again, no matter what the temperature. They were definitely not to be seen by men. In fact, it was
against the law for men to watch them in such a scantily-clad state. Today they wear much more reasonable diving gear to protect them from the cold. These divers are becoming few and far between these days due to development of fishing ports for tourism and to the trend of young daughters not wanting to follow in their mothers’ footsteps as the next generation of divers but opting for moves to the island cities or the mainland. Girls just want to have fun, after all.The men. The island is also full of these large totem-like statues carved from the lava stone. They are called the “grandfather” stones or dolharubang. They are thought to have been used either as protective totems at various island entrances or for fertility as they are pretty phallic. They are roly-poly men who wear little hats on their heads looking like they might, at any moment, laugh right out loud. And they look quite a bit like the statues from Easter Island and such.
The vegetation. There are prickly pear cacti all over the island. It’s wild to see it. I’m only
used to seeing such things in the Arizona desert or the mountains of Mexico. But here they were. And so, cactus chocolate made in the chocolate factory on the island is plentiful. As is lotion and soap made from the juicy red fruits of the cactus. The island is also known for its tangerines. They must have at least 10 varieties. For hundreds of years, in the early fall, islanders have collect unripe persimmons and dye their sturdy cotton work clothes with the fruit, making them a deep orange color. They dry the clothes in the sun to bake in the dye and then wear them in the fieldsThe sights. Jeju is also home to a variety of interesting museums and attractions. As you drive along the main island highway, you see signs for these exciting adventures– the African Museum, the Museum of Masks and Bogy (yes, Bogy. We have no idea.), the Museum of Sex and Health, Pacific Land, Mini Mini Land, Elephant Land, the Teddy Bear Museum, the Green Tea Museum. And, as I discovered while walking around the World Cup stadium in Seogwipo, on the southern shore of the island, the World Eros Museum. (The bottom of the stadium has been co-opted as a space for this intriguing collection of eros-related items, a shopping center, a sauna and a gym.) We didn’t manage to get to any of these museums, though Mini Mini Land and Elephant Land were top of my list, and Pacific Land sat atop the beach we spent our last afternoon on so we got to see kids take turns riding the
Land’s one and only camel in the parking lot. (Yes, a camel. It was old. It was sad. It lives on an island and must be ridden on my small Korean children in front of a two-bit version of Sea World. Quite a surreal vision. Dali would have been proud.) I do know that Mini Mini Land involves small replicas of the world’s greatest monuments – the Eiffel Tower, the sphinx, etc. – and that the Teddy Bear Museum has great works of art with teddy bears substituted for the subjects of those works – the Mona Lisa, The Thinker, etc. It would have made a great photo series. We’ll have to hit it next time.Back to our trip. It isn’t a huge island, but it takes a fair amount of time to get all the way around it. We took buses most of the time (when we weren’t getting stuck taking a taxi from Jeju City after said buses had stopped running, of course). The first day was a bit rainy, so we spent the afternoon wandering around some museums in Jeju City on the north coast of the island, seeing giant octopus and squid that once roamed the seas in Korea and walking through reenactments of village life on Jeju hundreds of years ago.
After the museums, I lured Joy to a jjimjilbang (sauna) about 20 minutes outside the city on the north coast. I had done a bit of research trying to find some good ones on the island, but came up kinda short as the sites were all in Korean, and the google translator application doesn’t provide the most helpful results. But we did manage to find a lovely sauna that was right on the sea –
Haemian Hasu Sauna in Iho jest west of Jeju City. It was a nasty day, but it was a great place to sit and watch the water, even under gray skies, and it was the most interesting one I’ve been to yet. There were two big cold pools, one sea water and the other fresh water, a pool of warm sea water and a hot green tea pool. That was cool. It smelled like green tea and the water was green-black. Totally awesome. Then there were three different sauna rooms – one wet one where we met a very nice woman from Seoul who was, as is usually the case, surprised to see foreigners enjoying the jjimjilbang, a very very very hot dry one that smelled of fresh pine woodchips, and a comfortable warm room with a big picture window and small wooden head rests to use as you lay on the marble floor to watch the sea. Outside there were two pools, both made from lava rocks and filled with sea water – one warm, one cold. The little old island ladies definitely stared at my tattoo for quite a while. We had a blast at this place. Then headed back to Jeju City in search of a little Nepalese restaurant that we had read about in the Lonely Planet book.(May I take the time to insert here my opinion about the aforementioned book. In short, it sucks. Truly. The phone numbers are often wrong. The restaurant, though it was described quite nicely in the book, was not accompanied by a location on any map let alone an actual phone
number. The entire area that surrounds the restaurant, once we tracked it down, is actually the coolest in the city, but the Lonely Planet map simply stops before you even get to that part of the city. It’s lame. I dunno why the Korea books is so lame, but it is. Don’t buy it. Moon Handbooks publishes a much better guidebook. Though outdated by about 4 years at last printing, it’s truly a fabulous book to read and gives you great info in eatin, drinkin, seein, and stayin in Korea. Ok, soap box put away now.)We found the restaurant – Bagdad Café, named after the movie *not* the city – ate yummy Nepalese masala, curry and nan and met yet another group of three foreigners who turned out to be quite nice – a dude from Glasgow and a couple who are actually, really from Arizona. Missed the last bus home, so we convinced the taxi driver to take us back to our side of the island, at the very eastern tip of Jeju in Seongsan near Sunrise Mountain. (As a side note, if you’re looking for the Bagdad Café, you’ll want to find Jeju City Hall – Jeju Si Cheong – go across the street are and walk back two traffic lights. You’ll be going uphill, away from the sea. Make a right into where the bars and restaurants are and then go down two streets. Make a left, and you’ll find Bagdad Café on your right.)
The next day, the sun came out while we were headed to Hallim Park which is sort of a all-you-can-eat buffet of Jeju sights. You get a little bit of everything here – lava caves, exotic botanicals, a stone and bonsai garden, waterfalls, tropical birds, including turkeys and albino
peacocks, and, of course, a pathway that winds through at least a half dozen gift shops as you cruise through the park. They have taken good notes from the Great American Theme Parks – if you draw big feet on the ground and tell people that there is only one way to go through your park, they will follow those feet and they will buy whatever treats you put in their way. And we did. One chocolate ice cream cone, one silly key chain, one small grandfather statue, and 4 boxes of Jeju chocolate. After our park adventure, we headed down the street to the beach. The sun had finally come out, so we parked it on a nice little cove, met a couple of other American girls and jumped in the sea for a bit while watching people willing to pay ₩10,000 to be toured around the beach on a small horse – the stocky jorangmal that is a descendant of the Mongolian ponies brought to the island by the Mongols in the 1200’s. It was a good idea in theory, but really all you got to do was sit on the horse while a Korean dude led it around the beach by a rope. WooHOOO.Made our way to Seogwipo, the other big city, located on the south coast, found the World Cup stadium which is an incredibly cool building, ran into our friends from Korean class in the parking lot and met an infinitely helpful information man at the bus terminal who spoke perfect English and loaded us up with every map and book about Jeju we could possibly need. (If you’re going to Jeju, I highly recommend a call to him. He is single-handedly mapping out the island’s bus system so that foreigners will be able to get around a little more easily. He had good answers to every one of our myriad questions. Here’s the contact info for the office:
New Seogwipo Bus Terminal Tourist Information Center
9 am – 6 pm
064-739-1391
Info Man: Baek Sungdong
After a bit of a turn around walk, we ended up in the main market of the city, which included the
most spectacular fish market. Of course, my pictures don’t do it justice, but it was amazing. There was a row of seafood restaurants along one stretch of the market. As per usual, lots of different fish were swimming around in tanks outside each one, ready for you to point at one only to see it scooped up and placed in front of you moments later. But the unique feature of this market was the sashimi-to-go stands in front of the tanks (I know, sashimi is Japanese, but I dunno the word in Korean yet…). So, here’s how it worked at my favorite one: there’s a guy who stands at a small bar waiting on customers. You tell him which fish(es) you want. He takes a net and scoops said fish out of the tank. He throws the fish(es) to an old lady wearing a house dress and giant red rubber gloves who sits at a small stool in front of a dozen fish of all sizes and colors
sitting on ice. Her sole job is to chop the heads off those fish, gut them and throw them in a plastic bowl that is picked up by another woman wearing a rubber apron. She washes the fish off, makes sure they’re good to go, and tosses the fish to the guy at the bar who slices your chosen fish into small, lovely bite-sized pieces and drapes those pieces atop a bed of what looks like clear rice noodles but may actually be plastic. The plate of yummy it-was-just-alive-a-minute-ago fish is wrapped deftly in plastic and placed in a plastic bag for your take-out enjoyment. The whole affair probably takes about 7 minutes. It’s awesome. All I could think about was how much I wanted to eat that fish. But since Joy ain’t no seafood fan, galbi it was. Found a great little place, ate good pork bbq and discovered the Jeju soju – 21% alcohol instead of 20% and made on the island.Back to Seongsan and Jojo the dog it was for us. The next day was a jaunt up to the peak at Sunrise Mountain. The mountain is actually a volcano set on a small peninsula that extends out into the East Sea. There are rolling green hills leading up to its base and the rocky shore around it creates pretty spectacular tide pools and beautiful jagged cliffs. When we got to the mountain,
it took us a minute to realize that the tiny specks of green and brown all over the sprawling hillside were actually dozens and dozens of Korean army boys (and at least one girl). Four tour buses had just let these folks off to play on the mountain. It was the Chuseok, and they were on holiday. Of course we would end up on a mountain surrounded by uniformed boys. Of course! So, as we made our way up the mountain, we passed a half-dozen groups of guys taking photos and quite literally blending in with the landscape in their camo gear. They were definitely intrigued by the two white girls climbing up the mountain.The mountain didn’t have a trail but rather a very nicely constructed set of stairs that led to the
top of the volcano. From the top, you could see the sea and the valley below. Gorgeous. Truly spectacular. And all the boys wanted to take pictures with the two girls from America. So, we jumped in a few shots, took some of ourselves and headed down the mountain to the cliffs where we met a group of older Korean folks from Seoul who were all wearing the exact same shirt – men in red, women in pink. Turned out to be a group of siblings and their husbands and wives out for Chuseok hike. (Wearing matching outfits in Korea is all the rage. Couples can buy matching shirts, shoes, pants, bags, even underwear. Seriously. It’s everywhere. People keep asking me and Jim when we’re gonna get matching outfits. Um, riiiight. We just got matching bikes instead.) They group of brothers and sisters shared their chestnuts with us and chatted with us for a while as we wandered along the coastline. They even stopped me from following a fisherman who had jumped a fence clearly marked with a number of danger signs. I saw him bounce down a trail
beyond the fence with his fishing rod, net and tackle box, and I just decided to follow. Great views of the cliffs and tide pools below. But, as soon as I made the leap, all the brothers and sisters and husbands and wives started shouting a variety of things in Korean. I sort of pretended not to understand, but then realized that it probably wasn’t the greatest idea after all. So, I climbed back up the hill, the fisherman far below me at that point casting his line into the sea.From Sunrise Mountain we hopped on a bus to the south again and headed to the Jungmun Resort area. The place used to be a small, traditional farming and fishing village, but it’s been
transformed into the island’s biggest tourist development spot. Now, that’s not to say that it isn’t still beautiful and surely worth visiting. It’s simply been the spot chosen for the big-name hotels to set up their most elaborate island resorts. But these are easily avoided if you’re not into it.Tried to rent some bikes to cruise around the area, but it was Chuseok. Everything was closed. So, we wandered over to the nearby waterfall – Cheonjeyeon Waterfall – and hiked our way through these three cascading falls over which span a beautiful orange foot bridge high in the treetops. The place was gorgeous – truly a tropical paradise. The first fall led to a deep crystal blue pool. The legend of the pool is this: seven nymphs “who served the Emperor of Heaven”
slid down moonbeams to and frolic in this pool. They apparently also played a lot of music on flutes and mandolins. The foot bridge, which was built to allow for ease of reaching the resort area across the gorge, has white metal reliefs of each of the seven heavenly nymphs, hair flowing wildly across the bridge, instrument in hand. It is a magnificent sight to see these beauties soar above the waterfalls. On the other side of the bridge a fountain and statue honoring this legend sits at the foot of a small temple.We wandered out of the waterfall park, passing a sweet Korean lady who sold us Jeju pineapple on a stick for ₩1,000. We headed down the road to the beach which is how we learned first-hand of the fabulous Pacific Land. It’s pretty much been called the ghetto Sea World of Korea. The signs out front boast of opportunities to see dolphin shows, shake hands with seals, and perhaps watch monkeys ride motorcycles. Apparently, this is really what you get to see. Perhaps we should have taken the chance while we still had it. Also, there was that camel in the parking lot. It was just weird.
Headed down to a beautiful beach below the resort area. The Hyatt loomed above us at the west end of the beach, but other than that, you couldn’t tell you were sitting below seven major island resorts, all complete with their own various extreme resort-going-ness. The beach was that
perfect island beach you dream about – warm, shallow water, low tide, sand bars, lying stretched out in the water with the surf rolling over your body that is just soaking up all the sun it can get. It was fabulous. Exactly what I had been hoping for. We had planned to meet our bosses for dinner that night (they were bringing their two kids and the in-laws to the island for a few days, and they were staying at the Lotte Hotel Jeju, one of the biggest hotels on the island. I was psyched to get to see of these monstrosities up close and personal). So, we took a stroll along the path above the beach and found their hotel. As we wandered down the tree-lined boardwalk, we noticed some nice look-out points below and could see a hotel up ahead, so we walked down a couple of flights of stairs along the coast. As I rounded the corner, I saw a sign that said “The Legend of the Volcano Fountain Show.” Not just a show, but the legend of the show. Right. I
looked up, and there before me was the Lotte Hotel Jeju in all its glory. It was sort of a Disneyland meets Vegas meets Korea kind of thing. We had stumbled into the pool/volcano show/outdoor garden of the hotel. Picture this: on one end were the sea cliffs high above the beach. Along these cliffs, circling the whole area, was a pathway that allowed visitors to meander through the various garden sights. These included: a small pond where said Volcano Fountain Show supposedly took place, complete with a water wheel and small paddle boats in the shape of large white swans could be rented out to cruise the very, very small body of water; a very large windmill which could be seen from the path above that was actually a bar/lounge of some kind and came with its own gift shop solely dedicated to items from the country of Holland (I’m serious. Around the windmill were tiny little white and blue pinwheels lining the garden.); a collection of bungalows on the hills above the path that probably run about $400 a night; two very large buildings of hotel rooms looking down at the pool/garden; and a modest pool in the middle of it all. Yeah. I
can’t imagine what the other resorts are like. The Shilla Jeju is supposed to be the nicest one – more tropical, less Disney.Wasn’t like my experience in Mexico where the resorts are entirely inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have the cash to pay for a room (or the right skin tone). You could just walk right up to this, um, glorious spectacle of ridiculousness. Alas, there was no volcano show for us, but they were preparing for a raucous evening of entertainment and seafood by the pool as we made our way to inside the hotel. We got inside the hotel, found a giant teddy bear sitting on a sofa (the Teddy Bear Museum isn’t far away from this place) and met our bosses outside the hotel. Tres chic, really. Very fancy. Lots of chandeliers and gold and water
features and views of the sea. We were whisked off to a lovely restaurant that specializes in the island delicacy – black pig (which I cannot bring myself to explain in these pages here, but suffice it to say that they are not named for their color but rather for what they feast on). Our boss ordered just about everything on the menu and we had a very large, very satisfying meal. Fabulous.Homeward bound the next day. Early ferry to Mokpo. This time, the weather was lovely. After we found our deaf friends again and brought them over to our spot on the floor, I headed up to the top deck to soak up the sun and read for a while. It made my tummy happier to be in the cool air. Finished Eat, Pray, Love and had a lovely moment crossing the sea with that final page. Started and finished Haruki
Murakami’s After Dark, a newly translated book that just hit the stands in the states and the UK. Got home and headed out for that seafood dinner I had been dying for on the island. We found a funky little joint in a nearby neighborhood, pointed to the fish in the tank that we wanted, and settled in with a nice cold beer and some yummy conch appetizers. Not too long before the beautiful plate of sashimi was set down in front of me. And while I told Jim of the crazy National Geographic show we had watched about the pseudo Crocodile Hunter-like guy who seeks out the planets “giants” – crocs, lions, pythons, etc. – I ate every bite of that fish. Happy. Satisfied. Feeling alive. And so very thankful for the tremendous beauty in my life every single day.
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