Nami Island

I got pretty sick the week before Valentine's Day. Originally I had plans to hang out with my friend Emmalee (who I went to Korea Burn with) but I wasn't sure if that was going to happen anymore. I went from sleeping on my floor because I couldn't get comfortable in my bed, to feeling great, then feeling like I was going to pass out. Friday morning I felt fine before work, then couldn't stand to write on the board - literally just told the kids to play while I sat there and watched. By the afternoon I was feeling okay again. I was going to spend the night at home alone, but Emmalee insisted that I still come over, so I headed out after work and I'm glad I did. We spent the majority of the night talking and eating pizza and then watched a movie together. It ended pretty late so we had an impromptu sleepover. Seriously, such an amazing girl. Here is a picture of us from the night:

Earlier that day I was also surprised after receiving flowers at work! Near the end of the day, the director of our school came into the office to tell me that there were beautiful flowers at the front desk for me. I was confused and believed that she had to have been mistaken and that they couldn't have been for me! But my wonderful sister sent me flowers to make my Valentine's Day a bit more special and it was super sweet of her. 

                            

The next day I had plans to go try Dak Galbi for the first time. Dak Galbi is a stir fried chicken dish with a spicy sauce, cabbage, sweet potato, tteok (rice cake) and other veggies. I was wavering on going at this point cause, again, wasn't feeling super great, but I went. It was a super sunny day and the thought of staying cooped up in my apartment sounded depressing and why not get some natural vitD right?

My friend Joel, who I met through the board game meetup and is also from Vancouver (and we later discovered we have a mutual friend in Vancouver!!) wanted to go to Chuncheon for the "best dak galbi" as he is leaving at the end of the month. I was really hoping it would be the best since it was a 2 hour trek on the subway. I met up with him and his friends Allison, Melissa, Tatiana (from Vancouver Island) and Kris. We decided to stop by Nami Island to make the trip more worthwhile, plus it was on the way.

Nami Island is its own micro-nations. If you have not heard of micro-nations I suggest reading up on them because it is quite interesting and there are a several around the world. We had to pay for entry and get our own 'visa'. It was very pretty, although cold. I would love to go back in warmer weather. We spent the day walking around the island. 

At immigration to go to Nami Island - you can either take a ferry over, or zip line onto the island. 

My visa

Melissa, myself and Tatiana on the ferry

Igloo!!

A list of other micro-nations 

Ostriches! Apparently they roam freely in the summer?!

First Kiss bridge - decorated with empty soju bottles, how romantic!

The walking paths were beautiful!

Just stunning!!

Once we left the island we had some chuncheon dak galbi. I can't believe it took me that long to try it! It was soo good! 

That Sunday, I played board games as per usual. It was another great weekend. 

<3

Jeju Island - Day 3 & 4

Saturday was our last full day on the island. On our itinerary there were plans to see a waterfall, go tangerine picking and a huge chunk of free time. While the waterfall sounded beautiful, I opted to spend the day with Glenn instead. I was a little bit over getting on and off a huge bus of people and I'm trying to invest in the friendships I have.

The group departed and I slept in a bit. Conveniently Glenn has a motorcycle and picked me up at 11. The day at this point was gorgeous. We spent time riding along the coast along the ocean, checked out an abandoned building, drove through some of the small towns and ate ramen at a corner store. We were making our way down to the south part of the island to check out the waterfalls my group was going to see anyways.  It was such a cool and freeing way to see the island. As I mentioned in my Philippines post - I love being on a bike!

Along the way to the waterfall we stopped off at an abandoned castle that Glenn had been to before. I had seen his pictures and was interested in seeing it for myself. So gorgeous! They used it to film a Korean drama and now it just sits empty. Before you could actually get inside, but they have it closed up quite good now, all of the doors are roped together so you can't open them. But it's amazing cause everything inside is in such good condition. As we checked it out, it started to downpour!! Such a drastic change from when we left that morning. Considering we arrived on a motorcycle, we decided to try and wait out the rain. And we waited. And waited. For two and a half hours and it wasn't letting up. Mind you sitting at a castle with good conversation was a fun way to spend the day. Here are the few pictures I took, which aren't that great cause I stayed undercover to stay dry.

We finally decided to head back to the pension and got suited up the best we could to stay as dry as we could. 

That night, we went out for dinner with another girl I met at Korea Burn, Katie, who also lives on the island, and another one of their friends. Afterwards we played darts and had drinks with more of their friends. Overall a good night - except for the fact that somehow the LCD screen on my phone cracked despite being in my purse on a chair the entire night!!

The morning we left Jeju, we made a stop in the morning at Sunrise peak. This is a crater in the ocean. Unfortunately we climbed to the top and couldn't see anything because of the fog. This is what it is supposed to look like (images taken from google):

These are the pictures I got from climbing up:

Patrick and I stopping for a photo

I would like to check this out again on a clear day, maybe if I get a chance to go back in the summer. There was supposed to be an optional submarine tour that I opted out of (and didn't end up happening anyways) so we checked out Black Sand Beach before heading to the ferry terminal. 

The ferry ride back was longer than going there as we took a longer route apparently, and we were going against the wind. The bus ride back to Seoul also felt super long but we finally made it back home. Overall the weekend was great, but the organization of it wasn't very good. For example, we did not stop for food on Sunday until about 5pm. How is that reasonable?! None of us at all day, aside from maybe a chocolate bar picked up at Sunrise Peak. Aside from that, Jeju is super gorgeous and I'd love to go back in the summer and just hang out on the beaches and swim in the blue blue water now that I've done the sightseeing. 

As for the phone situation,when I got back I signed up a two year contract and got a new phone. I was quite proud of myself as I went to the cell phone store alone and managed to communicate effectively enough. They were super nice and helpful and they used their phones to translate everything for me. I also got a ton of free stuff - a towel, a baking dish, heat packs, wet tissues, a tissue dispenser. I also love that Korean phones come with two batteries, super helpful. Unfortunately, my friend Chris recently needed to get a new phone as well. I brought her there and they were just as awesome. Plus, they gave me two free phone cases and a four pack of paper towels as service (free stuff to keep customers happy and to get them to keep coming back) for bringing her to their store! Love it. It's very common for foreigners to sign up on a two year contract (you can't sign up one year) and then find someone to take over their contract when they leave. This is what we will both have to to next February, hopefully it won't be too much of a pain. Worry about that then though right? :)

I will leave you with two of Glenn's photos of the abandoned castle from when he went on a nice sunny day and was able to get inside. They do the castle way more justice than my photos!

<3

Jeju Island - Day 2

Originally we were supposed to leave to hike Hallasan at 5:30am, but thankfully our departure time got changed to 7am. We got up, got ready and headed to the bus - apparently just in time! We got onto the bus, Kellianne and Laura were still coming down from the room and they started to drive away! We quickly told them more people were coming, but had we waited up in the room for them we would have all been left behind. Also apparently no one told our room about there being breakfast and sandwich making for lunch beforehand. Luckily, knowing how much I love snacks, I already had water, apples, oranges and protein bars with me. We drove about an hour before we arrived. When we got off the bus we were given crampons in case it was really snowy on the mountain (and it was - thank goodness for crampons!)

The night before I got in touch with my friend Glenn (who I met at Korea Burn) and he came out to hike with us. We met him at the beginning of the trail. Hiking was great, as I say so often, I love being in the trees!! Naturally, because hiking is one of the most popular things to do in Korea, the trails were packed! A lot of the time we were hiking in a line up the mountain. There was so much snow too! You really had to make sure you stayed on the path otherwise you'd fall almost shoulder height in/under the snow. We saw this happen a few times. When it started to get steep we put on our crampons and those did wonders. 

Laura and I at the beginning of the hike

Glenn

At our first rest stop

The view - almost at the top!

We made it to the top and saw this beautiful crater/bowl.

Glenn and I at the top 

A theme of this whole weekend was just non-informed, disorganized everything. When we were dropped off, we were told that if we didn't want to hike the whole 7 hour trek that we could head back down hang out in the restaurant and the bus would be there at 3. So naturally I figured we would be going back down the way we came up! Nope! We went down a completely different way, that made us end up in a different parking lot so I hope no one went back down the same way. 

Hiking down was much more difficult in the snow and a bit scary. It was slippery, even with the crampons. A lot of the people in the group I was with slid on their butts most of the way down, at least the parts you could do that. I was determined not to do that as I didn't want to be soaked all day long. There were parts when we went down where Korean hikers lost their footing and slid down the mountain taking people out with them and a lot of the time we were on the sides of cliffs!!! As well, most of you know I have bad knees and they were killing me going down and the cold probably didn't help either. Glenn was a trooper though and went at my sad hobbling pace despite being a person who treks all the time and has done month long treks in Nepal. Needless to say I felt a bit ridiculous, but I was in a lot of pain. Also, at some points there should have been rope to hold on to but they were buried under the snow. And it's too bad that I can only paint a small image for you of the conditions! Going down was way more gorgeous than going up though!

If you expand the picture below, you can see people off in the distance in the snow. We made it down there eventually. What a beautiful day though!!

Basically after this part, I was in too much pain to stop and take pictures, I just wanted to be off the mountain! That makes it sound like I didn't enjoy, which is farthest from the truth, it was a beautiful hike and I'm so glad I did it! 

Afterwards, on our itinerary there was an option to go to Loveland. You would think this would mean we would go back to the pension, shower and whoever wanted to go would leave. Nope! Straight from Hallasan, after hours of hiking, and now everyone is sweaty and wet, we were driven to Loveland. Really we were finding out that the optional events weren't really optional. Optional meant you did it or sat on the bus. Hallasan and Loveland were the two things I wanted to do most on Jeju, so I was happy to go, but would have been happier to have showered and changed first. 

Loveland. Loveland is one of Korea's sex museums - seems outrageous considering Korea is incredibly conservative. But here in Jeju, there is a park full of sex sculptures, a sex shop and even a whole display of miniatures. The pictures seem really inappropriate to post, so you can check out my one picture on Instagram from there, or you can see the album privately just ask! Here are two to give you an example, but these are quite tame. 

The entrance to the park

There are also a lot of interactive statues that you can pose with. For example:

After Loveland, we got dropped off in downtown Jeju for two hours to have dinner - are you kidding?! We are still wet and in our hiking gear. "I know that some of you want to shower but it would be a waste of time." - What?! We ate pizza quickly then cabbed back to the pension. Hilarious actually. The cab driver didn't want to take us to the pension (typical for foreigners) - how do you get what you want in Korea? Be cute and whine in your most girly voice. I won and we made it back to the pension. It was such a relief to finally shower! We thought about heading back into town for drinks but ended up having drinks with several other people from our group in our pension room and playing card games. It was a good night to a great day!

<3