Jeju Island - Day 1

Over Lunar New Year, I took the opportunity to spend my four days off on Jeju Island. Jeju Island is an island off the southern part of Korea, said to be like Hawaii in the summer. I had originally wanted to fly down, but flights were expensive due to it being the holiday. Instead, I found a group that was going down for cheaper so signed up with them. Laura and Cam joined in as well.

We left Wednesday at 11:45pm. The pick up spot was crowded with people as several other groups going and doing various things were also leaving at the same time. Our bus came and we tried to get comfy for the 6 hour drive down to Wando Island where we would then take a ferry over to Jeju. We quickly made friends with those sitting around us - Kellianne, Ben, and Andrew. Kellianne came on her own, but is teaching in Korea. Ben and Andrew are friends from home in New York, Andrew is teaching in Korea, Ben just finished teaching in China and came to Korea to visit before heading to Taiwan to teach and study. The people you meet on these trips are super interesting and they are not always English teachers which is fun. We were all given travel pillows which was awesome! I didn't sleep well on the bus, more realistically I had a few naps. During one of them I dreamt that we couldn't get on the ferry for some reason and had to turn around and make the long drive back to Seoul. Luckily that didn't happen.

We arrived at the ferry terminal between 6-7am. We loaded off the bus, gathered our bags and carried boxes inside to wait for the ferry that wouldn't depart until 9am. Everything is based on first come first serve so we had to get there early. We hung out, ate breakfast and waited. Breakfast was apples, bananas, white bread, sliced cheese and peanut butter (there were no utensils so I finally went and found chopsticks to scoop out the peanut butter cause I really wanted it!)

Finally we made it onto the ferry! The ride was only about an hour and unlike ferries in BC, there were assigned seats.

Andrew, Ben and Kellianne in the back. Laura, myself and Cam up front on the ferry.

Leaving Wando Island.

It was super exciting to finally get onto Jeju Island around 11am, after travelling since the night before! As we exited the terminal we were given free Jeju water and Jeju chocolate. 

First we headed to Yongduam to check out the lava rock, the ocean and the dragon head shaped rock. We were given free time here to explore and have lunch. 

I couldn't get over how blue the water was here!

This was a rock explaining the dragon head shaped rock. Initially we thought that this rock was supposed to look like a dragon head and felt very confused because as you can see it's just a rock. Later we discovered that it's actually a lava rock in the ocean and you need to be something like 30ft away and looking at it from the southeast at a certain time of tide in order to actually see it.

These statues were everywhere around the island! I was curious about them and learned that they are called dolhareubang or "stone grandfather". From what I have read and heard, they are a symbol of health and are supposed to help fertility or ensure the sex of your child. Some have their hands the opposite way, so if you want a girl you are supposed to touch a certain one, if you want a boy you touch the other. 

Being by the ocean, we were only able to find seafood restaurants. This is a baby octopus dish and we also had mackerel. I tried both (!!) but ate rice mostly. 

Here is the video of me eating baby octopus for the first time. It was rubbery and squishy and hard to chew. 

After lunch, we headed to a place for optional horse back riding which sounded cool at first, but after getting more details about it, no one wanted to do it and yet they brought us there anyways. It was around $10 to ride a horse for two laps around a track. So sad. We show up, it looks pretty sad, the horses look sad, they lower the price so that people will ride, some do, I don't. Laura and I did feed the horses some carrots though. In the second picture, I am standing with Warren Kim, the organizer of the trip. 

After our short, strange visit we left to see the Bijarim Forest which was beautiful and it was so nice to be amongst the trees. There were figs trees too which reminded me of home. 

What was strange though was that the trees all had cement inside of them?

So pretty!

Our last stop for the day was at the Manjang Cave which is said to be the longest lava tube in the world. It was very cool but the pictures didn't turn out super well cause it was so dark but here is one of a lava pillar at the end.

At this point in the day it had to be about 5 or 6pm. We were all pretty exhausted since we travelled all night and did all of these awesome things during the day. We headed to our pension which had such a beautiful view of the ocean. That night, Andrew, Ben, Cam and Kellianne had a siesta while Laura and I had a siesta strike. Once they woke up we went to look for food and ended up eating at the restaurant in our pension. I was so hangry at this point but food did me well. That night we hung out in our room and went to bed early as we would be up early to hike Hallasan. In the process of the night, I managed to slam my finger in our door which cause sooo much pain!

Annddd our view (each room had this balcony view):

<3

Caffe Pawz

Two weekends ago now, Chris and I decided to spend the day doing something fun and relaxing before going out that night. Our first stop was in Migeum where I took this photo with a statue:

It was also the first day it has rained in a long time, despite not raining very much. Our first stop was Juno Hair. I haven't had my hair cut since last summer and decided it was time. I probably blogged about Juno Hair when I got my first hair cut here, but I will say it again. They sure do hair cuts right. Not only is the place classy looking, you are served beverages and snacks, have people put your stuff in lockers and hold robes for you to get into, get your hair washed with the best head massage and to top it off she completely styled and curled my hair when she was done cutting it. The service there, especially the Migeum location is just amazing, all for 25,000 won ($25). Needless to say, I left feeling great. 

Afterwards we headed to Gangnam where we ate delicious Indian food at BaBa India then headed to our main destination of the day - a dog cafe! While I feel like Japan is more well known for their unique cafes, Korea has quite a few itself. There are dog cafes, cat cafes, sheep cafes, wedding dress cafes among others. What is a dog cafe? Basically the concept is that you go buy coffee and hang out with a bunch of dogs. You can buy treats to give to them too (which obviously attracts them to you even more). While it may seem odd, living in a world where you don't see too many animals on a day to day basis, it was nice to just spend a day with loving dogs. The one we went to in particular was Caffe Pawz.

Some of the cute dogs we got to hang out with

This one in particular was our sidekick for the day

My only hope would be that the next dog cafe that I go to will have large dogs! Koreans are known for loving small dogs, but to play with a lab or golden retriever would be pretty great. And although I am not a huge cat fan, I will likely check out a cat cafe for the experience, and will definitely be going to the sheep cafe! 

Just as an aside - last week on the Bachelor, of all places they went to South Korea! It was a neat episode to watch as I have been to several of the places that were shown on the show. For example, here with the statue of King Sejong. 

Of course you begin to understand things about a country and culture when you live in it, so it was a funny episode to watch, seeing the reactions of the Korean people who were filmed and being able to pick out small details like "indoor shoes" that may have gone unnoticed to others. 

Finally, this past weekend was Lunar New Year in Korea, also known as Seollal. This means that I had a three day work week and a four day weekend! I took this opportunity to go to Jeju Island (Jeju-do as shown on the map). It was a weekend filled with adventure and I enjoyed the much needed break and excitement! A post on the weekend will follow :)

 Happy New Year!
<3

Philippines - New Years!

We arrived back in Puerto Princesa on New Years Eve. We had already booked our accommodation at the Lotus Garden, so we checked in and relaxed for a bit. Sarah and I decided to go for a walk to the market we had been to earlier in the week to grab some last minute souvenirs while Chris took a nap. We came across a spa and decided to get a manicure and pedicure as well. It's New Year's, why not, right?

Matchy matchy!

I asked the staff at Lotus Garden if the city would be doing anything for New Years. We were told the if we went down to the Baywalk near the water there would be a countdown there or we could stay and celebrate with the staff at Lotus Garden. We opted to go to the Baywalk. We all got ready in our room while watching American TV (so bizarre!) and then ate at the restaurant there. We knew that Nate, Chuck and Elliot would be back in Puerto Princesa that night as well, but the Lotus Garden didn't have a great wifi connection so we weren't sure if we would get to meet up with them. 

We took a trike down to the Baywalk and felt a little out of place being (from what we saw) the only foreigners there. They had a huge tree set up, as well as a stage where people were performing. We witnessed a horrible performance of "What did the fox say". They also had a big digital countdown set up and we decided to stick around. We sat along the path next to the water and guess who we spotted? - Nate, Chuck and Elliot! We all grabbed some beer then headed closer to the countdown clock as it was almost time! They were with another couple (whose names escape me) so we hung out with them as well. It was a bit of a weird experience for me to celebrate New Year's without certain friends but it was still a blast. 

As soon as the clock struck midnight, fireworks went off literally above our heads. It was so cool to be that close but also a bit freaky because pieces of the fireworks were falling at our feet! Happy New Year! 

We then sat down for a bit and had some more beer. This was when the guys decided that they would try a Filipino food - Balut, which is chicken egg fetus. Each of them were given an egg and told to crack it open and just swallow and chew. It was disgusting. You could tell it wasn't easy for all of them to do, but the Filipino people around us cheered and laughed them on. 

We eventually headed back to the Lotus Garden and headed to bed to get ready for a long day of flying home the next morning. 

Here are some pictures of our room at the Lotus Garden - which I must add, had an outdoor bathroom - so amazing! If I ever live somewhere that is warm all of the time, I must have an outdoor bathroom. Amazing.

The next morning we walked to the airport and got on our first flight. We had a stopover for a couple of hours then took another flight to Cebu. Then took one last final flight to Incheon, Korea. It was a long day of flying but these flights seemed better then the ones going to the Philippines. A few shorter flights verse a 12 (?) hour layover. For one of our flights we were on a propeller plane!

Last leg of the trip

Thankfully we got back into Incheon with enough time to catch the last bus back to Suji (this saved us from taking an expensive cab ride). We were all pretty exhausted, Chuck and I were hungry. So after dropping my things off I headed to his apartment and he made us food and we watched TV. I am lucky to have made so many great friends here. Back to work the next day! 

While this vacation was nothing like I thought it would be, I would not change it for anything. It was filled with so many ridiculous moments and so much fun and laughter. So many moments that I will never forget. I had such a great time with Chris and Sarah and all of the other people we met throughout our adventure. 

 <3