Must say that I was/am terribly impressed with my navigational/direction following skills in getting us where we needed to go the entire time, starting from getting us from the airport to our first stop: Tori's pad. After a chill evening, some reorganizing, bag changing, and repacking, then a nice laid back morning and midday with just the three of us girls, H and I headed back to the airport to depart for Jeju-do, South Korea--the Korean Maui.
Jeju is the most popular and largest island in Korea. It is a very common Korean honeymoon destination, not to mention a real treat of a place for a couple of foreigner girls to kick around in for a few days. There was diving slated for the schedule to consume most of the day Sunday but Mother Nature had other plans. That lovely, bi-polar nag ordered up a fresh plate of the rainy season special of typhoon pooh-pooh platter and had it sent straight to our table! Thanks for that Mother N, but next time, I'll place my own order! But, the double overhead waves raging in the bay with all the fishing boats tucked neat and safely in the harbor was a very photographable sight indeed. Also appreciated the fact that Mother N asked the cook to hold the rain on our typhoon platter so that we could walk around the area and photograph and just stretch our legs and talk and be.
After footin it around from about 8:30am to just after noon, we decided to find us a scooter shop and secure some wheels to venture out and cover more ground. The scooter was a lovely way to tour about the south side of the island. We got to see so much more this way, as we had a map, a guide book of cool things to see and do, a full tank of gas, a need to cruise along any coastal road we could find, and a desire to stop at whatever tickled our fancies as we buzzed by. Though the typhoon was still in full effect all day, we tossed it little care or thought, except that it was creating beautiful waves as scenery for out cruise, on which we discovered a lovely waterfall, some pagodas, a couple of parks, some water lilies, tons of sea time, the costal road, a beach with the oddest, semi-quicksand, sandy beach we'd ever been on, and a family mart or two. It was a full and wonderful day on the south side of Jeju, to be concluded with a 120 minute massage from a very sweet Korean lady at one of the oddest massage places I've ever visited.
We woke Monday morning expecting to dive, as the bay was hardly cracking a white cap. YES! Only to find that after we had already returned the scooter, packed our bags, and gotten all sea worthied up (in swim wear) that the diving was again cancelled. Gutted. So with no scooter, no room, and no plan, we asked to be allowed to change quickly in our room and then we headed for the bus to take us to the north side of the island to the main city, Jeju-si (Jeju City).
The bus ride was on a winding and mountainous road with beautiful scenery, perfect company, and excellent weather. No rain. Lots of sun. Not too hot, not too cool with the windows open and the air tossing our hair about as we laughed and rocked out to some great tunes.
We decided to go with the flow we had already set up on the south side of the island, so we found a place to stay, dropped off our bags, then headed to find us another scooter. We could not help but notice that this day was not going nearly as well as the previous day had though. There was one snag after another which we both continued to shrug off and keep on truckin until we could no longer hold our tongues as the last snag landed us with a scooter that wouldn't start, sitting in the corner of a tire/oil change station, in full sun, with hot, hot temps, and a couple of sour attitudes but a surprising ability to laugh about it all!
Once we got a functioning scooter in our temporary possession, we decided to leave our bad juju with our busted ass scooter and have a good day! So we headed out to see some of the many things we had circled on our map. We found yet another beach (surprising since we were on an island, eh?) but this time we could not help but get in. Then we found a remarkably peaceful and beautiful Buddhist temple that would not allow us to do a temple stay (stay the night and see how the monks live for 24ish hours) but did permit us to photograph and also fed us. Then we headed to a lovely little land called Love Land. It is a VERY popular Korean "park" if you will, filled with statues of everything sexual, everything naked, nude, in coitus, or sensual in some way. And it is considered to be very serious art, so the two foreigner white girls giggling through the whole thing, the only non couple in the whole place, yeah, we didn't stand out at all! It was a real hoot!
The remainder of our time on Jeju was spent nursing my ridiculously sunburnt self, finding more water and beaches, enjoying some good food, meeting new people, enjoying good company, and visiting the last few sites still circled on our now terribly ripped and tattered map. One of such was the 4/3 Peace Park, a monument, museum, and tribute to the tragedy, violence, and bloodshed that befell Jeju around the time of the separation of North and South Korea. Then before we knew it, it was time to return our scooter, pack our bags, and head back to the airport to make our way to the mainland again.
We arrived in Seoul (the capital of and largest city in Korea) on Wednesday afternoon and were ready to see what it had to offer up for us! I had met a friend of a friend the month before who lives in Seoul, so I called him up to see if he wanted to play tour guide and destination recommender. He was more than happy to oblige and the three of us had a ball together going out and shakin our groove thangs on the dance floor and checkin out both new and old hot spots in the cool, hip, trendy areas. We also scored with out accommodations: a quaint traditional Korean guesthouse with a lovely central garden area and no other guests! We spent a lot of time walking, getting lost, getting found, taking the subway, meeting new friends, drinking coffee, and being thankful for the peace and connection of it all. But by the time that Saturday rolled around and it was time to make our way back home to Geoje, we were more than ready to not be living out of backpacks and I was ready to show H MY bit of Korea!
So we packed our things, boarded the fast train, a bus (which not funny to you, was HILARIOUS to us, as we rode it for over an hour and a half to get to our 25 minutes away destination!), took a quick sleep at Tori's, then another bus, a taxi ride (spread over some five and half hours total of travel) later we arrived at the door of my apartment, my home, here on Geoje. My little slice of Korean Heaven. And it seemed so interesting to me how happy and thankful I was to be home to a place that is my home away from. Home. Sweet. Home.
And back to work the next day (Monday).
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| A bar in Jeju-si! |
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