Chuseok in Jeju!

After being disappointed by the fact that LITERALLY all flights from Seoul to Tapei (and vice versa) were sold out a month in advance, I happened to notice that a tour company that caters to foreigners living in South Korea had scheduled a trip to Jeju Island.  So Jeju it was.  I enlisted Colin as my trusty travel companion.

I've been meaning to visit Jeju for a while.  In fact, I had originally wanted to teach on Jeju before coming to Korea, but I changed my mind once I decided I didn't want to work for a private institution.

Anyway, Jeju is THE getaway destination for Korean families.  I saw recently somewhere that the flight frequency between Seoul and Jeju is the highest flight frequency of any two destinations IN THE WORLD.  So yea...it's a popular place to go.

Jeju is stunningly beautiful.  I've been telling everyone at my school that it is one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited.  No exaggeration.

After a less-than-enjoyable cramped over night bus ride to Mokpo from Daejeon, we got on the 8:00 a.m. ferry.  Some people started the party early with some beers, but many of us just laid down on the deck and basked in the sun to try and recover from our severe lack of sleep.  Once on the island and checked in to our pension, we went directly to the beach.  We stayed at Hamdeok Beach, which is renowned for it's clear blue water.  I really liked the location because it was relatively isolated.

Colin and I ended up in a pension with about 7 other guys.  We lucked out big time because they were all really cool and a lot of fun.  We are keeping in touch with a couple of them.

After spending some time on the beach, we eventually moved to a seaside restaurant to have Jeju's famous black pig.  According to Wikipedia, "[the] pork is smoked over burning hay allowing the smoke to penetrate the meat juices resulting in a flavour quite unlike regular pork and a meat that is somewhat chewier."  The black pig is famous, 40 and more years ago, these black pigs were used to clean up human waste.  That is, they were housed beneath latrines, and they uh...ate shit.  The fact that they are no longer fed human crap has led some to believe that the flavor of their meat has also changed...haha.

The next day, we took a trip to Udo, which is a neighboring island.  Before boarding the ferry to Udo, we stopped at an inactive volcano called Seongsan Ilchulbong.  We were all quite hungover, so the hike up Seongsan Ilchulbong was a bit difficult, but it was worth.  It was a beautiful area, and since it lies right in the Korean Strait, we had a beautiful view of the sea.

We were scheduled to rent ATVs, scooters, or bikes to ride around the beautiful coast of Udo.  Most people got set up right away, but a group of us was taken to a different store, because the original store had ran out of ATVs and scooters.  However, once we got to the new place, they told us that we needed international licenses to drive them.  Luckily, the original store ended up getting some scooters back in the time that we wasted at the second store.  Not sure why, if the original store was working together with the second store, they would not have established the fact that they had different policies when it comes to renting out their rides.  Anyway, this was the only shitty part of the trip, and we got over it as soon as we were riding around the coast on our scooter!  Yea!

We spent about three hours going around the island.  We stopped for lunch and photo opportunities.

After Udo, we went to this incredible cave (called the Volcano Tube(?)) that seemed to go on forever and ever.  It was pretty incredible, but I think we were all so exhausted from the full day of activities that no one was very enthusiastic about it. 

We took it pretty easy that night, because we planned on hiking Korea's tallest mountain, Mt. Halla, the next day!

We ended up with quite a crew for Hallasan.  There was close to 20 of us who braved the mighty Hallasan that day.  We were clearly not the only ones with that idea, because the entrance was absolutely swarming with Koreans.

(side note: one thing that I think I've failed to mention in the past is that with any sort of outdoors activity (hiking, biking, camping...you name it), Koreans go absolutely all out when buying gear.  For example, when I got hiking, I normally wear a shitty old t-shirt, a smelly bandana, my hiking/running/yoga pants, my hiking boots, my shitty old backpack, and my cheap plastic sunglasses.  When Koreans go hiking, they have matching hiking shirts and pants, backpack, and hat, designer sunglasses, hiking poles, and of course, top of the lines hiking boots.

I often reference this segment from Portlandia when I think about Koreans and their outdoor gear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3SFqV0hMyo

Hilariously enough, I forgot my hiking pants, so I went hiking in my swimsuit.  I must say that our ragged looking group of foreigners garnered some amused expressions from the decked out Koreans around us.)

Unfortunately, the trail up Hallasan wasn't quite as scenic as I was expecting.  We were surrounded by forest almost all the way up.

Once at the summit, we took a much needed rest, took some group pictures, and shared a small bottle of soju before descending.  The descending trail was MUCH more scenic than the one up, which were all most pleased about.

All in all, it took about 7 hours to complete the 9.6 km up and 8.7 km down.

After getting cleaned up back at our pension, one of the guys in our room said that he remembered there being an incredibly good Indian restaurant.  Once again, we weren't the only ones with that idea.  It seemed like more than half of our tour group showed up to Indian restaurant for dinner.  Luckily, we were some of the first people there, so we got a table, but a lot of people had to wait.  It was really excellent food, I must say.

After dinner, we moved to a bar called, I kid you not, The Bar.  They served some of the stiffest and biggest drinks that I've been served in Korea.  No complaints there!  After a couple drinks there, we moved to a dance club called Larva.  It was super fun and the DJs were playing great dance music.  However, after a while it got quite crowded.  A group of us headed to a noraebang later in the night, and then we ended the night after that.

The next day, instead of going on a two hour tour of a couple places that didn't look too interesting, we elected to spend the afternoon on the beach.  We had gotten barely any beach time in before, and I wasn't about to miss out on that.

After that, we jumped on the ferry from Jeju to Mokpo.  We spent the night in Mokpo and then headed back to Daejeon the next morning.

Overall, one of the best experiences I've had in Korea, and one of the best trips I've ever taken!  Idon't know if I'll have an opportunity to go back to Jeju, but I would love to!