Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Jeju-do: Part Two (long overdue)

I did Jeju-do Part One three months ago, and now I'm supposed to do Part Two.

Our second day in Jeju-do we took a ferry to a smaller island, called Udo.  It's supposed to be named for the Korean word for cow, because the island is shaped like a cow.  We rented bikes and rode around the island. We stopped for lunch on the beach, and saw the Biggest Jellyfish Ever.  I didn't even know jellyfish got so big.  It was dead, on the beach.

We rode our bikes around these small streets and houses.  The vast majority of people in Korea live in apartments in cities, and they're very homogeneous looking.  They look like what I would imagine Soviet Russia housing to look like.  So I like seeing more traditional housing.  One of the distinctive things about Jeju-do is rock walls they build with volcano rocks to protect houses from the weather.  

On Udo we also saw an empanada stand, which was unexpected.  We stopped there to get an empanada and talk to the woman who owned the place.  She was from Chile, and the other woman working there were Korean, so we had a jumbled conversation of English, Korean, and Spanish.  

When we came back from Udo we saw some women divers.  Jeju-do is famous for these women who dive for shellfish.  It's an old tradition, that has, somewhat predictably, been dying out.  

That night we camped on the beach.  We were planning to climb up Sunrise Peak at sunrise the next morning, so we didn't bother with the tent, and just rolled out our sleeping bags and slept in the glow of the lights from Asia's largest aquarium, with a view of Sunrise Peak in the distance.  


We woke up early the next morning to hike Sunrise Peak.  I thought that maybe the view would be foggy and not that great, but the mist burned off and it was a really lovely sunrise that we shared with about 300 Koreans.  

After sunrise we went for a walk in a chestnut forest, then we went to Manjanggul Cave, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  The cave was formed from a lava flow, and it's so big inside it looks like a subway tunnel.  This picture shows one of the giant stalagmites in it.  

That night we headed back to the city, returned the rental car, and stayed in the same hotel that we did the first night.  We flew out the next morning.  It was a really nice, relaxing trip, and we got to see a lot of things.  


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