Jeju Island for Chuesok weekend

It is wednesday morning and I'm back to school. I was suppose to be teaching this morning...so I thought, but in true South Korean last minute change of plans fashion...I am not teaching my first two classes...not sure if at all. Anyways...classes are too big and they are splitting them...hope they split those two little trouble makers in the same grade 3 class...haha. They have split my the grade 3,4,5 classes. There were 2 classes of each, now there are three. We had 52 grade fours....makes sense. I will still be teaching the same number of classes, only less open classes. 20 hours of teaching or 20 classes of 40 minutes (the balance is for planning of course). So I have textbook classes which is following curriculum and I have open classes which I get to decide what to do. So now, less open and more curriculum....oh well. So it goes.

Ellen and I got back yesterday from our getaway to Jeju island. It is referred to as the Hawaii of Asia....I have not been to Hawaii...but I don't think they compares in scenery, but it is a volcanic island. It was created by volcanic eruption nearly 2 million years ago. Very popular honeymooning spot for Koreans as well as Japanese and it is volcanic, so I believe those are the links to Hawaii...although in its own way....Jeju island is very beautiful...and we obviously only got to see some parts of it. It is only about 190km to travel around the island, but travelling by bus, we did see a fraction of what is there to see.

We left Mokpo on Saturday morning around 9:00am to take our 4 hour boat trip. Here is our route.

Great ferry ride over. There was a group of 11 of us who had planned on going. Some had left Friday as they had the day off, and others were leaving with us. We also ran into Barry and Lisa who are from Guelph and actually Lisa is the older sister of one of Emma's friends. We had had dinner with them a week earlier, but had no idea they were going to be on the boat with us to Jeju.

There we are above just catching up after running into each other. We also ran into our other friends who met during orientation. We thought we were buying seats, but no....when you buy your $29 one way ticket....it is for this kind of space:

Yep....pick your floor space. It was nice though...you could actually lay down. We had made no plans together, so when we arrived at Jeju-si (city) Ellen and I went on our own to explore. I had found an Indian restaurant online....yeah I know...of all the things, but I was dying to have some indian food....so here is Ellen digging in....we came really close to not finding this place as my hand drawn map with no street names, was well....vague. We had the cab drop us off at a coffee joint that was my reference point....luckily we ran into a foreigner that seemed local to the island...and pointed us in the right direction. Yummy....How brutal is it that we come to Korea on this island that is renowned for its black pig and seafood and we eat indian?....oh well.

After our meal, we decided to call and find out what hotel finding the others had been up to. Turns out, they were 30 minutes away and had found a pension within walking distance from the beach....sounds good....11 people in two rooms for 9 bucks a piece.....sign us up!! Soon after...here we are with a bunch of friends. We are at Hyeobjae Beach which is about 20 km West of Jeju city. We were between land and Biyangdo Island which you see out there.

See that group of people out there...that's our gang. The water was awesome. We are in the South Sea or East China Sea. South sea if you are from Korea. Same with Sea of Japan in Korea is known as the East sea. Well....no complaints. Gorgeous night. You should have seen the faces of the Korean dads when the girls got down to the bikinis. There were other people on the beach, but no one in the suits except for a couple kids. Adults were fully clothed...some were in to their waists....but in jeans. They are REALLY scared of the sun. We have lots of sunscreen during the day, but c'mon....it's 6:00pm at night.

After swimming and dinner, we were off for some rest. The next day had us taking a hike up the highest peak in South Korea....Mt. Hallasan. 1950m above....of which we would only make it to 1700m as the trails required close to 8 hours of hiking and we were not up for that. We did 9.4km total in 4.5 hours....most of which was stairs...let me tell you....our calves are killing us this morning. Of course....the highest elevation also brings precipitation. It started to pour when we go to within 10 minutes from the start point. Here is Ellen with her $1.50 rain coat having a $1.00 ramen bowl for breakfast.

The hike started off great. Here we are all decked out at the start. We then hiked up stairs for about 3 km's. It was pretty dark as the forest is dense....and it was raining on and off.

The hike was pretty challenging. Check out the over 2km of stairs we had to climb in the forest before it opened up.

Just when you thought things were getting a little long, we got to an opening and there was some fresh water for us to cool down with. We had brought our own water, but this was very cold and very refreshing.

The rest of the hike to the peak station, was in the open...but have a look at the rocks we had to walk across...there were also some wooden pathways, but for the most part we were walking on rocks....welcome break from the stairs though.

The views were really nice, with little streams cutting across the openings in the valleys. We....Ellen also spotted 4-5 partridges that were walking in the bushes. No pics...sorry.

We also had a friendly Korean fellow take a picture of us.

We realize this is not the 1700m marker, but is was really cloudy/windy/rainy at the top rest point. Here is Ellen at the 1600m marker....we did make it to the top...the ramen that was one dollar at the bottom cost two at the top!!!

After the hike...we were pretty exhausted. We ran to the bus station to grab our bus....the damned thing just went by without even stopping. We had to wait another hour for it.....we were in the middle of the road when it came an hour later!!

We made it to Seogwipo that night and stayed in a very nice room for $50. We splurged, but needed the rest. For dinner we had a medium pizza and a whole smoked chicken for the low price of $16. Low key night after dinner..

The next day we had to be back for the boat by 3:30pm. We got to see a water fall before we left. That was it.

We had an awesome weekend. We were back home on Monday night and still had Tuesday off. We spent the day cleaning up, doing groceries and doing some cooking. I had been given a box of fresh figs before the weekend by my co-teacher. We made cookies and also some salsa. We also ate a bunch of them....they were so good. Never had a fresh fig before. So ends our weekend at Jeju island!