First Day in Cheju-do

Actually, that title is only half right. It's my first "full" day in Cheju and since the romanization was standardized, Cheju should be spelled "Jeju."

Yesterday started out well. I got the 11:15 bus and was fortunate to be stuck at the back of it. Fortunate for two reasons: One is that in Korea, even if all the seats are gone, they still sell tickets. After all, there's a lot of space in the aisle! Seems like they should discount the normally $5 tickets to the airport then, but alas. Such was the case yesterday but being in the back, I had a step-up to the last row to sit on and said last row was fully occupied by English speakers. Yay!

The hour ride wasn't bad since I had two American guys, a South African girl and her parents to talk to. Since they even happened to be on the same flight, we checked in together and had coffee before being scattered about the plane in different seats. The flight was surprisingly short, giving me only enough time to read a couple of newspaper articles before I was being told to turn my ipod off to prepare for landing.

Once we arrived, we parted ways and I managed to find a bus that would take me to the main bus terminal in Cheju City. Once there, and using my handy dandy map, I walked all the way to the coastline where the boardwalk is and where I'm staying(which was a lot farther than I thought). Of course, I did take a detour to see the famed "Dragon's Head Rock," which was a rock shaped like a dragon's head, nothing more, so I'm glad I got that done early.

Since it was still early evening, I rented a bike and took to the road. I biked up a local mountain to get some pictures of a lighthouse on the hill and a few other interesting things. I got a sandwich at a local cafe later on and watched a free outdoor concert, which was really good.

I made my way to the sauna where I'm staying and after some time in the hot tub, settled in for the night, which wasn't particularly comfortable, but not horrible. For $7 and 3 hot tubs, who cares, right? :P

This morning, after a light breakfast, I took a taxi to the terminal and a bus from there to Hyeopjae Beach and Hallim Park. After a couple hours on the beach, I explored the park, which was actually really nice(pictures to follow on facebook).

This evening, I caught another free concert and met a random man along the boardwalk. One odd thing about Jeju is that so many people want to talk to me. I've had as many people talk to me in one day as my whole time in Osan. :P

So this fellow starts talking to me and tells me he works at a bank and then proceeds to introduce me to his family and his friend and his friend's family. lol He was fishing off the boardwalk for squid and promised me one if he caught it. I assured him that wasn't necessary. He's absolutely determined to do something together now, though. He wanted to provide his car and take a day trip to somewhere on the island but I told him I already had plans but that we could meet for dinner if he'd like. Now he seems determined for me to try real Jeju food. lol

Tomorrow is my trip to Udo, which I'm most excited about out of the things that I planned to do while I'm here. Hopefully my camera battery will hold up. hehe
I'll keep you up to date.

More than two months...

Wow, I can't believe it's been more than two months since I last blogged. It's kind of hard to remember all the things that went on during that period. It's quite warm here but not unbearingly so. We've entered the rainy season so it's wise to never leave home without an umbrella, though I often do. :P

Speaking of two months, I have only two months left in Korea. 7 1/2 weeks to be exact and I'm counting down the days, marking each one off on the calendar. I've already started looking for jobs and hope to have something lined up by the time I get home. Really looking forward to being back with my family and American friends hanging out at American cafes. Not sure if I'll remember how to order a coffee in English, though. :P

Right now I'm just trying to keep myself busy to pass the time by preparing for upcoming last minute trips I want to get in before going back to the States. The first of which will be to Cheju-do, a semi-tropical island off the southern coast of Korea. I've got a three day vacation starting Friday and ending Tuesday and am gonna spend my whole time there just relaxing on the beach, doing some biking, shopping, etc. It was on my list of things to do while in Korea and I'm really glad our schools short Summer vacation allows me to do it.

After that, I'm gonna give the USO a call and try to arrange a tour to the DMZ before I go. It's another thing that was high on my list to do and the window of opportunity is rapidly closing as I have 7 available Saturdays to schedule it on.

Finally, and the trip that will require the most planning, will be my end-of-contract celebratory trip to Japan. After my contract ends, I'm planning on taking a three of four day trip to Japan to do some sightseeing and experience the culture before leaving Asia. I will be returning to Korea one last time, though, in order to pick up my luggage, since I really don't want to be lugging my current household items all over Tokyo. It will give me a chance to say my final goodbyes and spend a little bit of time with friends, since I have to work just about right up until my departure date.

So those are my current plans and happenings in a nutshell. I also should mention that I've gotten on a much better sleeping schedule. I've been playing basketball in the mornings with a couple of older students at 9:30 so I've been getting to bed around 1 to 1:30 and getting up at 9, as opposed to my previous 4:00 to 12:00 sleeping pattern. I have to admit that I feel much better.

I'll try to keep this updated more frequently, since interesting things happen fairly regularly but are soon forgotten thanks to my genetically-inherited memory-deficient brain.