August 3rd, 2009

Now to catch up on my last full day in Jeju.

When I got up in the morning, it was raining so I figured I would just explore some local museums and pick up some souvenirs. So after my daily cream-cheese bagel, my first stop was the local tourist information center. Jeju tourism is definitely designed with Korean tourists in mind since none of them speak English. That doesn't affect me too much but the lady managing this location didn't know much about the city/area she's supposed to be expert on.

The first time I went I asked about tent rentals and lockers at Hyeopjae beach. She said both would be there and neither were. The second time I asked about where to buy tangerine wine, only found in Jeju, and she told me, "E-mart?" E-mart, like Lotte, is a huge grocery/supermart. Of course, when I went, the lady told me they didn't sell it. The lady didn't know enough to tell me that many of the souvenir shops hidden along a street near Dragon's Head Rock specializing in tangerine items sells it.

My last attempt(not sure why I tried again) was asking for recommendations on what to do since it was raining. She says, "museums." Yeah, that's great, but you're here to give me ideas on some good museums to visit so I can make a plan. So I ask her for local ones and she tells me the Jeju National Museum. Well, that's one of the local museums and one that I already knew about. But whatever, I headed to the local bike rental place(since the raining had subsided) where I had talked with the guy the first day I got to Jeju.

I rented the bike and biked the 20 to 30 minutes to find the museum which was towards the edge of the city only to find, to my dismay, that the museum is closed on Mondays. That would have been a really important piece of information for a tourist information to know about the biggest museum in Jeju. Yeah....

Also, after intially renting the bike, I made my way to the Dragon's Head Rock to the souvenir stores there and, on the way, ran into some other bikers. The first man said, "hello," in English and asked where I was from and where I was going. We parted ways but I passed them a short while later, they all waved and I passed them on the way back even later and they all waved and said "hello" again. I really enjoyed the friendliness of the people and other tourists there.

On my way back from the closed museum, my severely sunburnt back began to catch up with me. It started out as a slight itch until it progressed to the point where it started bringing back memories of when I burned my back so badly while canoing during a camping trip with my uncle and cousins.

There is no good way to describe the pain of a severe/blistering sunburn. I headed full speed to E-mart to find some aloe or lotion of some kind to relieve the severe pain and itching. After buying some, I went to the store's bathroom and into a stall to apply it to my back. Immediately after, however, the extreme suffering of that first time came back to haunt me. There is no way of describing the pain unless you have experienced it.

The itching is unbearable and yet unscratchable because of the severe pain that is sure to follow. The result is your body starts writing, in a sense, in that you get these involuntary movements and jerks as your body tries to cope with the pain without hurting yourself further. It's in those times that you ask God, "why me" and then regret not having a hotel room to go back to so you can writhe in private rather than in a bathroom stall. :P

Eventually, it settled down enough so that I could put my shirt back on and leave E-mart all the while trying to figure out how to distract my mind from the pain. I settled on McDonalds, since I hadn't eaten lunch yet, where a new adventure started.

In Jeju, for some reason, there are a lot of psychos. Like, psychos who walk around talking to people who aren't there. I saw at least three so I say a lot because that's three in three full days and more than I ever saw on the mainland, though there are people who are mentally retarded up here, just not psycho.

The first guy I saw was an old man with long white hair and a long white beard(like what a castaway on a desert island might look like). My attention was first drawn to him when he appeared to be calling some children playing on exercise equipment "b***ards" and yelling at them in intelligible Korean. He was riding on a fairly new-looking bike with a purse hanging from one handle and another bag from the other. I can only guess he stole them since he didn't look like a man of means, nor does a man typically carry a purse. After passing him, he showed up later walking along the sidewalk yelling at some guy who wasn't there, quite angrily, too.

I later saw another middle-aged man who was talking to someone who wasn't there in the same area.

And now back to McDonalds. After getting my meal and attempting to focus on my sandwich and not my back, there was an old haggard lady sitting at a table nearby eating. She was a bit fat, with curly dirty hair and a bag that she was carrying around. First, she yells "okay, blah blah" at me and I look over and she kind of nods at me. Next thing I know she's standing in front of me at my table and blabbering away in Korean, but I couldn't understand any of it. I managed to avoid eye contact while the Korean tourists next to me were both surprised and did nothing to help the poor foreigner. lol

She later returned to her seat to stare in front of her and talk to the invisible person who was sitting there.

After lunch, and since I already had my bike, I headed towards another tourist location, Samsunghyeol. It's supposed to be the oldest historical place in Jeju, representing the birth of civilization on Jeju Island. It's, like much of the island, steeped in legend and superstition. It was an interesting trip but it took me a while to find it. My back had started feeling a bit better from the cool breeze and so I accidentally overdid it in my quest to find it and began sweating.

That sent my back into a painful frenzy and, after getting my ticket and going in, was unable to look at any of the exhibits with any kind of clarity and, instead, ended up laying on a park bench praying for relief. After it settled down a bit, I was able to take a few pictures and decided just to head back to the sauna and soak in the cool pool.

However, once I got back downtown, I was feeling well enough to try out an interesting looking cafe that I stumbled upon to satisfy my coffee craving. It had quite a nice, relaxing atmosphere and a great menu with interesting coffees such as a cinnamon mocha and a caramel nut coffee. I got the latter and a cup of gelato and was pleasantly surprised by just how fantastic the coffee was, after being thoroughly disappointed by my first coffee in Jeju a few days earlier. I can easily say it was some of the best coffee I've had in Korea, the land where they tend to go heavy on milk and light on coffee when it comes to lattes and other specialty coffees.

I also used the free internet service and computers to devise a strategy on how to best deal with my aching back, which made me feel better just having the empowerment of information and a good strategy. I know, I'm strange that way.

On the way back to the coastal area of the city, I stopped in a souvenir store that I had passed earlier and even gone into the store next to it but had passed this one up. I'm glad I did, too. Earlier in the day, I had bought a small glass bottle of tangerine wine for $15 but it had been bouncing around on the back of my bike all day(yeah, not so smart) so I went in to see if he sold it but maybe a bit cheaper. He didn't have any in glass bottles but had some in bigger plastic bottles for $4 and with 7% alcohol content as opposed to the other bottle's 12%(I prefer the more mellow, sweeter taste of wines with lower alcohol content).

He asked me if I needed anything else. I said no but continued looking around at the locally-made soaps, perfumes, chocolates, etc. He began explaining them to me and after talking for about ten minutes, I walked out the door with the wine and a bottle tangerine vitamin c and b chewables. We had a great conversation and I really enjoyed it.

Next, I went to find some dinner. I walked along the main strip passing restaurant after restaurant specializing in seafood. I had almost decided on one where the people looked especially friendly when I came upon a Jeju pork restaurant. I decided to give it a try and went in and asked the lady if it was possible to order meat just for one person(some places don't serve single servings). She told me "no" but I later realized that she was telling me that one serving would be insufficient for a guy of my....muscular size and stature.

So I got 400 grams of meat(almost a pound), a bowl of rice, and various side dishes and more good conversation with the owner as she cooked the meat for me at the table. She was so surprised by my Korean that she asked how many "years" I had been in Korea. It was a very pleasant meal and when she had to attend to other customers, I ate my meat and watched an old Jackie Chan movie on the tv hanging in the corner.

After finishing, I immediately headed to the seaside arts center for the last concert of my time in Jeju. It started with a chorus group, continued with an orchestra-accompanied soprano, orchestra pieces(classical and movie themes), three tenors, two orchestra-accompanied trumpet solos and duets and finished with the three tenors. It was an enjoyable evening and my back had settled down sufficiently to allow me to really enjoy it.

When it finished, I picked up my belongings from the lockers at E-mart(where I put them every morning before starting my day) and caught a taxi back to the farther, but nicer, Dragon's Head Rock sauna location. After soaking in just the cool pool(couldn't handle the hot tub with a burned back), I headed to bed.

Now this sauna was a bit different than the one I stayed at the first two nights. There, I had slept on the floor in the movie room with about five other people who were relatively quiet but had not been tremendously comfortable. Here, there were many places on the floor to sleep but it also had a room full of bunkbeds, one for the men and one for the women. The first of my two nights there, I slept comfortably but was somewhat disturbed by snoring like I've never heard in my life. I mean, this guy even beat out my grandfather, which is tough to do, not to mention there were about three people snoring.

The second night, there was no snoring, but that was because no one could sleep because people kept going in and out and allowing the door to slam behind them with a loud crashing sound. This happened about 15 times and eventually you start hearing people around you cussing at the people going in and out or just swearing in general anger. Finally, someone got up and put something in the door to soften it when it was left to swing shut and I was able to get some much-needed sleep.

I slept in late Tuesday morning and gathered my things to prepare for my short trip to the airport. I headed outside and started walking along the coast just listening to the waves beat against the rocks and feeling the cool breeze when I passed a Kraze Burger with glass walls two stories high. I was hungry, wanted a burger, and thought the idea of a second floor window seat eating a hamburger while looking at the ocean was fantastic. Even better, I discovered free internet was available.

When I finished my burger, I stood outside for a while taking in my last view of the island ocean. Eventually, with nothing else to do, I flagged a taxi(Or he flagged me, not sure which. In Jeju, everytime a taxi passes you, he honks at you to let you know he's there and available.) and took the 7 minute, $3 drive to the airport. I was quite early and the line for check-in was almost nothing so I had plenty of time on my hands.

I was kind of hoping something would take a while to justify my early arrival. Something did but not in the way I was expecting. When I went through security, the lady looking at the screen called to one of the men while looking at my bag on the screen and said something about "wine." When I checked in, I had placed the bottle of wine in my check-in bag because it's a liquid but the man at the counter didn't recommend that since it is fragile and told me it was okay to take on board with me(apparently Koreans aren't rabid about the 2 ounce thing like the American government is). What I had forgotten, though, was that there was a bottle opener inside the wine box. It's a three-piece tool with a corkscrew, bottle opener and a small knife.

The man there asked me to follow him and we went down to a counter near the boarding gates and he handed it to the lady there who stuffed it in a padded envelope, gave me a receipt and told me it would be placed on the plane as a checked item. Wow, what a relief. I wasn't strip-searched, my bottle opener wasn't disposed of, and I wasn't placed on a terrorist watch list. Instead, they treated me like a customer who simply forgot to check an item. I'll take Korean security any day. :P

Anyway, arrived back home without incident and, after cleaning up my apartment and taking some clothes for dry-cleaning, spent the afternoon relaxing. I'm not too crazy about going to work today but I only have 6 and a half weeks left so I guess I can manage.

That's all for now, folks. :)

Yesterday, August 2nd

I'll fill you in first on yesterday, since I was too tired to blog last evening.

I got up a little bit late, and slept better than the previous night but still not fantastic since I was on the floor. After a bagel and a drink and Dunkin Donuts, I made my way to the bus terminal. Unfortunately, the bus left just before I got there so I had to wait another 50 minutes for the next one.

Eventually, I did manage to get a ride to Seongsan and after an hour and a half and a short chat with the friendly guy next to me, I arrived at Seongsan Ilchubong. Ilchubong is a mountain in the shape of a bowl and is left over from a volcanic eruption, which is what formed Jeju in the first place. It's quite a site from the top and gives a good view of Udo and Jejudo.

On the way there, I stopped in a little restaurant and got bean paste soup, Jeju style, with two shrimp in it. The mountain itself was quite a climb and I was completely sweaty by the time I reached the top. The view, however, was well worth it(and the sense of accomplishment ;) ).

With that out of the way, I started for the port, from whence I would take the boat to Udo. On the way there, I saw a few of the famed "hae-nyuh," or "sea women." At least, I think that's who they were. Jeju, and especially Udo, are well-known for their hae-nyuh, women divers who can hold their breath for over two minutes, dive to great depths and have a certain whistling sound they make when they emerge. Afterwards, they sell the fresh seafood to locals and passerbys.

I took the 15 minute ferry ride to Udo and was hoping to rent an ATV but, due to the long line, settled for a bike. I biked down the middle of the island and around the coast. It was quite beautiful and the weather couldn't have been better. Got some great pictures including a couple with me in it, one thanks to a friendly Korean couple who offered to take it for me.

I took the last boat back to Seongsan and after a lengthy walk, made it back to the nearest bus stop. While I was waiting, a Korean man struck up a conversation with me in English but he and is wife gave up and started conversing in Korean after they found out that I could speak it.

After waiting for a few minutes, a taxi pulled up and said he would take us to Jeju City for $5 a piece. Normally, the ride would be about $30 and the bus is $3 so it sounded like a good deal. Another girl who was sitting there and I took him up on the offer. He had another lady in the front seat and never set the timer on his cab. After he dropped the first lady off, he kept looking at bus stops and tourist places trying to find people to pick up on the way to Jeju. My guess is that his shift was finished so since he had to head back to Jeju anyway, he was picking up some extra pocket money.

The other girl, who was about my age, was very friendly and spoke very good English. We chatted a little bit, when she wasn't falling asleep. When that happened, she gradually tilted over(as sleeping Koreans are prone to do) and ended up sleeping on my shoulder/arm. Glad I spent the extra two bucks for a quicker ride and a fun experience. :P

When we arrived, the man I met the previous night came with his wife and two young children to pick me up and take me to a local famous restaurant, one where the president also visited(with his picture with the owner proudly displayed at the counter). Apparently a lot of famous people frequent it, though, as there were signatures and notes all over the walls from various people of note.

There, we had a traditional Jeju meal of various kinds of seafood, including raw fish and raw squid. We also had juice from the fruit of a cactus mixed with sprite, which was really good. His friend and his family also met us at the restaurant and we all went to Halla mountain park afterwards for a stroll.

When we were finishing our walk, he invited me to come back to his house for coffee. I agreed and we all gathered in his apartment for plum tea, watermelon and peaches. It's amazing that these two families that I had never met before would be talking to me as if we were good friends and having me over to their house. His wife even gave me a bottle of plum tea for my mom after I told her how much she likes it.

Finally, it was time to leave and he drove me back to the sauna where I was going to stay and told me how he would never forget me and if I come back to Jeju, then we have to meet. I've never met people in Korea who are as friendly as the people in Jeju.

One lady came up to me with her little girl and was trying to get her to speak in English. So many other adults and children have spoken to me while I have been here.

Anyway, no time to post about today so I'll fill you in tomorrow.