Weekend get away to Jeju Island.

This week went by ...slowly... but I was gearing up for a weekend trip. I had booked a 3 day, 2 night trip to Jeju Island (which is known to be a honeymoon destination) off the southern tip of Korea. But wouldn't you know it - the weekend I planned to go there there was a typhoon watch issued!! After having the guide of the trip assure things were safe, I packed a bag and got out of Seoul. I arrive in Jeju Friday afternoon and was pleased at how pretty the island was; it was so green and lush, also it was not crowded and the air was so clean - what a nice break from Seoul. After getting to my hotel and getting checked in,

(view from my room)

I decided to check things out. The hotel was relatively close to the ocean, so I headed down to check things out. While there was no beach area close to the hotel, there were lots of fishing boats.

Jeju Island is also known for its women divers. Women used to dive for shell fish, octopus, etc. before diving equipment was available. And now the island is known for this legacy.

While walking around I found a cool waterfall. As you may have picked up, I am NOT a fan of the humidity and heat, and after a couple of hours I was ready for dinner and a shower.

Saturday morning our guide, Victor (from Russia), picked us (9 people = 2 Australians, 3 Canadians, 1 New Yorker, 2 Californians, and me) up at 9:30. We headed out to see another waterfall, apparently this is the only waterfall in the world that actually falls into the ocean.

Next we went to a beach area that was near the Sunrise Peak (which is actually a very old volcano), on the way there we saw lots of falling-down rock walls. Victor informed us that at one point they were put up to protect Jeju from pirate invasions. And as you guessed our next stop was the Sunrise Peak (which has just been named to the Unesco World Heritage List); which is named accordingly because many people come here to watch the sun rise. But what is pretty handy is the each day of each month has the times listed of when the sun rises. While it only takes 25 minutes to get to the top, I figured I would die of heat stroke if I tried, so I took lots of pictures from the bottom and cheered on the three people from our group that braved the hike.

After a traditional Korean lunch we went to a Korean Folk Village (the one in Suwon is better) and then we went to a green house that has over 100 varieties of aloe, as well as orchids. We also saw the oldest "Grandfather" statues on the island, which were next to a thick rock wall which was used at one point to protect the city.

We then saw the LonelyRock; which is said to be the profile of a woman's face - crying out to the ocean for her husband to return. Another tale says that the rock is the profile of General Choe-Yeang, and when people saw the rock, they were so terrified of him they committed suicide.

After enjoying the scenery, Victor called it a day and we headed back to the hotel. That night we all went to dinner at a Japanese sushi restaurant; it was interesting as NONE of the staff spoke any English - but we managed with broken Korean. Jeju Island is also known for their mandarin oranges, I had bought a small bag earlier in the day and savored them after dinner - they were so good.

Sunday Victor picked us up at 9:30 again. We headed for Yakch'eon-sa Temple (translates to Medicine Stream); and luckily for us, there had been no rain from the typhoon yet. We went inside the 5-story Temple, which is the largest Buddhist prayer hall in Asia. The art work was ornate and there were thousands of Buddhas in there, pretty neat.

Our journey continued onto a statue park. There were thousands of statues of Grandfathers, faces, Buddha, and people in daily Korean life. There was also an underground cave that had a shrine to Buddha.

We then went to Hallim Park where we saw many different varieties of palm trees, Hyeopjae and Ssangyong Caves which are lava caves; but these are unique because there were also stalag mites and stalacitites, which are seldom found in lava caves. The picture below has a story that says two dragons used to occupy the caves, and as you can see on the ceiling, it is a V-shape and has pieces that look like scale marks - they say this part was where the dragon's back was.

We then walked through the Jeju Stone and Bonsai Tree Garden,

We went through the bird garden, the water garden, and the subtropical botanical garden. After exhausting ourselves at this park, Victor must have thought we needed a break because we went to a green tea place and had some green tea. While the log carvings are not native to Jeju, this place had tons of them - and notice the green tea shrubs in the background.

My time there was up, so Victor took me to the bus stop and I boarded the plane to head back to Seoul; where I finally saw some of the rain from the typhoon.

And a good time was had by all!!