Day 4: JEJU! So there's this island off the southern coast of Korea called Jeju-do and it's considered the "Hawaii of Korea" since the climate is more tropical and there are palm trees, lava tubes, bomb beaches and pretty much everything that is wonderful. Even dinosaurs. Yep, there's a dinosaur theme park there. So we got to the the bus station around 3:30pm to catch our bus to the Cheongju airport which is only about 40 minutes outside of Daejeon. We got there though and after being told to get on and off the wrong bus twice, they tell us to get on another bus on a totally different platform...that has 15 more people on it already than there are seats for. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a city bus but there was zero room and I came semi-close to wanting to punch the bus driver. Yes, I know this is one of those situations where it would be good to practice some patience but this is a prime example of how after a while the frustration of living in a place where common sense doesn't exist a lot of the time eventually builds up until you wanna blow a fuse. Luckily Beth and Hannah kept their cool and were positive as always:) Whew, thank goodness for that!
I had been told when I booked our reservations that we "must be there three hours early" but we got there about two hours before our flight and when we checked in the woman at the counter goes "Wow, you are here so early!". So far, this was one of those days where I would have loved to hold a press conference for anyone in Korea who would listen on easy ways to make life more efficient. And not to rag on Korea because I love it most of the time and goodness gracious does America have it's flaws, but this is one of the reasons why it was so great to be able to have friends here because now when I have those days where I want to pull each of my arm hairs out one by one there is someone on the other side that understands. Not gonna lie, there were times that I worried that they thought I had turned into a heartless turkey because of the frustration that creeps up in those moments where the language barrier is impossible to break or when pushing your way past an old woman is necessary if you don't want to get trampled on the way to the subway. Beth got smacked by an old man with a cane though on the way to the subway one day so I think they understand:) Anyways, while we waited we ate at a traditional Korean restaurant where we ordered bulgogi and got the normal side dishes, one which is always these little fishies (can't remember the name...you'd think I would know this stuff by now) that have eyeballs and everything. So Hannah tried one and was a champ...
Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.
We got into Jeju and had been told beforehand that our guesthouse was hard to find so the owner had emailed me a map and told me to print it out for the taxi driver. About 10 minutes before we had left though I realized I forgot to do it at school and had to draw it out by hand! I'm sure it was equivalent to a 3 year old writing in Korean for the first time but I was hoping it would get us there...but it didn't, haha. The driver took one look at it and started laughing. Luckily I had the phone number and when he called the owner all I understood him say was "I have 3 American girls in my car" and probably something along the lines of they have no clue what they're doing! We got there just fine though and our guesthouse was pretty stinkin sweet! Not to be advertising on my blog or anything, but if you're gonna go to Jeju stay at the Island Guesthouse. It's TIGHT and the owner is amazing plus she has fresh baked bread for everyone every morning. And it's a ten minute walk to the beach. Perf.
Day 5: We got up and got directions to the beach via bus. It was soooooo stinkin hot so by the time we got to the bus stop we were already dripping. Sidenote: If you hear people say that it's so hot in Korea, believe it. Its so crazy hot and humid in the summer. Anywho, we got on the bus and of course missed the stop because I lack any skill that has to do with navigation on buses. We heard one stop that said "tourist" something or other though so we jumped off at that stop which turned out to be the perfect location. We were right smack between the Cheonjeyeon waterfall, the Seonimgyo bridge and a super-resorty area with a sweet beach. So we walked down to the beach which was quite the trek but it was super gorgeous.
I'm pretty sure this day was the hottest day so far this entire summer because even going in the water didn't help much. We all got fried, which is normal for me, but even Han got burned after caking on the screen and so did Beth who I'm pretty sure is 99% Hawaiian and doesn't know it. So kind of a big deal. We saw a skinny white guy puke his guts out on the beach too which at first we figured was probably from a few too many beverages if you know what I mean, but after observations and some pretty good detective work Beth concluded it was probably blue Powerade...mostly because we saw him barf and it was bright blue. That was kind of our cue to leave since we had been there all day and didn't want to puke so we decided that since we were in the middle of a resort area, we would just sneak into a hotel and sit by the pool. So we trekked back up and eventually made it to the Hyatt where we walked in like we owned the place, only to find there was only an indoor pool. Blast. So we decided we would go into Seogwipo which is the other bigger city on the island aside from Jeju city so we jumped on a bus like we were hotel guests. When we got off we expected to see the usual things you see in a city...you know, shops, restaurants, whatever but there was pretty much just beach and a traditional Korean restaurant like every half mile. They took this opportunity to tell me that they really didn't like Korean food all that much...actually not at all...which I was so relieved to hear because I didn't want them to feel like they had to eat it! I've grown used to it but I can honestly say that when I go back to the states I doubt I'll have a craving for Korean food. Bring on the fatty stuff and give me a freaking salad! Anyways, we ended up going to E-mart which is the equivalent of a Walmart/Target. I don't want to say it's like Walmart because it's much less trashy but nothing compares to Target. So ya, we ate at E-mart for dinner but we were totally cool with that. We jumped on a bus to go back to our guesthouse but remembered that we had no idea what our bus stop was so right as we recognized where we were supposed to get off the bus goes flying right by it. The next stop was at least a mile from ours so we got off and figured we would be able to get a taxi no big deal. Wrongo. We were basically out in the boonies and a car passed by about every 2 or 3 minutes. Finally a taxi drove by, we waved him down, and he flew right by us. Then it happened twice more. So we saw this taxi coming towards us a couple minutes later and I ran out in the middle of the street waving my arms like a crazy drunk bum just to make sure he stopped. He flies by us, screeches to a stop, and sticks his head out the window and says "May I help you?!" Hahaha, I don't know if it's because we were standing in the middle of nowhere or what but for some reason he was super confused that we were waving him down. We finally got back to the guesthouse after a super good day but unfortunately something really sad happened next. The night before I had caught a little ladybug and named him Kanye and he had been just flying around the room while we were away for the day. For some reason though Beth decided to try and kill him making it so that he was practically paralyzed because his poor little wings wouldn't work. I had to set him free hoping that his ladybug family could help fix him up but here's some video footage of the last precious minutes I had with dear Kanye. I'd like to think Hannah wasn't in the room because she felt so bad for my bug that she couldn't watch. And as you can see he is really struggling while Beth has zero remorse for her actions. Zero.
Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.
Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.
Day 6: This day was OSOM. I mean every day was awesome but this day was way awesome. We decided the night before that we were going to research the resorty hotels and find out which ones had outdoor pools so that we could dominate one of them for the day. In the process we found out that the Hyatt did in fact have an outdoor pool we just didn't look hard enough. So we had a whole lineup just in case we happened to get kicked out of one...
Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.
Haha. Before we began our total domination of the Jungmun resort area we went to check out the Cheonjeyeon waterfall and Seonimgyo bridge which was pretty stinkin sweet and we definitely felt like we were on the set of LOST...which may or may not be our dream come true. Well, not Hannah's because everytime we referenced it during the trip she would remind us that it's "just a tv show"...which I'm sorry to say Han but that's totally false. Jack Shephard is real:)
Then we moved on to the Lotte Hotel which was the classiest of the hotels on our list so I think we were kind of expecting to get booted. We found the pool which was saweet and stuck in through a side gate, found chairs and some used towels and chilled out all day!
We ended up eating at a place called Herb Berger near the hotel which served burgers that could be shared by three people...they were insanely huge. Then we jumped on a bus and went into Jeju city and found some tight stores and an underground shopping mall. We decided to find the bus that took us back since we were told by the guesthouse owner that the last bus leaves at 9:30 so we popped into two stores to ask which bus we should take and since they both told us the same thing we assumed it was the right one. We got on the bus and about 30 minutes into our ride we realized we still hadn't left the city which wasn't normal so since we were the last ones on it by then I went up to the front while the driver was still driving and showed him our address. I could tell by his response that we were on the way wrong bus but all of a sudden he pulls the bus over, puts his hazards on, jumps out of the bus and runs out in the street to wave down a cab. He told the cab driver where to take us and we got back to the guesthouse after a 30 dollar cab ride. There are things that drive me bonkers about Korea like anywhere else but one of the most amazing things about this country is how generous the people are. Seriously, where else in the world can you get on the wrong bus and have something like this happen? So cool and definitely something that's been so awesome to witness during the time that I've been here.
When we got back to the guesthouse we walked in the door and saw the most huge spider we've ever seen. Aside from the tarantulas that I've seen back home (my little 11 year old sister's pet tarantula that she caught herself being one of them) this was hands down the biggest stinkin thing ever. So we caught it and threw it outside but about an hour later when everyone in the guesthouse was sitting in the living area the mother appeared and she was absolutely enormous. HUGE. One of the owners who was this hilarious French guy was on the phone with a person trying to make a reservation when everyone started freaking out and he put them on hold saying there was a "Giant spider emergency". We all basically had nightmares every night after.
Day 7: We met this guy at our guesthouse who was from Spain but living and working in China and had come to Korea to travel around so we had decided earlier in the week that we were going to go on a hike. There's two craters in Jeju, one is smaller and called San Gomdori while the other one, no clue what the name is, is much bigger. We decided to do San Gomdori though because it was closer and our Spanish tour guide had figured out all of the details of how to get there. That morning though, another guy from the guesthouse who was Korean decided to join us and told our Spanish friend that basically how he had figured out how to get there was entirely wrong. Of course, being that he was Korean we all trusted him. Well, we found out after we had gotten on the wrong bus to start that he hadn't been to Jeju in 15 years and had never actually been to San Gomdori. After 4 buses and almost 5 hours, we got to San Gomdori (the Korean guy had decided after bus #3 that he was tired and wanted to go back to the guesthouse but had told us that San Gomdori was a "short but very difficult hike") and were so stoked and ready to hike. We paid the 3,000 won entrance fee (since when are people charged to go hiking????) and started walking up a path and about 3 minutes in there was this crater on our left. We figured that must have been a mini crater before we got to the real deal so we kept walking for about 5 more minutes and all of a sudden realized we were back where we started! That was it! It's like a 10 minute walk around the stone path which was obviously so disappointing because we were ready for a hike. It was pretty humorous though so we took some pics and took off for a 30 minute walk to get the bus. Yep, our bus was a farther hike than the actual hike, haha. Im mean, it was cool but I was expecting first, a hike obviously, and second, a giant crater with like lava and dinosaur fossils. Moral of the story: If you ever go to Jeju don't go to San Gomdori. It was a beautiful day though!
We split off from our Spanish friend and went back to our hood a.k.a the Jungmun resort area so we could go chill at the Hyatt's pool. We finally found it and it was a super gorgeous evening. The funny thing about the day was that we had stuffed an entire days worth of stuff into my big hiking backpack so we had everything in case we got lost in the jungle when we ended up needing none of it so we had this huge pack that we had to alternate carrying. Anyways, we headed down to the beach and hung out while we took some sweet pics:)
This is mine and Beth's attempt at recreating a scene from LOST. She's playing Kate because Kate is a wuss and I'm Jack because I'm much braver as you can see based on the fact that my right arm is missing because of the black smoke monster.
We hauled our huge pack back up the hill and for the first time got on the right bus and off at the right stop. Woo!
No comments:
Post a Comment