I'll
be finally catching up on my blog. I
apologize sincerely for the wait and please don't try to read them all in one
day. I don't want to be the reason for
staring at the computer screen for that long and for your eye sight to fail.
Happenings
since the last entry:
MOM
AND DAD came to visit. I had a blast
seeing them and I know Mom took advantage of getting to hug me every chance she
got. I got to Jeju before them. The shuttle from the train station to the
ferry was quite interesting. I'm glad that
I'm generally a light packer over here in Korea as this van had 4 too many
seats and they weren't full, but there just wasn't any room if too many bags
had been brought. [As I found out on the
way back from looking at people going to and from is very, very little luggage
going to and monstrous amounts of luggage coming back, usually lots of Jeju
orange gift boxes.] When I arrived at
the ferry on the Jeju side of the trip I was thinking that the port would be a
city within itself that would have a hotel or be relatively close to another
city. I was wrong. Haha.
It's a port with probably a good 10 minute drive to the first city. So I hopped into a cab and opened up a map of
Jeju that I had snagged from the port office and asked the cabby where we were
on the map. He pointed and he asked
where I wanted to go. I shrugged my
shoulders and was like wherever. So he
decided that Jeju City would be the best place for me. I arrived with a migraine so the first night
was pretty uneventful. I couldn't tell
if it was just a migraine coming in or a migraine coming in on top of an
already present hunger headache, but I attempted to feed myself without
throwing up and got part of the headache to go away so that's why I have a
feeling it was the latter.
Went
to a park the next day (Saturday) and the Jeju City Museum of Cultural
History. I wasn't exactly blown away by
the museum. Mom, Dad, Scott and Heana
picked me up that night and we drove to our hotel. That night was a chicken and beer night which
was pretty good in the grand scheme compared to similar delivery chicken and
beer that I'd had. The next day (Sunday)
we woke up and went to this one restaurant that Heana had read about that was
famous for ear shells (I think that's what she kept calling them). Anyways, it was a sit on the floor style
restaurant and you would have thought poor Heana and Mom were hauling around a
vanload of senior citizens the amount of groaning and moaning it took for
Scott, Dad and I to get down on the floor and try in vain to get comfortable
(Don't get me wrong I've eaten on the floor before in Korea and I don't mind
it, but I'm usually drinking when I'm sitting on the floor and I think that
adds a certain amount to my comfort level).
I was super excited whenever Dad decided that he had had enough of this
fun party and was going to move outside, so I jumped at the opportunity to move
and go “keep him company”. The nice
elderly lady that owns the restaurant thought it was funny and kept coming
outside to check on us.
The
meal itself was good, the kimchi at that place was good, there was this
broccoli salad type stuff that was delicious, and then the ear shells
themselves with rice weren't bad. I
actually thought that they tasted more like mushrooms than they did like
seafood. After this I think we went to
sunrise peak, which you can see from the port so that was nice to see the port
again as it was easy for me to point to Heana and say that's where we're
leaving from on Tuesday. Little did I
know she had plans to go there that afternoon. The hike to the top of the peak
was a series of stars where you get really close with everyone walking up and
each person in a 4 person group has to take a picture with their camera to
justify buying the next model (whenever it comes out). This repeats itself at every switchback and
sometimes in between. At the top of the volcanic ridge it is just
mesmerizing. I’ve seen beautiful places
before, but this was truly breathtaking.
Lush greens fills the crater while in the background you can see it
contrasted with the dark greys and crisp whites of the rocks and the vivid
blues and aquas of the ocean. Truly a
magical place, except there were a lot of mosquitoes up there. Evidently they thought it was a great place
too.
After we made our way back down of
the rock we went for a submarine ride.
Dad and I have sneaking suspicions that the driver was heavily
intoxicated and that we were going to have to make a surface swim for it as his
method of getting to the bottom was to sink and sink and then slam into the
ocean floor. At least that settled the
question of how close to the bottom we were going to get. The submarine was in fact yellow and so this
prompted many Beatles jokes and short sing-a-longs. After this at the same port we went on a jet
boat ride. After riding this I
definitely want to open up a jet boat business down on Padre. Basically it’s a boat that holds 12 people
and the driver and he gets out on the water and hauls ass over the wakes and
makes the boat twist and turn and do 360’s.
It was pretty fun and what made it hilarious is Scott and I having to
hold Mom down because she kept popping up in the boat.
That night we went to a park that
was famous for the sunsets and it was quite impressive. We also learned that it doesn’t help anyone
to have my Korean cell phone number if I don’t have the phone with me, and it
doesn’t help to call Dad’s cell if his is on silent. So needless to say it took us a while to get
back together. That night we had pizza
delivered to the hotel.
The next day we filled it with a
trip to a rock museum (home to the largest bird bath that we’d ever seen. Scott and I wondered how much target practice
Grandpa Davis could’ve gotten if that was in his backyard) 2 beautiful waterfalls
and a green tea maze. Both of which were
very impressive (I was quite surprised by how waxy green tea leaves felt).
The last day on Jeju we packed up
our stuff from the hotel and attempted to Tetris our luggage into the trunk of
the car. We then made our way to a green
tea museum that was also outfitted for zip-lining. This was a blast. On the first one Dad and I both ran off the
edge. On the second one Mom attempted to
do the same thing, but her mind told her “oh hell no” and so her feet tried to
stop. She had enough forward momentum
that she basically tumbled off the edge and then down the line. Not the most graceful of attempts.
We made it to the ferry with plenty
of time to spare, although the line to get tickets was pretty intense. Later we caught the shuttle (a full-size bus
this time) back to Suncheon and then I got Mom and Dad settled into their hotel,
excuse me Motel, so I could go to work.
I make the distinction because Suncheon only has one Hotel, the rest are
Motels. Our one Hotel is booked up
because of the World Expo that is ongoing 30 minutes to our south. The Motel I got for them I’ve stayed in
before and enjoyed, plus Dad liked that it had a plaque on the door that stated
it was an official hotel for the first Korean F1 International Race that was
held last October. That night we went to
dinner at a bar/nightclub/American food kind of restaurant that I usually like
the burgers (plus they have Bud and Guinness on draft). The burgers were a little overcooked that
night, but the beer was cold (Mom had a Guinness) the salads were good, and Mom’s
pasta was good.
