Davin Reporting!
Today we are in Jeju-do, a South Korean island, located just south of the Korean peninsula, between Korea and Japan. According to our guide, the Koreans want to make this the Hawaii of Asia. Unlike the rest of Korea, tourists here don’t need a visa to enter Jeju (that requirement isn’t much of an issue for those of us from the developed world, but it is more problematic for people from poorer countries which have more travel restrictions). I suppose it probably helps that Jeju is isolated from the mainland, making it so that there is no real concern about illegal immigrants.
At first glance, I will say that the climate is very different than Hawaii. It’s obviously a lot drier here. However, I don’t know how many people actually visit Hawaii to hike through the jungle anyway. Hawaii was actually a bit too humid, so having a drier climate might actually be a plus. Also, similar to Hawaii is that this island had significant volcanic activity in the past, which is responsible for a number of the features we will see today.
One common feature you will see on Jeju turns out to be a vaguely man-shaped statue carved out of stone. The best comparison I can think of to these are the Easter Island statues, although these are nowhere near as large, and are a full body, instead of just a head.
[Kristin Interjection: He also wears a hat. I asked about this man and I was told that he is the ‘Stone Grandfather’. And I believe the story was that women seeking to get pregnant with a son could touch his nose to have their wish granted. So I stayed away from his nose! If at all possible, I need to raise some more badass gamer girls like myself! There just aren’t enough of us. So I don’t need any Stone Grandfather voodoo interfering with those plans. I’m already less likely to have daughters than sons because I want daughters. Life has a big sense of humor and loves nothing more than to mess with me! ;p The consolation will be that the world could use more badass gamer men too!]
Actually, these statues seem to come in all shapes and sizes, and you’ll see them scattered around the island. Originally they were intended for protection from evil spirits but now they are also a cultural icon.
Our first stop on our tour of Jeju is Hallim Park. The main attraction at this park are two lava tube caves: Hyeopjaegul and Ssangyonggul. As the name suggests, these caves were formed by lava flows in the distant past. The lava around the outside of the flow hardened first, while the rest of the lava kept flowing, ultimately leaving behind a cave long after the lava was gone.
We’ve seen a lava tube cave before– the Thursten Lava Tube in Hawaii, which I did not find to be that impressive– so I honestly had limited expectations for these caves. However, I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Unlike the Thursten Tube, these caves actually have stalactites and stalagmites, and they also are much more extensive. In fact, only a portion of the entire system is open to the public to view (on the other hand, they are nowhere near as extensive as something like Australia’s Jenolan Caves).
These caves had two interesting features. The first was a formation in the ceiling that legend said was created by a dragon living in the cave. Ssongyang means “Two Dragons”. There was a sign that indicated the location, but the “evidence” of the dragon was hard to pick out. Fortunately, one of the tour guides was there and pointed it out to us. The other was a pillar that supposedly would increase your intelligence if you walked around it one time. Personally, I consider a steady diet of news and scientific articles to be a more promising prescription.
[Kristin Interjection: I walked around it. Couldn’t hurt to be even smarter than I already am, right? ;p]
One thing I’ve noticed about these tours is that we spend a lot more time taking everything in than most of the other people from our ship. Even though we walked faster to get out in front of them, most of the people from our tour group passed us by before we reached the end of the caves. I’d say it was because they’re old and they’ve already seen everything, but it seems to go for the younger people too!
The cave exited fairly close to the park’s bonsai gardens. This is actually a quite extensive display of various bonsai trees. They mostly seemed to range between 150 - 300 years old! It is hard to imagine these trees being cared for successfully by so many generations of people. The gardens were very extensive, so we only got to see a small fraction of the trees (still many more than I’ve seen anywhere else). A true bonsai buff could probably spend several hours viewing them alone, but I think I was satisfied by what we saw.
Next was a re-creation of a traditional Jeju village. We got to see re-creations of the traditional stonewalled, thatched roof huts (our guide mentioned that she actually grew up in one of these). To be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by this portion of the park. I thought we’d actually see a true village re-creation, like a limited version of Jorvik in Denmark. Instead, I felt it was more like a large museum display– just another small attraction for the park.
Apparently there is an actual folk village you can visit on the island, and I would have much rather have seen that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on the day’s itinerary. If I ever come back to Jeju, I’ll put that high on my list of sites to see.
The last two things were some local stone art, and a selection of various birds on display. We were running out of time, so I only had a chance to glance at the artwork– I wasn’t blown away by it, but some of the pieces were nice. The bird galleries included a large number of peacocks, including several albinos. These are truly strange and impressive creatures, and it was interesting to have the chance to see them up close (although I think we have a few at the San Diego Zoo, so you can spare yourself the 12 hour flight). Sadly, one of the peacocks that was wandering around appeared to have a broken wing, although it didn’t seem too troubled by it.
As usual, we took too long and were seeing things up to the last minute, so we had to run back to the bus in order to not be late. On the positive side, while we probably could have spent another half an hour to an hour in the park, it’s probably to our benefit that these whirlwind ship tours enforce discipline. On our own I doubt we’d manage to see as many sites, because we’d spend too much time at each one.
[Kristin Interjection: We found a pack of postcards for the island of Jeju-do at one of the park’s souvenir shops. It’s always a relief for us to have the task of acquiring a postcard completed! The last few stops (Hangzhou, China and Pusan, S. Korea) have not sold single postcards. You must buy a pack of 10-12 if you want a postcard.]
The next stop was the O’Sulloc Tea Museum, which was supposed to show exhibits on Korea’s tea culture. Unfortunately, this was not really much of a museum, and instead seemed to basically be a front for the O’Sulloc tea company to sell you expensive Green Tea. There really weren’t enough exhibits to call this a museum with a straight face: the museum didn’t even take up half as much space as the shop area! While, I didn’t outright dislike this stop, for the record it was not really a “museum”.
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| I had no idea tea farms looked like this! |
We did get to try a free sample of some tea, although it was an orange flavor which I didn’t particularly like. We also bought a green tea ice cream, which was an... interesting experience. No, it wasn’t good. It tasted very powerfully of quite bitter green tea. I have no regrets about trying it, since you can’t possibly know if you like something unless you try it, but I won’t be getting any more green tea ice cream in the future. Finally, we did actually buy some expensive green tea, just to try it. To be honest, I don’t have high hopes for it. Although, I do like green tea, I think I might actually prefer cheaper green tea that does not have such a distinctive taste.
The next stop was lunch at a buffet which featured Korean food, as well as other more western food. Since there were Korean dishes available, I obviously had to take advantage of this opportunity to try them. There were some soups that had various types of fish in them. I gave them an honest try, but they were just too fishy for me to handle.
[Kristin Interjection: If they were too fishy for him, they were too fishy for me! I use D as my taste tester. If it’s too fishy for him, it is likely to cause a gag reflex in me. I like to try things and I’m not afraid of puking, but I consider it to be impolite to risk an almost guaranteed gag reflex in public! Hahaha!]
Kim-chi is another Korean specialty, which is some sort of pickled food. Apparently, this is a staple of the Korean diet, and Korean families will even have a separate refrigerator to hold it! Well, it’s basically disgusting. I am actually quite open minded about different types of foods, and I enjoy cuisine from around the world, but I found kim-chi to be completely inedible! Some of the Korean barbeque dishes were alright, but still nothing amazing. On the whole, I was pretty unimpressed with Korean food, and I don’t expect it will catch on worldwide like Italian or Japanese food.
[Kristin Interjection: Kim-chi was not to my taste either. I tried an odd looking fruit called a Rambutan. It looked like an alien and the British people next to me told me that it was similar to _____. It was another fruit that I’d never tried but had at least heard of, but now I’ve forgotten its name again. It was an interesting experience getting this fruit open and trying it out. It didn’t taste bad but it wasn’t good enough to get on my list of favorite fruits either.]
After lunch we visited the Jusangjeolli stone pillars along the coast (these Korean names are really tough!). These are interesting rock formations that were formed from lava flowing into the sea. In the process of cooling, the stone cooled into hexagonal-shaped columns. This was actually a very impressive sight to see. The pillars are impressive in their own right, and at first it’s hard to believe it is a natural formation. But, the view is made even more striking by the stark contrast of the black stone against the crystal blue waters of the ocean.
The last stop on our tour was the Yakchunsa Temple, which is supposed to have healing waters. This was a fairly modern Buddhist temple, with construction beginning in 1988 and taking eight years to complete. In terms of appearance it was pretty impressive though. The main approach featured a number of traditional, local statues, and a very nice lake and landscaping. The two towers on the exterior wall featured large, painted drums. And the structures themselves had a very vibrant red, green and yellow color scheme. The main temple hall was well decorated and featured a very large Buddha.
[Kristin Interjection: I don’t recall that we’ve mentioned that shoes must be removed before entering temples. When you know about this requirement, it goes without saying, but for people out there who don’t know: you must remove your shoes to enter and view Buddhist temples (and Asian homes in general, I believe). Fortunately, I managed to get through the trip without knocking anyone out from direct exposure of my socks to the air! Miracles do happen!]
This temple gets its name from the healing waters that are purported to flow through it. In fact, its name literally means “temple where medical waters flow”. There was a little water fountain, with drinking ladles that you could use to drink the water there. Although I definitely could use some help with my health, I turned a wary eye to the entire setup, which seemed rather unhygienic.
Who knows how many people had drunk out of those cups, or when they had last been washed? I figured that drinking from the cups was more likely to make me sick, than to offer me any tangible benefits. After all, since I don’t even believe in healing waters or Buddhism, I didn’t even stand to benefit from the placebo effect! With our week in Japan coming up, I really could not afford to get sick either!
The guide originally told us that we had extra time here as it was our last stop, but as we were making our way back to the bus, the guide came up to us and said we needed to leave right away. Apparently, some people’s itineraries said we would be stopping at a marketplace in Jeju city, although ours did not claim that, nor did the excursion guide book. In any case, we got in the bus and hurried back to the city, for 15 or 20 minutes at the marketplace there.
This was a standard open air marketplace, selling all kinds of stuff, including many souvenirs. There were a number of small versions of the traditional Jeju statues for sale, including a number that were stylized in a more cute and cartoony way. This led to an interesting discovery: Dad has apparently visited here before, because we recognized a key chain he had purchased for Kristin! I guess this stop was successful, because we ended up purchasing a couple of small statue souvenirs for our collection.
We also walked around the marketplace and looked at some of the stalls. There are all kinds of weird seafood items sold at these markets, and the food kiosks also feature incredibly strange food. Korea certainly has an odd culinary culture, which is not shared by anywhere else I’ve seen!
The market was the last stop for the day, and then we traveled about five minutes to get back to the ship. I think we only got back to the ship a few minutes before the all aboard time! Overall, I’d rate this tour very positively: it covered a lot of ground, and allowed us to see a lot of the island in a fairly short period of time.
Next Stop: Nagasaki, Japan (March 17, 2016)
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