Jeju Island

 This weekend, Suzie, Minnie, Peter, Tyler and I went to Jeju Island. A little background.. Jeju is a subtropical located just south of Korea but is still technically Korea. It recently got voted as one of the 7 New Natural Wonders of the World.. although I think this is a little debatable. I've seen so many pictures of places that looked greater than Jeju, but I'll take it. It was still really beautiful. In the middle of the island is a giant mountain called Halla. It was also home to the World Cup in 2002. There is a famous type of orange native to Jeju called hallabong. They have this strange little bunchy thing at the top and are pretty expensive.

 After work on Saturday, Suzie, Tyler and I went to Cheers to get a quick beer before heading to the airport. We also picked up a kilo of pork jerky. I have never eaten so much pork in my life than I did this weekend. Peter is strangely afraid of flying. His first comment was that the plane looked very old, and I made the mistake of sitting next to him on the plane so I had to console him during take of and landing. We hopped of the plane to see a beautiful sunset, although this was the only time the whole weekend we saw the sun :( We hopped into our rented car, chauffeured by Minnie, bound for our pension. Peter and Suzie were chillin in the lobby waiting for us. 

We were thinking about bbqing at the pension but it was getting kinda late so we went out. We drove all over the place looking for a restaurant. Now, Korea is a strange place. There is city and nothing. Literally nothing. It's not like the countryside back home. We were in a pretty popular place and were using the tourist travel guide to find restaurants. To get to those restaurants we had to take creepy single lane back roads with no street lights, then all of a sudden there would be a building. However, everything closed at around 10ish. During our travels we spotted this little K-Mart and got some necessary groceries for the weekend. It was nothing like the K-Mart's back home, but equally rundown. 

This poodle pulled up next to us at K-Mart. 

Finally, after an hour of searching, we found a restaurant. Jeju is famous for its "black pig" bbq, so that's what we ordered. It didn't really taste any different, but the novelty of being able to say you ate a black pig was pretty worth it. 

Our fully stocked fridge. 

This was our pension. It had a bathroom, kitchen, living room, 2 balconies and 2 bedrooms. It was a really chill place to stay over for the weekend, although the decor looked like a six year old girls closet. 

After drinking the night away Saturday night we went to a beach on Sunday. The sun never came up, but it was nice to be near an ocean. At the beach some random guy came up and talked to us. He had an 8 week old golden retriever that he just bought for 20 bucks from some shelter. This dog was crawling all over us and our towels and it smelled horrible. Seriously, the worst smelling anything I ever smelled in my life. I refused to touch it but everyone else that petted it had the smell on their hands all weekend. 

Everyone was pretty hungover and sluggish so we decided hamburgers were the cure. We went to a familiar Sunday restaurant called Gecko's that we sometimes go to in Seoul. The back of the menus had a coloring sheet so naturally I asked for crayons. Everyone started making fun of me but it was birthday and I could do whatever pleases me. 

It ended up being beautiful.. 

Post-lunch and a few bloody marys later, everyone felt better.. except Peter. 

After lunch we headed out for some site-seeing. We went to some waterfall nearby. The water was an amazing color of blue. The picture doesn't do it justice. 

You could really feel the subtropical climate walking through the little waterfall park. It was super humid and everyone was getting attacked by endless armies of mosquitos. 

These little "grandpas" are everywhere and are said to be the keepers of Jeju. I wouldn't mind having one in my backyard some day. 

A view of the sea from the above bridge. 

This was the waterfall from earlier seen from the bridge. 

We met up with Adam, a kid I used to go to Bucknell with, and hungout for a few. That night we had a little barbeque at our place (although I regrettably forgot my camera) full of pork, pork, and more pork. At the end though Suzie and Minnie brought out a little birthday cake! It was great :)

These little short and fat palm trees where everywhere. I dunno if its some kind of special species but they grew out rather than up.

Our flight was at 9:55 Monday morning so we had to be up and moving early. As we were driving to the airport, the sun came out! for the first time all weekend.. oh well. Such is life. 

Back in Seoul was a little depressing. We went from seeing nothing but nature to nothing but buildings. But, I got some birthday presents in the mail! A new watch from my family and a large bag of Swedish Fish from Aunt Sue Sue, which all my kids love. Also, one of my co-teachers bought me this new, overly expensive tie! I love it. I was thinking that morning as I was getting dressed that I needed a new tie. She has great taste!

Nancy was leaving for her several month long trip around Africa, so we went out to dinner on Tuesday night with the workers from main branch. She is getting back after I leave so I won't be seeing her :( After her trip she is going to grad school in Australia. Seriously, this woman doesn't stop. As our last picture together we decided to do the "Korean pose". She will be very missed..

At cooking class we made something called Gujulpan, which means something like 9 different ingredients. It used to be eaten by Korean royalty awhile back. 

It was a lot of work for not that much, but it was still delicious. Cecily and I like our food, and we like it NOW!

Passed this advertisement for Super Mario 3D Land.. I never knew I would look so good as a Korean.