Jeju Island Day 1

I know I'm a few weeks late in writing about my trip to Jeju, but I wanted to wait until I had enough time to sit down and relax and write about every detail, rather than rushing through a post.  Today seems like the perfect day!  It's a beautiful Thursday afternoon; I've finished class for today; I have no classes tomorrow; I submitted 2 big assignments last night; and now I'm just sitting in the Caribou Coffee shop in SK Global House ready to write!

My trip to Jeju Island was incredible, I went with my friend Andrew and we had such an amazing time!  Jeju is a small island off the southern coast of South Korea and it is considered the "vacation hot-spot" of Korea, it's where many honeymooners go and some even call it the "Hawaii of South Korea".  Andrew and I left on Thursday, September 23rd, which was still part of our fall break for Chuseok.  We took the subway express line to Gimpo Airport, which is a smaller airport than Incheon airport, it's similar to New York's Laguardia Airport.  We arrived and checked in without a problem.  I'm pretty sure Andrew and I were the only Caucasions on the plane, and we were both assigned to the exit seat aisle.  Of course we made plenty of jokes how they would put the white kids in charge of saving everybody, but the flight was smooth and quick, only about a 50 minute trip.

When we got off the plane we could feel it already, warm ocean air!  We grabbed our bags from baggage claim and then our next step was getting to our first guesthouse.  Andrew had his heart set on renting a car for the trip.  We looked into and it would've been extremely affordable, about $200 for the 4 days including insurance!  The only problem is neither of us had filed for an international license, so instead we headed towards the bus terminal.  Andrew was bummed and so was I,  it would've been nice to be able to travel by ourselves and not have to wait for the island buses.  I let it roll off my back, but Andrew procedded to sulk like a puppy dog everytime we passed a rental car.  It was funny at first, but by the third day I told him to GROW UP.

The bus system was slow, but easy.  We took a bus from Jeju airport, which is located at the northern coast of the island, to Insong-ri in the southeastern part of the island, which is where our first guesthouse, Island Guesthouse, is located.  It was about an 80 minute ride with one transfer, and many stops.  We got off the bus and followed the convenient directions sent to us by the guesthouse manager, Ilene.  We were greeted immediately by Ilene when we arrived.  From what I learned, she doesn't own the guesthouse, but she does run it and lives upstairs.

Ilene and me at the Island Guesthouse

The Island Guesthouse was beautiful.  It was eccentrically decorated and the house had this wonderful tropical feel to it.  We put our stuff down when we arrived and were anxious to head back out and explore!  We wanted to head to the beach before sunset and walk around the Jungmun Tourist Complex.  This area was located about 15 minutes away from the guesthouse and it is where the Jungmun beach is located, which is one of Jeju's most popular beaches; also it's where the big resorts are, like the Hyatt and the Lotte Hotels.  Ilene wrote out awesome directions for us.  She drew us a map how to get to the bus stop and wrote us a note for us to show the bus driver so that he knew where to drop us off.  After just two days Ilene felt like a mom to us!

We got to the complex just before sunset and we walked down to the water and along the beach.  After being in the city for a month already it felt great to walk with my feet in the sand and listen to the waves.  We were lucky enough to catch the sunset and then we headed down the beach towards the Hyatt.  The Jeju Hyatt is a beautifully architected resort that overlooks the beach on a hill and it was all lit up since the sun had already set.  We couldn't help but be a little bit curious so we decided to check it out.  The lobby was beautiful, there was a fish pond in the lobby and a cafe and bar with a nice jazz singer.  We sat outside on the terrace that overlooked the beach and ordered a couple of drinks and a small margharita pizza to share.  I had a pina colada, since it was the most "islandy" drink I could think of and perhaps the best part about it was that it was a non virgin!

Me and Andrew at the Jungmun Tourist Complex, before heading down to the beach.  The bridge in the background is  called the Seonimgyo Bridge, or the Seven Nymphs Bridge, because there are 7 nymphs carved into either side in white.

We made it to the beach in time for the sunset!  The building in the background on the right is the Jeju Hyatt.  

While we were sitting on the terrace at the Hyatt, we could see a bunch of children congregating inside at the cafe with some chefs.  We asked our waitress and she explained that every night there's an activity for the kids who are staying at the hotel and tonight they were learning how to make rice cake!  It was so very Disney-like.

We finished our drinks and decided to head back up to the bus stop because the last bus stopped running at 9:30 pm.  We caught the bus and headed back to the guesthouse, completely exhausted.  When we got there the other people who were staying at the guesthouse were there also!  It was so much fun meeting them.  It was a big group of girls and a few guys who were not much older than Andrew and I.  They were mostly Americans who were teaching at an international school in Incheon for the next few years.  It was so much fun talking with them before we went to bed, but it was a little strange sharing a big room with a bunch of people we had just met.  It felt kind of like the first few nights of sleep away camp, when we're all a little bit shy and nervous but we know we're going to have fun anyways.

The group of teachers had been in Jeju for the whole week so they offered a lot of good advice about what sights were worth seeing and which one's weren't so great.  I enjoyed talking to Bree the most.  Bree is from California and she's a bit of a tom-boy with this deep, raspy voice.  She was so enthusiastic about meeting Andrew and I and she wanted to hear all about our plans for Jeju and the other stuff we were planning on doing over the semester.  We expressed some hesitation about traveling all the way across the island to see a particular crater that we were thinking about and her response was "Just charge it!  Charge it!!".  Me and Andrew started laughing; she sounded so funny but we weren't sure if she was referring to charging a credit card or something like that.  The more she said it we realized she meant "charge like a rhino", in other words, just do everything and don't hold back.  So that became our philosophy for the trip, JUST CHARGE IT!

Gone to the beach!

This post is about last Tuesday's epic adventure to the Sogi beach. I know I'm a few days late writing this one, but it was such a crazy day, I think we all needed some time to process it. And classes started this week so I've been super busy! Okay, let me set the scene: It's last Monday evening and Rosie, Samantha, Jim, Steve, Andreas, Jason, Felix, and Andrew and I are all sitting in the common room and we're considering what to do tomorrow, on Tuesday, our last day before classes start. We looked into going to the Everland Waterpark but after we realized that admission to the park was 55,000W (roughly $50) we nixed that idea.

Our next idea was to go to the beach, and this was a winner. Relaxing and free, except for transportation costs. We researched a semi-popular beach destination that was close to Seoul called Sogi beach. It's on Sodu Island which is part of Incheon. We knew it would be a trip getting there, but we all decided it was worth it. We jumped on the subway a little after 8am and took it all the way to Incheon, which is a couple transfers and about 26 stops later. We arrived at Incheon and were told by the people at the tourism information desk that we could take the city bus which would make many stops, or take the Incheon City Tour coach bus which would only be a few dollars more and take us straight to the ferry port. The city tour bus took us ALL over Incheon, every port, historical site, and bridge; we saw it all! Well an hour and 55 minutes later we managed to get to the ferry!

By the time we go to the dock, the ferry was just about to leave so the officials waved us on quickly and we ended up not having to purchase ticktets! The ferry was very quick, only a 7 or 8 minute ride to the island. Once we reached the island of Sodu we hopped on a bus which was to bring us into town, where we could rent bikes from the community center. The bus driver did not speak any English so we were not sure at first if we were going to right place. The island was very small and after about 30 min we did indeed arrive at the community center!

The community center was merely a small shack in the middle of a deserted island. One restaurant, but it was closed, no stores and very few makeshift cottage-like houses. We all rented bikes for only 2,000 won, which is about $1.80 for the whole day. Some of the guys even tried renting the two-person bikes, but later traded them in for singles. These bikes were slow, dirty, broken, and none of the gears worked. Also, I later found out that my brakes did not work. But it didn't matter! We were happy to get to the island and very anxious to find the beach.

We biked up a hill and down some dirt roads for a bit until we found the resort that we were looking for. The resort was closed and completely deserted! Also, THERE WAS NO WATER! The beaches were dry and barren just about as far out as we could see. So basically now you have a big group of foreigners, standing at the top of this hill overlooking an empty resort and a dry beach, scratching our heads and wondering what the heck is going on?! So thankfully this man comes out of his house across the street, and in very broken English tells us that it's low-tide and the resort is closed for the season (Mind you, we DID research this place, but Korean websites are sketchy at best, who knew it'd be closed?). So perhaps at this point we could've headed back to the bus, defeated and beach-less, but instead we decided to embrace the situation and make it an adventure!

We knew that a famous landmark on the island was an old house that used to be the film set for a Korean drama series called "Full House" (not to be confused with the popular American sitcom, Full House, a.k.a. my favorite show ever!). We biked up a big hill and eventually stumbled upon it and it was pretty cool. The house was huge and it had many windows that we could see into. Inside it looked like a normal house, furniture and paintings, and even a flat-screen tv on the wall! Outside the house there was a small, elderly man just taking a nap on a bench outside the house. And he didn't even wake up when we approached the house and walked around!

By this point in the afternoon we were starving, so we looked for some type of restaurant or cafe but the only thing we could find was this little convenient store. It was basically a shack alongside the road, and there was a just one man running it. He seemed a little annoyed when we first walked in, he was counting money so maybe he got distracted and lost count when about 12 white people walked in. Eventually he started to smile and help us, probably figuring that any business was good business. We each bought a few beers and an instant noodle bowl (basically like the ramen we have here, very popular lunch food in Korea) and some cookies and chips. All very cheap by our standards, but we probably fed his family for a month! We sat outside and ate and talked and laughed. It was such a silly sight, us looking for a beach and now just hanging out on some random island. About every 30 min a car or moped would go by and they would always wave or honk. At one point this old VW-style van drove by and stopped, the windows opened and a bunch of small Asians stuck there head's out and started pointing and giggling at us. So strange! But we just laughed and waved back.

We then decided since we had the bikes that we should at least see the other parts of the island. We biked around and eventually crossed a bridge which brought us to a different island. This was one even smaller and less populated. We walked down to the beach at this point, still no water, although we did start to see it coming up a bit. We looked down and there were crabs running around all over! We tried to catch some, but no such luck. The water was continually getting closer, but this still wasn't the beach setting we had in mind. The sand was more of a gritty mud, and the water was grey and murky. Yuck! But some of us daredevils did decide to go in. Felix, Rosie, Ariane, and Jason all got in the water. They actually swam out to this deserted raft that was a few meters out. I just couldn't do it though, the water looked too gross! Those of us that didn't go in hung out on the cement steps that led down to the beach, and we even played the role of the medics when Ariane and Jason got cut up on the barnacles that were in the water. The cuts bled at first, but after they were cleaned and bandaged they weren't so bad.

By now it was about 4:30 and we knew the bus stopped running around 6:30 so we decided to head back. This was the part where I learned that my brakes really didn't work (Up to this point, I knew they were faulty, but optimistically told myself they would be semi-functional). We had to bike down this big hill as we were approaching the bike shop and convenient store and my brakes were not slowing me down! I screamed at first because I was going fast! But before I knew it we were on flat land again and I slowed myself down. Nothing like a little adrenaline to get your heart pumping! We returned the bikes and the old men were really grateful to see us again. Probably because we were the only people on the island!

We caught the bus back to the ferry and this time we actually bought tickets and paid. It was raining a lot at this point so we headed to the downstairs part of the ferry, and to our surprise there were very comfortable seats! We ferry ride was quick and then we got back onto the city tour bus, which was waiting for us a few blocks from the ferry dock. No tour this time, thank gosh, and so getting back to the rail station only took about 25 minutes. After what felt like a million stops later, we finally were back in Sinchon. Once again starving, we stopped at this all-you-can-eat buffet before heading back to campus.

And it wouldn't be the adventure it was if we hadn't stopped there. The food was pretty decent, pork and beef that you cook at your table, along with some other sides such as vegetables, dumplings, rice cakes and some soup. We were informed that if we took any food from the buffet and didn't finish it (i.e. it was left on your plate when the wait staff removed your plates from the table) that we would be charged 5,000 won for each plate. That's about $4.80 USD, which can really add up! So being the innovative foreigners that we are, we ended up taking the meat scraps and fat that we obviously weren't going to eat, but nor did we want to get charged for it, and putting them in our napkins and making trips to restrooms to dispose of them. It was quite a sight. But we managed! Also, they charged us for NOT ordering alcohol! How crazy is that, we were each charged about an extra 80 cents because we did not purchase the $4 bottle of Soju! Needless to say, we will not be returning there again.

We were all wiped out when we got back to campus, since relaxing the beach turned into biking around an island all day and running after ferries. However, all in all, it was an awesome day and quite the study-abroad adventure!

The first picture is all of us, minus Felix who was taking the picture, on our way to the island on the ferry. The second picture was taken by Rae from the bridge that overlooked our little swimming spot.

Strawberry!

I'm here! I arrived at the Incheon Airport Sunday evening and since then I've been getting settled in, meeting new people and most of all, exploring the city! The city is beautiful, it's extremely big, way bigger than New York City. The area of the city that the University is located in is called Sinchon (similar concept to the different boroughs of NYC).

My first meal out was in Sinchon, just two blocks from my dorm, which is named the SK Global House. Monday morning, although still jet-lagged, I managed to wake up and meet some friends in the lobby of my dorm for a morning meal. The reason I call it a morning meal is that in Korea there is very little concept of distinct mealtimes, such as breakfast, lunch and dinner in the U.S. Koreans simply eat what they want when they want. In the lobby I met my friends Rosie and Jim and a few other international students. Rosie also goes to HWS with me, and Jim and I became friends on facebook before we met, he is from Rochester, NY. The other people I met were Axel and Andreas, two guys from Sweden, Felix from Germany, Aliana from France, Kia from San Francisco, and Jumee from Seattle. We ventured off campus and after only a couple of blocks we found a small restaurant called Strawberry. (Which is clearly a sign because strawberries are my favorite fruit!)

We were all starving since most of us hadn't eaten since the plane so we ordered right away. The wait staff did not speak English so we ordered by pointing to the pictures of what we wanted in the menu. I ordered a rice bowl with cabbage, garlic, rice cake, wasabi, and a few other unidentified objects, with a scrambled egg on top. It was delicious, but strange eating such a meal around breakfast time. The whole meal was 3,000 won which is about $3. Some others ordered raman noodles, dumplings, and a rice patty dish. We ended up swapping meals at the end so that we could all try everything.

Another great thing about Korea is that tipping is not customary, and also you are not taxed on food or clothing. Afterwards we walked back to the SK Global House and attacked our next order of business, registering for our alien registration card. So that's a wrap for my first official in-Seoul post! Stay tuned for an upcoming bio on my roommate from Singapore!