Jeju - Island of the Gods

Jeju is interesting because of the many mythologies associated with it, "Island of the Gods," "Land of Goddesses, yet also "Hawaii of the East." The island is inhabited by something like 18,000 goddesses and all of them have some myths associated with it. It is quite interesting to hear all the stories about these stone statues as well as volcanic creations. Sometimes you have to look twice at something and say, "umm.... sure, I guess one can call that a dragon. I think?" I think it is cool, also that Jeju is VERY different from the mainland in that they also have shamanism, I wouldn't exactly call it a religion, but kind of in a way, but very mysterious and spiritual. For example, they will do a shaman song and dance to reach out to the heavens to bless a home or a family or a wedding couple. So you see it is not "soul-less" here, I found it MUCH more laid back and fairly easy going, I guess what else would you expect from an island, right? There is also a Jeju dialect that is a bit different than the mainland Korean dialect. Although seemingly the island is small, it is quite vast in nature. Jeju has it all, beautiful beaches, mountains, tons of hiking trails, museums (some funky ones), street/cafe hippy-like culture, and even some food that is typical to Jeju, like the "black pork," which pretty much means "very fatty pork." Will get to it later, but yes, I did try some and now am officially porked out. This is what I feel like:

Anyhoo, Sachin, my college friend, and his wife Madeline, were super nice from the beginning and did a great job of both showing me around and also guiding me. You can tell they really love it here, I am glad to see them happy and adapt to the Korean culture. It was also cool talking "expat" living with a fellow Chicagoan. It's something not a lot of people understand or can relate to (until you are an expat), so it was good to talk Life as an Expat. Since I was here a lot longer and Jeju is fairly a small island, it was fun to go about it in more of a relaxed way. Of course anywhere you go there is always more things you want to see and do, but am pretty happy with what I did see and do!

Btw, Chicago represent here too, although my friend said it unfortunately kind of sucks, too bad:

The thing I like most about Jeju is NATURE, NATURE, NATURE!!!! From the get-go, just a 10-15 min drive from the "city," (which is pretty small) you can hit nature. I felt like we barely got out of town until we ran into these Jeju horses, which funny enough are known to be quite small so they got in some Mongolian horses to breed with them to make them a bit bigger, ha ha. 

Cheonjiyeon waterfall is one of the highest in Jeju, 22 m high. A nice small walk and beautiful area. 

Love the babies here! Sooo cute! 

We headed to Oedolgae, yes a rock, but here is an example of one of their myths (and as myths go, different versions):

Mt. Sanbangsan is a lava dome with a beautiful temple, one of those cool spiritual places:

A short way from there (well, this was our South Island day, so everything was fairly close) is Saeyeongyo, largest pedestrian bridge in Jeju. But hmm... you might think. Looks oddly familiar, huh? Too bad it is almost a replica of good 'ol Burj Al Arab in Dubai!!!

As luck would have it, an unexpected surprise, is that the haenyeo woman sea divers were there! This is something that started in Japan that came to Korea and is what Jeju is known for, National Geographic and other nature programs have done documentaries on these fascinating woman as from an early age they train their bodies to catch abalone, conch, seaweed, etc. It used to be a male thing, but then as woman have more fat (hmph) they began to take over and were more successful and not only became the "head" of the families, but made lots of money! Enough money to send their children away to school and even abroad. That all sounds lovely, but now what's happened is that the younger generation have "real" jobs and aren't holding up the tradition so it is sadly "dying." The age ranges now are 50's to 70 years old AND every year there are less and less of them. They usually are in the water from an hour to 6 hours and can hold their breath anywhere between 30 seconds to almost 10 minutes. They are an incredible show of mental and physical stamina, using NO diving equipment, just weights to make them sink faster, scuba goggles, a flotation device, and a mesh net to collect their findings. I had read about them before and was so excited to see them! Usually you see them in the water (which I did later) but seeing them out of the water was just as cool. Interestingly, when you see pictures of them, you always see them laughing. I always thought one of those photography tricks like always having a perfect sunset at a particular place. But no, they genuinely were like school girls, giggling, talking, laughing. It was so fun to watch them in action! Here are some snaps of them in action...

And some more at a different site and a different day when I caught one "fishing." The water is fairly cold in Jeju (enough that I wussed out of scuba diving) but these woman are no joke, they are strong! We had a nice walk around and then a long'ish lunch, and she was still fishing away. Absolutely amazing!!!

So after being in awe by the haenyeo, the famous Yongduam "dragon head" rock was like "meh" in comparison, ha ha:

Also visited Mt. Songak one of the Yeongju sipgyeong (10 beauties of Jeju). It is a volcano and inside is a huge cave that is like a room inside the earth, so they say. Also on this little walk to see that is the Hyeongjeseon islets, beautiful! 

           See the goat? Haha

Sara-bong Nakjo, "sunset from Sara Oreum" is supposed to have fab sunsets, but we made this little climb during the day, but still got nice views of the city. They had a funny acupuncture walking path thing that hurt at the time,  but felt good later!

As with most of Asia, Korea is no different with markets, and went to the Dongmun Market Place, which had some fun stuff (and got a poncho and also gators for shoes for Mongolia. Yay! 

        Yup, black eggs. Hmmmm....

 

Hallim Park is yet another beautiful park that had the famous lava tube caves and I guess "rare" white peacocks! I had  never seen one,  but didn't know they were rare. Kinda cool (but a bit sad without the beautiful colors!). 

   B.  Traditional thatched roof house

We had a fun night and went to one of the most famous beaches in Jeju, Hyeopjae Beach. We went around sunset time so didn't see the well-advertised beautiful white sand, BUT what was super cool is that there was a beach swing party! Yes, with live bands from the Western world! It was soo fun not only hearing live music, but being on the BEACH, AND seeing the Koreans just let loose, have fun, and dance! Everyone was in good spirits and it was super fun. Sachin and Madeline's other school teacher friends were there so it was fun meeting them too. 

The next day was off to, da da dum, climb the famous Hallasan mountain! I took the "longer" Seongpanak trail, a good 9.6km each way... mostly stairs and the last couple of hours were purely walking on rocks. Granted they were sturdy and stable, but because it was drizzling and foggy and rainy (light rain) it made it a bit difficult to watch footing. I defo was prepared with my awesome trekking Salomen's (BEST investment EVER!), and it was funny met these young Aussie kids on the way there and ended up doing the hike with them. I was happy to say I  held my own while they pooped away a few times. The girl kinda ruined my nature detox as she talked... the whole time in this kind of annoying voice. Literally, NO ONE around was talking, yet she was chattering away and I just let it be and still enjoyed the fresh air and detox of being in nature. Bummer about the rain because absolutely NO views,  but felt sooo sooo good to get exercising in. My eating has been horrendous with Sachin's insistence of delicious "American" goodies (I won't even go into details what that is, feel too gross!) and of course all this pork and pig fat. Ew! So it was well needed to burn at least a few calories!  

And the view on top, Wah Wah:

And the way back down:

The "feeling good about exercise" lasted just a few hours, because then had to have the "Black pork," aka. super fatty pork. Sigh. Well, it was good but was just turned off by the layers of fat. How do they find that appealing? I just don't know.

Then here we are! My last day in S. Korea. Besides being a bit lazy and wanting to relax with blog writing, did make it to Stone Park, which again, was much better than what I expected. It is a HUGE area that has a bit of a mystical feel to it, or maybe it was because there was NO ONE there and I felt like I had all these acres to myself? Quite beautiful as it was somewhat in a forest yet had wide open valley spaces AND had this immense collection of stone figures with all the stories of the myths associated with it. I just loooved doing the slow walk and the peace of it (unlike yesterday's Hallasan mountain where the girl was talking the whole time and also it was fairly busy considering it was a rainy day and people were just running past us), so it was much more serene, calm and peaceful and had some time to reflect and breathe the nature and immerse myself in the history of Jeju and the mythology. 

               A burial mound 

What a great story! Here are some of the "sons:"

And finally, her!

   B.   Cool, huh? And a bit spooky!

One more kimbap meal, 

organizing my laundry, re-packing a bit, and tomorrow off to Mongolia!!! Will be MIA for about 2 weeks, but will try to get in a blog ASAP as to not forget and I know life in Dubai will be full on when I get back!!!