Jeju Vacation

I have just come back from a wonderful and relaxing vacation to Jeju Island. Jeju is a good sized island right off the southern end of Korea. I went with Heather and Lena, a Korean/Canadian teacher from our school. We were there for six days and I hardly know where to start with what we did or how much we enjoyed ourselves.

Hotel

When we arrived at our hotel we were more than impressed. We booked it ahead of time online, but didn't know what to expect. (we booked it because it was decently cheap.) It was up a curvy jungle-ly road and away from the little town. When we pulled up in front of the hotel we couldn't believe it, it was like a resort. Inside the hotel all of the employees were wearing Hawaiian t-shirts and everything was so brightly decorated. When we got to our room there was a balcony so we immediately went out. The balcony looked out over the back side of the hotel and a gigantic pool with water slides. Beyond the pool was a green jungle and then a distant view of the sea. It was beautiful. The next morning we found out that our hotel serves a free buffet breakfast every morning so of course we took advantage of that. It was the best breakfast I've had since coming to Korea. They had just about everything that a breakfast buffet could have. So every morning we had a good full breakfast as we gazed out of the large windows facing and the sea. It was more than perfect. We also found out our first day that the hotel offers a free shuttle into the little town and back almost every hour. So instead of dealing with the hassle of taxi's, we were shuttled around for free by the hotel. I cannot believe all that the hotel offered us and for such a cheap price too!

Activities

We started our vacation off strong wanting to explore the island and see everything, but as the days went on the heat and humidity got to us and we took to just relaxing. Our first day though we took a little hike to a beautiful waterfall. There were lots of stairs going down through the jeju jungle trees and finally we saw the waterfall. It was huge and beautiful. From there we were drenched in sweat so Lena bought us some fresh pineapple on a stick to refresh us. It did it's job and we headed to the bridge. The bridge went all the way over a tree covered gorge with a river at the bottom. From the top we could see the whole surrounding area and a nearby temple. We were also able to get a nice breeze from there as well. Next we headed to the beach. The beach was crowded with beach umbrellas and Koreans wearing their clothes into the water. The Koreans are so modest, they hardly like to show their shoulders let alone their chests, stomachs and legs too. Although, a decent amount of the younger Koreans were also wearing bathing suits. It was just weird to see people swimming in t-shirts and jeans. Ugg, talk about uncomfortable and unflattering.

Another day we visited the jeju botanical gardens. The building was huge and made of all glass. It was kind of shaped like a spider. It had one central area and then off of it were lots of sections. From the outside it was an amazing piece of architecture. The inside was also very beautiful with it's exotic plants and jungle areas. In the center you could take an elevator and then lots of steps up to the observation area. From there you could see everything. It was nice to be able to get a good grasp of what the layout of the area was.

While walking down the street of the little town one day Lena was able to read a Korean sign that said there was a beer and music festival. We thought that sounded like a good thing to do in the evening. So after and amazing dinner of Korean barbeque we headed to the beer and music festival. It wasn't crowded so we found a table, ordered some beer and settled in. Right as we got our beer the band started playing John Denver's song 'Take Me Home Country Roads'. We were so shocked and at the same time thrilled! I think that one thing alone made the vacation awesome! We heard a song about where we were from, sung in English, on Jeju Island!!

Lena left a few days early to spend some time with her boyfriend so Heather and I just wandered around. One day we took a bus with good intentions of getting to another island off of Jeju. We missed our transfer stop though and decided to keep going just for the heck of it. We ended up in another little town. It was a bit larger with lots more shops though so we decided to check em out. After buying cheap shirts we found an indoor market. We explored it and found lots of fruits, vegetables, squid, fish, random kitchen and house stuff, shoes, mens clothing and other random pieces of things. After a while we were pretty hot and sweaty so we went back out on the street, bought some street food and peach smoothies from and old lady and sat on some steps. It was nice to just bum around for a day. Eventually we found our way back to our little town and then the hotel.

The rest of our time in Jeju it either rained or we sat by the pool relaxing, reading, swimming, going down the water slide, and listening to the blasting Korean pop tunes being played on the speakers.

Our last morning at the hotel Heather and I were eating breakfast when this good looking man who was obviously an athlete asked us if he could join us. We asked him to sit down and and were immediately in conversation. He said he was from New Zealand and is the coach/manager for their olympic triathlon team. They are in Jeju training for the Olympics because it's close to Beijing an the air is much cleaner. Heather and I were shocked, but had a great time talking to him and asking questions. He was very friendly. We were also finally glad to know about all the athletes then as well. All week long we had been running into Russian, Italian, Spanish, and New Zealand athletes in our hotel. We saw them every morning at breakfast, sometimes outside getting ready for training and a group of them even had rooms two doors down from us. We couldn't figure out why all these athletes were there, but we finally found out on our last day. Now we will for sure be watching the triathlete part of the Olympics.

All in all, Jeju is a wonderful, beautiful island and this has probably been my best vacation yet. And I didn't even spend much money to have such a cool vacation too! :)