Despite all the craziness required of moving back to the states, we managed to sneak in one last trip here in Korea, and spent a relaxing week on Jeju Island. I've heard it referred to as the "Hawaii of Korea", but since I've never been to Hawaii, I'll just share our adventures as best as I can and leave the comparing up to you.
We stayed on the east coast of the island, near Seongsan, which had a number of the attractions we wanted to see. If yoiu look at this map, our hotel was near where the blue and green roads intersect.
We headed to Gimpo Airport and flew on Jeju Air - the seats were ridiculously cheap when I booked them (around 35,000 won, one way) and we enjoyed the brief one hour flight over.
We realized part way through our travels that we had obviously forgotten a key traveling accessory - our face masks to prevent germs from getting to us (mainly due to the fear of MERS right now). Despite that, we managed to stay healthy and enjoy our trip.
We rented a car through rentalcars.com and ended up with a cute little Kia for the week, that JUST fit us and our luggage. The best part of this was the Jeju GPS, which had an English option and allowed you to input a destination's phone number to plan the route. This was the easiest trip ever - especially since we've been to Korea - and it was nice to have the freedom to go where we wanted to.
Before we checked into out hotel, we stopped along the way to visit Dolharbang Park so we could learn about Jeju's famous Stone Grandfather statues, take a bunch of pictures, and stretch our legs a bit.
The Dolharbang (돌하르방) are statues carved from the volcanic rock found on Jeju and they are considered to be very inportant guardians. They can be found in all manner of sizes all over the island, but have the same key features - a man with rounded eyes, large nose, thin lips, a hat, and two hands (usually placed on his stomach).
They are believed to provide both comfort and ward of danger. They can also be made for very specific purposes, such as this fertility dolharbang:
We took lots of photos and then headed back to our car.
He found penguins!
We stayed at the Jeju Lux Hotel for the week - a boutique hotel with unique rooms and very friendly service. Since we were not staying at the more touristy section of the island, this was way more affordable and just what we needed to rest our head. They even had a laundry service, which made packing easier, as well.
The hallways had some pretty interesting quotes in English on the walls.
And we ended up not needing Michael's travel cot, as they already had an extra mattress in the room for him. He was thrilled! :)
The next day we braved the rainy sky and headed north to the Manjanggul Lava Tube.
We descended into the cave, leaving humid warmth, and immediately felt the cool dampness of the 7.4 km lava tube.
It was hard to take pictures, but here are a few attempts:
This is known as turtle rock and is famous due to its strong resemblance to the shape of Jeju Island, complete with Mt. Halla in the center.
At the end of the open portion of the tube is a large 7.6 meter lava column (the largest in the world).
After we trekked back to the opening of the cave, wiped off the condensation from our fogged up glasses (a first for Michael!), and stopped for a quick lunch at the nearby restaurant, we headed just a few meters down the road to a maze park. The roads were lined with beautiful flowers throughout our trip, but I especially loved the blooming hydrangeas.
Our visit to Kimnyong Maze Park was brief but fun.
I made the "mistake" of letting a certain small guy navigate our way through the maze...
So we ended up waving at Rob a number of times from afar...since he found the way out waaaay before us.
But we did eventually find our way to the bell at the end of the maze.
That afternoon we opted to go visit the Jeju Folklore and Natural History Museum - we of course found more dolharbangs.
There were numerous outdoor statues and rock examples:
And some great exhibits inside about the history and development of the island.
There was also a marine life exhibit, since a good deal of the island's income come from the sea. The skeleton of a whale was impressive.
Along our travels we picked up a few Jeju souvenirs and "must haves": Jeju chocolates (with orange, cactus, green tea, and berry flavors), a small dohlarbang, and delicious, fresh hallabongs (Jeju tangerines).
Coming soon - Jeju, Day 3...and Days 4 and 5...
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