Jeju-do: Korea's Hawaii

So there we were last Thursday, at 8am in the morning, standing in front of Mokpo's International Ferry terminal ( 34°46'48.36"N 126°22'55.39"E) with 30 of my teachers around us. The teachers had been gracious enough to envite Steph and I on their yearly outing... and this year it was all the way on Jeju Island, South Korea's "Honeymoon Island".


The ferry carried over 50 cars and nearly a thousand people, took 4 1/2 hours to get us to Jeju and left the two of us with some nice sunburns that really freaked out our Korean travel-mates. I don't tan... I just burn.

We arrived in Jeju (33°31'10.41"N 126°32'6.16"E) around 1:30 and were immediately ushered onto our tour bus, where we would spend the majority of our trip, in classic Korean style.

On the first day, a stop for lunch was followed by:

Ilchulland - an amazing garden created and donated to the island by one super wealthy man

Micheon Ilchulland Cave - a brilliantly chilly cave in the Ilchulland garden

A native Jeju village - They tried to sell us all some "berry medicine" - meh

An awesome Forest park where we got to walk and relax for way too little time.

Each stop we were only given the shortest amount of time to get out, wander around and take pictures... Steph and I were always the last ones back to the bus.

At a late dinner at the Hotel Hawaii and the revelation was made that our fellow teachers were told we were going home to Canada for our vacation, and not to Signapore. Trouble? I'm not sure. The group of us then headed to a really nice night club with a live band and singers. We had a great time drinking (Beer!) and dancing in the empty bar until a traditional dancer came out and we were all shooed back to our table. As the lady danced I joked to Steph that she was going to strip for us. Steph and I laugh aloud right up until the point that she stood practically naked in front of us... us and the 15 female and 15 male teachers from my school! The ladies didn't seem phased at all. Wow...you would probably never see this in Canada.

Although many in the group were hoping our next stop was the hotel, we made our way to the infamous Karaoke room where everyone pounded out famous Korean tunes into the wee hours of the night. It wasn't until Steph and I got up and belted out tunes of our own that the group headed home, tired but happy.

Day #2 started at 7:30 am after a mere 5 hours sleeping on the floor in our hotel rooms (There are no beds in normal Korean hotel rooms). Everyone was surprisingly chipper at breakfast before we headed out for round 2 of our whirlwind tour:

A "lava pottery" place (no other way to explain it) where one of our teacher took a donkey ride

An amazing show at the Jeju Magic World" which, for $15, was pretty comparable to a Cirque du Soleil show

A drive past the Convention center and World cup stadium

An amazing trek to the tallest and widest waterfall (33°14'48.68"N 126°33'16.67"E) in Korea

A trip to the lava tubes - seen in a movie on the "My Pictures" sidebar

Lunch followed by a trip to the famous "Dragon's Head lava formation"

More food and Soju

A trip to the tour gift shop before headed to the ferry

The trip home was pretty eventless, minus the onslaught of Soju and Skate once again. But an awesome sunset welcomed us back to Mokpo. It's so nice to be home!


Check all our pictures from Jeju on the sidebar dropdown menu!