November
6th, Wednesday
We packed up last night, so we were
ready to get to the van for our trip to the airport right after breakfast. We got down with our bags to the lobby by
7:40, and were immediately met by the driver.
The drive from Haeundae Beach to the airport was quite long. The Busan airport is a full hour’s drive from
when we started. We checked onto the
flight Korean Air 1005, seats 32 A and B.
I expected that we’d be sitting at the very back of the plane, but somehow
the numbering for economy began at 28? Great
seats. We flew away at 10:40 on the dot
and got to Jeju Island at 11:40. One of
these up and down flights.
We got our bags and were picked up
by our Jeju guide Kia. Ee-Ah? Once loaded into the van, we drove off for
our tour immediately. The first stop was
dragon head rock (Yongduam rock).
Although Kia kept saying it was hard to see it looking like a dragon, I
thought it looked pretty good. Kia
noticed a group of Haenyeo diver women
selling their wares. The divers
discovered that if they sold their fish to the public, they made pretty good
money – better than to the commercial distributors. All around their stand of octopus, conch, and
abalone, were people picnicking on rocks eating raw fish. Apparently, Korean traditional style is raw
fish and booze. OK. That’s what they did.
There
was a little building that the Haenyeo ladies used as a storage shed/changing
room. One of them was sitting on some
rocks banging at the conch shells for future sales. Fascinating peek at what they did. These ladies used bright orange floaters to
hold their gathering net bags. We could
see a few of the floaters out on the water several dozens of meters away.
Dragon Rock
Haenyeo ladies selling their diving finds to locals. They discovered they'd get more money selling directly to the locals for lunches then to distributors.
Apparently, raw fish meals are always accompanied with some liquor
A haenyeo women's shack
It was a storage shed
More sea food selling
The orange floats are the sign that the haenyeo ladies are below.
The tangerines that Jeju Island is famous for. They were delicious!
These characters are all over the island. Protectors
Our next stop was the O’Sulloc Tea
Plantation. They began as a green tea
plantation and expanded out to sell green tea cosmetics. We had a sip of oolong tea which was
delicious. We looked at their collection
of tea pots from Korea, Japan, and around the world. Then we had some green tea ice cream. Quite nice.
A quick look at the tea plants
They sold tea and gave out samples
Tea plants for black and green tea are the same. The difference is how they are processed.
Charlie and me amongst the tea plants. No leeches here - unlike Sri Lanka
On to the Spirited Garden. An enormous Bonzai Garden. The biggest deal about it was that one man
made his life’s work creating these bonzai plants. Bonzai apparently began in China, not Japan, and
the Korean’s have done a great deal with them too. Lovely gardens to walk around, and really
some amazing bonzai specimens. The
gardens have the largest artificial waterfall in Jeju. There were also a collection of huge, quite
old koi, that I had a chance to feed. At
every stop we’ve seen friendly looking stone carvings of elf-like men. These are quite ancient (some replicas) of
Jeju spirits. They have a similarity to
the 7 dwarves that Snow White encountered.
The gardens were beautiful. An interesting combination of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese art forms.
Our next stop was Sanbanggulsa
Temple. All of Jeju is covered in
various sizes of volcanos. There are two
Buddhist temples at the bottom of this mountain, and one that is placed in a 16
foot high cliff cave that had been eroded out.
At the base of the mountain was a replica of a Dutch boat from one of
the original Europeans to come to Korea.
We marched up a fairly steep set of
stairs to the cave (a 20 minute climb).
We couldn’t take photos in the cave, but we could face outward and take
pictures. The placement of the temple
was as interesting as the temple itself.
Lots of steps to the cave temple
Lots of signs warning about falling rocks. And, as above, many barriers to try to protect climbers to the temple from getting beaned by the rocks.
The temple
View from the top
The Dutch boat
We then went to our hotel – the Jeju
suites hotel. No real eating in this
place, but there are several places near by to try for dinner.
Good grief! We found a fun park and another teddy bear museum!
Since we really hadn’t eaten since
breakfast, we went into a coffee shop after settling into our room, 103, and
shared a bagel with some nice coffee.
Have New York City settlers snuck into Korea?
For dinner we opted for a Korean Bim
Bam Bop. Mine was abalone and
vegetables, Charlie opted for bulgogi and vegetables. Both were delicious. We had a Cass beer. Came back to our room with another Cass beer
and sat and watched the only thing on TV in English – “The Outlaw Josey Wales”. Kind of an interesting story destroyed by
trite doozy characters. Bed.
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