Korea Part 3: Sun, Sand and...Sexiness?

Our final day in Jeju would be without Jonjon, and at first us tourists were like lost puppies wandering around for scraps.  There was a tang of tension in the air too: not with each other as such, but with ourselves; after piecing together enough knowledge of Japanese to get by in everyday situations and between us pretty much anything, it was frustrating to be stripped of that.  After we ordered breakfast, however, our confidence grew, and we headed to the beach.


Now, I'm not normally a beach person, but I could see the benefit of enjoying a lazy afternoon on Jeju's famed sands before we barrelling into the megapolis of Seoul the next day.  What wasn't such a good idea was to go walking around on volcanic rock barefoot, and sure enough my, sole of my foot was split open.  I deserved the mockery that followed, to be honest.

Anyway, after a romp across the rocks, Grant and I went old-school and built a sandcastle.  We fought the tide and ultimately won, while Marcos worked his Miami charm on the locals and made a new friend.  Together we drank a few beers of the national brew - Cass - and added the cans to the battlements of our castle, thus christening it Cass Castle.

After a quick recharge at the guesthouse, we grabbed a taxi to Jeju Love Land.  A whole park filled with - well, let's just say it's not the platonic kind of love celebrated here.  We all had a vague idea of what to expect, but what threw us off was just how explicit it all was.  Innuendo wasn't the word.  Sculptures and statues all about doing the down and dirty in the most imaginative ways possible, and although it was palpably awkward at first, it soon shed the inital shock value and became the most bizarre place I've ever visited, and will provide many an anecdote for a long time.

We returned to Jeju City one last time for a final round of revelry.  We pitched up at a Korea BBQ resaturant, instantly identifiable by the long extractor vents hanging over every table.  Afterwards we wandered, in awe of the nightlife and how - well - lively it was.  Outside the urban masses of Tokyo, Osaka and the like, Japanese nightlife can leave a lot to be desired.  Not here: Jeju City isn't a big city by any means, and it was a weekday night to boot, yet the streets buzzed.  Perhaps price has a great deal to do with it: even the import beer bar we stopped at, three words which would be a hotbed for eye-watering charges in Japan, were merely average by Japan's standards.

The next morning we left Jeju in high spirits and full bellies.  Already we had seen (and eaten!) so much, but were we barely halfway through our time in Korea.  Our next destination: Seoul.

Korea Part 2: Jeju Rocks

The next day was a deliciously slow start: the extra sleep was very much welcome, and made for a far perkier group.

Our first stop was Hallim Park, a garden famed for it's lava tube caves and Jeju Island's famous dolhareubang, or 'stone grandfathers'.  The caves were fascinating, full of telltale signs of Jeju's volcanic genesis, with equally interesting mythical explanations.  The grandfather statues are equally mysterious, mainly because nobody knows what they're for: Korea's very own Easter Island-esque enigma.  Their real appeal, though, is that despite their age they're downright adorable, with oversize expressive faces.


The park also had a little folk village, with huts recalling the lifestyles of a bygone era.  You could play simple games that were also played at the time, such as tossing bamboo sticks into urns.  Less authentic but just as much fun was a huge block of ice: bragging rights go to whoever can keep their hands on it longest (Jonjon, in our case).

The meal was a pleasant surprise.  Having had a late breakfast, we were after a little bite to eat to tide us over, nothing more.  What we ended up with was a gastronomic epic, with an army of side dishes (all refillable for free, as per Korean custom), two huge plates of pork, and beer.  All for the price of 'a little bite to eat'.  Although it's a hard call on what was the best meal  in Korea, I look back at that one as the most memorable, because that's when it hit home how, in Korea, one cat eat like a King for the price of a pauper.

Next up was the visual icon of Jeju, Ilchulbong, a volcanic bluff on the eastern tip of the island, now long extinct.  It is famed for it's views of the sunrise.  Luckily for us afternoon arrivals, it offered much else besides, and the climb up to the crater was made more palatable by the curious rock formations on the way up.  The crater itself wa covered in a wild meadow and a singular tree, the sea stretching out beyond - beautiful, but at this time of day the sunset in the opposite direction, with the hazy outline of Hallason (South Korea's highest point) in the distance, was the choice view.

We descended right down to sea level, to a little inlet where the was a hut dedicated to the fabled women divers (a cunning form of tax evasion turned tourist attraction) we were too late to see the diver's in action but it was still a great place to do a bit of rock-pool spying and take some moody photos for an art rock album.

Then it was back to Jeju City for the evening's feeding and drinking.  Once again it didn't disappoint, and by now I was able to hold my own with Grant and Marco's more spice-atuned taste buds - just as well, because I mistook the chilli paste for tomato sauce at first.


A pleasant, well-earned drowsiness set in, and we took a far less heart-pounding taxt back to the guesthouse.  That evening, we cracked open a bottle of Blue Label whisky and had a suitable refined conversation about alcohol.  At least, that's what it felt like.

When the wheels come off

So, as you may have figured out, I'm an Assistant English Teacher in Japan (note the capitals; it's that important, I tell you).  The job has it's ups and downs, it's perks and drawbacks, but the one BIG highlight of the year is the summer holidays, which I get off (not all English teachers here get that luxury, but it's usually a trade-off between pay and free time, so it all evens out in the end).

I had planned to return to the UK for 3 weeks this summer, but after a furious reshuffling, I'm now staying here, with a trip to Korea as the big feature of this summer break.  But that's not all!  Ooh, no.  Tomorrow morning (and it's the nasty end of the morning - I'm up at 4am to catch trains, ugh), I'm off on a trip to Nagoya and Hiroshima, taking in other various places on the way, including one of Japan's most famous sights - so watch this space!

Mike the Bike really stood out in a crowd.

Even my days of rest between Karuizawa and this have been packed with stuff, planned or spontaneous.  Last weekend, not long after my last blog post, I was halfway to cycling to Cainz Home when my (t)rusty old bike gave up on me (Mike, I called him.  Mike the Bike.  Okay, stop the sniggering at the back): the back wheel buckled, well beyond repair.  I nursed the poor thing back to D2, where I bought him 16 months ago*, and I bought my nigh-identical replacement.  Spike, he's called.  Well, I couldn't think of any other names that rhymed with bike.

It's a good thing too: just that night I was halfway through cooking when I realised I was missing a vital ingredient.  You have never seen a guy hustle a bike through Japanese suburbia so fast.  To Yaoko and back in under 10 minutes.  Which was just as well: moments later the Mother Of All Storms rolled over, with lightning breaking more frequently than a card castle on a bouncy castle.  One lick of lightning struck either ridiculously close to my apartment or the building itself: no gap to speak of between the lightning, the thunder...and the power cutting off for a good half hour.

But the night wasn't finished yet.  Oh no.  Not to be outdone by the sky, the earth wanted to get in on the action too, and at 4am I awoke to my apartment shuddering at a 6.4 magnitude earthquake.  Phew.

A chance to really break Spike in came on Monday, when my friend Marcos and his visiting friend from Miami, Tanya, came to visit, specifically to take a bike-ride around the wonderful Shinrin Koen.  Shinrin Koen is huge national park near my house, and it's big selling point (for me, anyway) is the network of dedicated bicycle-roads throughout the park.  It was especially fun to be weaving through the rapidly darkening trees to reach the exit before closing time: we were sure we wouldn't be closed in, but it sure was a good motivator.  Trouble was, I'd bought my own bike, so even aftet we'd left the park I had to push-pedal my way another 4km home.  Needless to say, when I got back a shower was in order!  The izakaya food, drinking and karaoke were an excellent way to unwind afterwards too.

So, here I am.  Time to turn in and a few precious hours sleep.  Here's hoping nothing disturbs that...

See you in a few days!

*Yeah, 16 months isn't that long, I know, but I used my bike every single workday, for at least 8km.  I figured that I did around 1,900 miles on my old bike, roughly the same distance between Sierra Leone in Africa and the tip of Brazil.  A little a day sure adds up, doesn't it?  Not that 8km a day in the sweltering Japanese summer felt like small fry, ooh no.