Officially at the half way point now. But once again, it’s been ages since I’ve written anything. I feel like I’m always so busy here that its impossible to sit down long enough to write a blog that actually tells people anything! In my last blog I know I said I was going to Thailand this weekend, but unfortunately that didn’t happen 🙁 But there’s been lots to do anyway! After we got home from MT, it was a pretty normal week. My friends and I went bowling one night, and it was just as you’d expect. Normal bowling with a lane and ten pins (there weren’t any bumpers which I thought would be bad, but I still won – 129!) Bowling wasn’t something I thought I’d do in Korea, but it was still fun!
We took lots of pictures while we were bowling, but some Korean lady yelled at me… She told me we were “disturbing” her. Not in the disruptive loud way, the “you’re scaring me” way. She told me our group didn’t understand Korean bowling etiquette and if we couldn’t learn it we should probably leave the bowling alley. So instead we stopped taking pictures and just finished our game.
Later in the week some girl friends and I searched for the Hello Kitty Cafe. We found it in some scary alley, but the cafe itself is soooo super cute.
Everything inside is pink and if there is some sort of Hello Kitty appliance or picture or anything, this place has it. You can buy coffee and snacks here and all of that has Hello Kitty on it too. Even my coffee!
Everyone else in the dorms thought the Hello Kitty Cafe was so cool that they arranged a group coffee date there on a Friday night! Kinda funny to see all the boys getting excited about anything Hello Kitty related. After we were at the Hello Kitty gathering, we walked around Seoul a little bit. The weather is getting really nice out now, and last week the Cherry Blossoms were blooming, so we decided to see them while they were out. While we were walking we stopped at a street vendor to get a real meal (kind of) and there’s this really popular street vendor who makes chicken and people make huge lines by his stand. Its basically a chicken kebab, but he puts all sorts of sauce and cheese and stuff on it.
I’m sure its absolutely terrible for you but people here love it. There are four different flavors you can get, and they’re measured by spicy-ness.
I tried the level 1 🙁 still a little bit spicy. But it was pretty good! Most of my friends got the level 3, but one of my friends asked for the level 4 (the hottest one they make). The guy who was making the food tried to talk her out of it, but she kept telling him it was okay and that she liked spicy foods. Well she tried it, and was in so much pain she had to take a taxi home. So if you come to Seoul and are looking to try some street food, stay away from the number 4.
The cherry blossoms in Seoul are so so pretty, but unfortunately they’re only out for about a week or so, then the trees just look sorta like normal trees. Some friends of mine went to Osaka for the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival – unfortunately I couldn’t go, but the trees in Seoul are just as pretty!
The cherry blossoms are everywhere, actually. I thought you’d have to go to one area to see them all, but they line the streets in some areas. Even my campus has them all over the place.
They’re so pretty, but like I said before they only last for about a week. They are already gone now, but at least that means summer is coming! The past week I spent a majority of my time studying and trying to get ready for mid-terms (starting Monday the 25th) and packing for my trip to Jeju Island – the Hawaii of Korea! 11 friends and I went to Jeju for the four day Easter break and we had such an amazing time. We left on Wednesday night and we got a flight to Jeju for only 17 dollars!!! Once we got there a little after 9pm, a friend of a friend met us at the airport and took us to the pension house we stayed at the first night. We had a good time talking and just relaxing that night. A couple of us walked around the island a little bit, but it was late and sorta chilly and it smelled pretty bad in some areas. We really wanted food, so we walked for at least two hours trying to find something to eat, and eventually we flagged down a cab to take us to a convenient store to get some things to take back to the house with us. We got in the cab and the driver asked where we were from, I told him America and he turned the light on and pointed to himself and said “Nelson Mandela”. He did look strangely like Mandela once he pointed it out.
The next day when it was nice out, we stopped at a small convenient store to get breakfast and it was right across the street from the ocean. Jeju Island is a volcanic island, so there’s lots of volcanic rock there. The north part doesn’t have very many beaches, but the coast still looks pretty!
We rented a 15 person van for the 12 people and all our luggage, and used that to drive around the island. So after breakfast we drove to the lava tunnels and on the way there we stopped at a small field of flowers. They were really pretty and there was nice white sand. I only got a couple pictures there, but it was just a place we stopped at on the way to the tunnel. Anyway once we got there we bought our tickets and went into the cave. The cave was formed by lava a long long long time ago, but its kinda hard to see anything inside, so I only got a few pictures. After the cave, we went to U-do, an island off the north coast of Jeju. We went there with the intention of riding scooters around the small island, but unfortunately a normal drivers license wasn’t enough to rent a scooter – you need an international drivers license – so instead we just rented bicycles and rode around the island. The weather was nice and the bikes were cheap, so it was a good way to get around the island. While we were riding bikes, we saw a group of older women sitting in the rocks on the coast, but we couldn’t figure out what they were doing.
We finally found out they were picking seaweed out of the rocks, and eventually they sell it in huge piles along the street. Sounds a little gross to me, but a lot of people do it so I guess its popular. It was really hard to take pictures while I was riding my bike, so most of the pictures look like this where they’re a little bit blurry, so most of them aren’t worth putting up. There’s another spot on the island that is a popular beach spot, but it was way too cold to swim. But the water there is so incredibly clear its hard to believe its ocean water.
After we went to U-do, we went back to the main island and got dinner. Black pig is a Jeju Island specialty (one of the only Jeju-foods that aren’t fish) and we ate it Korean bbq style. It was really really really good, and it was nice to have a full meal finally. Later that night we went to a place called Love Land. It was one of those things thats really difficult to explain, but it was definitely shocking. If you’re really interested, you can google it, but I think its best if I don’t post any of the pictures I have from there. After that, we were all exhausted so we went to our pension for the night and crashed. The next morning I made breakfast for everyone. We took our time getting ready because it rained all day so Friday turned into museum day. We went to a Teddy Bear Museum (cute, but not cute enough for $7.00) and Chocolate Land (has nothing on Hershey) and we also went to Jeongbong waterfall and Cheonjiyong waterfall. These were definitely my favorite parts of the trip.
At Jeongbong waterfall, trying not to slip and fall on the wet rocks.
Cheonjiyoung Waterfall. So so so pretty. This was definitely my favorite spot on the whole island. The area around the waterfall was so nice too. Just a beautiful place all around. Something you can see all around the island are these tiki-like statues. I’m not sure what they are called in Korean or what exactly they represent, but they’re all made out of volcanic rock from Jeju. I bought a tiny little one as a souvenir for my desk when I get home 🙂
Got a group picture at the waterfalls too!
As a finale to our museum day, we ended things at the OSulloc Jeju Green Tea Garden. It was raining and cold at this point, so we stayed outside long enough to take a picture of the tea field and then we ran inside to buy some hot tea to warm up.
After a really long day of sightseeing, we spent the night at a friend of a friend’s house in Jeju City. It was so nice of them to offer their house to 12 college students for the night and we had a really great time with them. Couldn’t have seen as much as we did without them!! The next day they took us to the Samyang Blacksand beach. The beach itself was really pretty, and the sand wasn’t actually black, but it was pretty dark (volcanic island). The boys all swam, but it was way way too cold to even think about swimming, so we sat in the sand and watched the boys freeze.
The day started late since we finally got to sleep at a house, so after the beach, we grabbed a quick lunch then went back to the house and slept for a little bit. We ended the day and the trip with a walk to the top of a mountain in Jeju City to watch the sunset. Sitting at the top of the mountain to see the coast and the ocean was so nice and relaxing. However I think we were some of the only people who were there to enjoy the sunset. At the top of the mountain there are all sorts of exercise machines… monkey bars and stretching posts and benches for crunches… its basically an outdoor gym. Anyway, we sat on a bench and just watched the sunset. Perfect end to a busy but exciting and fun trip!
Now I’m back in my dorm in Seoul – I keep calling it home! I know its not, but at least its starting to get more comfortable 🙂 I have midterms tomorrow, and I’ve done about as much as I possibly can to prolong studying, so now I’ll start studying for political development. Midterms done on Wednesday, then another long weekend 🙂 Hope this enormously long post makes up for the lack of posts the past few weeks!!! Miss and love all my family and friends! <3
Location: Jeju-do, South Korea
