This will be mostly a photo-post! I was trying to think of a way to share some of the silly, unusual, unexpected and just interesting things around us. So enjoy these little things. They make me smile almost every day around here!
Most things around the island are made of stone (either big lava rocks or poured concrete), and many of them are painted, like this watertower showing women harvesting in a field.
The buses that the school uses all have track lights along the top, and most have jewel-tone curtains and decorations along the windows. Classy!
Carts on escalators! Yes, most of the big supermarkets are multi-level monstrosities. To get your cart of goodies between floors, they have magnetized ramp-escalators. Just wheel on and ride up!
The stone man: he’s the sort of island-wide mascot. He shows up everywhere! Originally modeled after stone “grandfather” guardian statues – each town would have a unique guardian. And when turned into a cartoon, he’s a mascot for every public sign, like the “no smoking” at this park.
Stone dude cartoon sells oranges too – here he is with some of the specialty Jeju tangerines on a storage building close to our apartments.
Koreans cartoon-ify everything! Even this “warning – construction zone!” sign uses a cute little cartoon man to tell you about deadly danger.
Teeny tiny fire hydrants! I dont’ know why, but this seems to be the norm. They are also different colors everywhere I’ve been. I think this one was painted to match our school colors.
Parking. Seriously, Koreans park anywhere. This stretch of sidewalk outside the school is usually blocked by 4-6 cars all parked nose-in across the sidewalk. No walking or biking there!
If sidewalks aren’t “off-limits” enough, here are other folks at that corner – see the whole line parked in the road median right at the intersection? And more parked in the right-turn lane. Makes actually trying to drive pretty exciting.
I know there are many more silly, cute, strange, and culturally surprising parts of the experience so far, but these are what I have easily findable photos of. What do you think of these things? Questions? Let us know!
We’re off to Japan on Wednesday and will try to share more stories from that adventure soon!