We just finished hosting our second visitors! It’s so fun to have old familiar faces around and sharing this sometimes-surreal life with them. My dear old canoe guide buddy, Jenn and her Australian husband Drew flew up from down under to experience some winter and see a bit of South Korea.
We spent 4 days together and they helped me explore the island with fresh touristy eyes. Jeju is known for lovely walks and hikes in nature, beaches (in the summer at least), tangerines, and really hokey tourist museums and “themeparks”. Themeparks don’t have roller coasters, but are simple an area of land/buildings (park) with a theme (such as Teddy bears, miniaturized world monuments, glass, love, etc.)
It’s peak orange harvesting/selling season, and many markets have boxes and boxes of perfect bright orange fruits as sweet as candy. Yum!
We took in some of the outdoorsy time with waterfalls,
Beth, Jenn and Drew at one of the waterfalls in Jungmun. Low water right now.
beaches (rocky and sandy),
Jenn on the rocky beach near the beautiful hexagonal cliffs.
And playing in the tidepools near Sangaksan and the black sand beach. We found lots of cool sea anemones.
and even a full Olle trail – just 5km long on the tiny island south of Jeju called Gapado (the shortest and flattest Olle trail, but we got the stamps to prove it!).
The highest point on Gapado is only 20 meters, making this the shortest and flattest of the Olle trails. We walked across that whole island!
Gapado is also supposedly a zero-carbon island. Not quite true (we saw several diesel trucks), but they did have a nice wind farm.
Jenn and Drew checked out a few museums while we had to be at work, but I managed to join them for two new and fun ones. The Glass Castle has rooms and gardens made fully of glass, or filled with beautiful glass objects. Many were from Venice, Netherlands, and other famous crystal/glass locations. Some were made here in Jeju.
This was the Octopus’s garden, full of glass seaweed, fish, and the yellow submarine. Beatle’s music was piping on the speakers.
Glass spiderweb, spiders, and dung beatles? Not sure about that…
Beautiful glass mushrooms. Cool!
It started hailing and getting dark while we were there, so the lights came on to illuminate some of the displays. Here is an autumn garden with leaves and amber grain all made of glass.
The colors are actually from the back piece of glass. They had several display pieces and a few, like glass drums, that you could actually play!
The other new stop was for the Trick Art Museum. Jenn and Drew had researched this one in advance and it was worth the drive. They take famous (or self-created) artworks and add a little something – shadows, a shoe being kicked off, or places for you to participate. Here are a few of my favorites:
Yum! Fresh milk right out of the frame.
Oh no! Magic trick art display.
Don’t slip on the waterfall puddle!
(More awesome pics on Facebook from Jenn and Drew’s camera!)
The four days flew by, but it was great to have that time together. We ate lots of local specialties and saw as much as we could squeeze into the short time. Our next visitors are scheduled for just a few weeks from now, and we’re getting to be better tour guides with each group!
Patrick and I have both been feeling a bit homesick lately, so it’s always nice to find time to Skype/Facetime, send emails, get messages, etc. And we’ll be making plans for summer soon, so we’ll keep you posted for scheduling time to see everyone. Lots of love from Korea!