Way-gook-in' it up in Korea!: 16 out of the last 40 hours on the floor -- TOTALLY WORTH IT!

So this past weekend I went to Jeju-do, the "honeymoon island" of Korea. It is off the Southern coast, about 4 hours by ferry. I guess it's only about 150 miles around the whole perimeter of the island, so it's pretty tiny.

Anyhoo, I say 16 hours on the floor because on the ferry ride there and back I got the cheapest ticket (only way to travel!) and it ended up being in this big open space on the floor. I didn't mind too much, but the floor did get pretty hard after awhile -- no butt cushions or sleeping pads! I left home with my host dad a little after 7am on Saturday. I was plannning on taking a bus from Suncheon to the town where I caught the ferry, Nokdong. Well, turns out it is only about 20 minutes past my host father's school, and as he had to work on Saturday, he offered to drive me there! So nice of him! He helped me to buy my tickets and everything.

The ferry was not unlike the steerage dance party scene from Titanic. The ferry left at 9:10am, and there was clearly a sign posted that said you are not allowed to drink alcohol on board. Did that stop the crazy Koreans? Heck no! They brought on cases of beer and soju, boxes of fruit, trays of kimbap and kimchi. They might have bought the cheapest tickets on the ferry (like me), but that wasn't going to stop them from feasting... at nine in the morning, mind you. Well, I soon discovered why they needed all that food: energy for the extreme partying to take place on the rest of the ferry journey! Soon after they broke out the booze, singing/dancing/clapping started en masse. Wild!! I stuck to reading and napping.

We got to Jeju around 1:15pm and I found a taxi and finally got one to take me to the bus terminal. (They all wanted to take me to Seogwipo, where I was going to catch a bus to, but of course the taxi would be much more expensive.) Well, I did something random and spontaneous at the bus stop. When I was buying my ticket some foreigner from Belgium came up to me and asked what I was up to. I explained that I was meeting up with some friends on the island for a Halloween party that night. Well, he told me his name was Christof and that he was traveling alone and hinted to me that he was lonely. He seemed like a nice enough guy, so I asked if he wanted to join the Halloween party that night. He took me up on the offer and we bought tickets and hopped on the bus for the 1 hr 15 min bus ride to the city on the south side of the island. The bus ride was gorgeous! Pine trees, desiduous trees w/ fall colored leaves, dried up lava streams, flowers galore, clementine orchards, the ocean. It was a great preview of the island. After arriving in Seogwipo, I caught a taxi with the Belgium to meet up with the others in Jungmun beach, near our pension we had rented for the weekend.

As I got there it started to cloud up and soon got a bit chilly, but the beach was nice. We headed off to see some amazing cliffs along the ocean. I guess something about the chemical make-up of the lava rocks, but the way they form is in rectangular cubes! It's soo geometric -- not what you would expect out of Mother Nature. Anyway, we watched the waves crash up against them for awhile, then we all caught cabs to the World Cup Stadium (from....I don't remember what year). It was neat, but as I'm not really into the whole sports thing, it was one of those "oh, there it is. ok, let's go" kinda things for me. We did a quick alcohol run to E-Mart, then headed back to the pension where I put my stuff down and did a little freshening up. Next we were off to dinner! Now I don't know what it was, but the ladies at my table (including myself) -- we were hungry! We ordered a big dish of fish and potatoes, 2 seafood stew pots, and an order of Korean style bacon for 3 people. It was AMAZING! But there was a ton of food.

Then back to the pension so I could get dressed and make my costume -- entailed safety-pinning a bunch of TP strips to my clothes and trying to find the front of the red wig. Only ppl who watch Project Runway will get my costume -- remember the NYC photo shoot challenge? Well, Keith's dress looked like a TP dress-- so I was his model. The red wig was just random-- unless his model happened to be a redhead, who knows! Pretty lame costume, but whatever, I didn't remember to bring a costume over with me. I also didn't think we were going out to a bar, or I would have tried better. Everyone looked amazing -- we had a housewife, a mail-order bride, and Ajiima and Ajushi, a tree, mummy, sleepy student, mad cow, Dalgi (strawberry girl cartoon character), Korean middle school girls, a witch, a hanbok, and... I'm probably forgetting some. Well, the soju hit me all at once and I had a great time! I think I took about a million pictures at the bar. Seriously, I must have been out of control. I deleted over half of them, but there were some good ones in there!

I crashed back in the pension probably around 1:30am. I guess I was talking in my sleep -- no big surprise there! I woke up around 7am, but luckily fell back asleep after a bit. Then I was wide awake at 8. We had some amazing blueberry jam and bread for breakfast, then I headed out with Jon and Danielle to do a little waterfall hunting in Jungmun and Seogwipo. They were beautiful, but the day was humid and we all got a little sweaty from all the stairs. It was foggy out. For lunch Danielle and I hit up an Isaac's Toast restaurant -- I had never been to one, but they're quite popular with my students I think. It was pretty good -- and even better, it was cheap and fast. We hopped in a cab to go see Lonely Rock and listen to the ocean for a bit. Then it was time for me to head back up to Jeju City. I was pretty exhausted by this time and dozed off on the bus. I taxied back to the port, got on my ferry, and slept/read on the way back. Again, the crazy feasting/partying/dancing on the ferry. We got to Nokdong around 9:15pm, but my bus didn't end up leaving until 10pm :-(. I got home around 11:30. I had the best taxi driver ever back to my house! He was flying thru red lights with hardly letting up on the gas. I mean, the streets were pretty empty since it was 11:30pm anyway. I was so glad he wasn't putting around like taxi drivers usually do to run up the meter. Got home, showered, and plopped down exhausted in bed.

Today (Monday) at school was a pretty normal day. I was impressed with how well my first graders did with my Elections lesson. I thought it might be a little too challenging for them, but they behaved pretty well. Especially class 1-5, which used to be my trouble class. Now that title has been moved to one of my second grade classes that has NO ENERGY EVER. They are so boring. Anyway, I'll be off to dance tonight and that's about it.

It's November, which means it's grad school applications month for me. I started a bit this afternoon, but it will be a busy month. I'm going to try to do a little bit each day! Here are some pics from this weekend: