A week later I finally have had enough sleep and enough time to discuss the awesome weird trip that was our Jeju-do adventure. Let’s start at the beginning. I was SO STOKED to venture out to a beautiful island, nicknamed the “Hawaii of Korea” with some awesome friends.

Like, so excited. In fact SO excited that when Allison pulled up in the taxi we were taking to the bus station, I fell off the curb and seriously rolled my ankle. So I spent a weekend trekking and camping with a fat sprained ankle. I made the best of it but it was kind of a bummer.

That fat right ankle…yikes!

We made our way on the bus to Jangheung where we would get the ferry from in the morning. We didn’t realize how small a town it was, but the adventure had just begun when we stepped off the bus. We learned that there were no busses back to Gwangju on that Sunday. We settled for tickets to Youngam and made our way to a love motel for the night where we would all shack up on the cheap with some Maggeoli and beers and, obviously, instant noodles. In the morning we took a 45 minute taxi to the ferry port and started to get amped.

Plus the sunrise was kind of awesome:

Three and a half hours later we met up with our friend on Jeju-do who was the most magnificent tour guide. He took us back to his apartment on the south side of the island, in Seogwipo, where had had made us some breakfast and had mimosas waiting. We ate and drank on the top of the water tower on the roof of his building. We were up high and it was windy, but DAMN was it gorgeous.

The mountain behind me in that third picture above is Halla-san, the highest mountain in Korea. She’s covered in clouds here, but we got a great view of her later in the weekend. After “brunch” we headed to the beach near Seogwipo where we would be camping for the night. It was getting chilly and the clouds rolled in but sunset, as always, did not disappoint.

We ate some awesome Korean food and drank Maggeoli and soju all night. We hung around in my hammock and slept in our tents like champs…albeit cold champs!

The next day we played some rugby on the beach and went swimming in the ocean in October. I was reminded how lucky I am to live in this place and to have these wonderful adventures.

From there we went for yummy Indian food and then made our way to the North side of the island close to Jeju City. We wanted to see Loveland, Korea’s sex-themed park. Jeju is the honeymoon island and is known for its fertility. Everything there is fallic, and damn it this is as sexually explicit as I’ve seen Korea get. It was entertaining, erotic and disturbing. Here are some highlights:

By this point we were thoroughly exhausted and we headed back down to Seogwipo for the night…after a really intense and terrifying ride up and over the mountains. These bus drivers, man…YIKES. Anyway, we tried to get to one of the waterfalls, but since it’s a tourist attraction and we got there at sunset it had closed. So we gave up and “settled” for some delicious Maggeoli and pajeon…YUM. 11 bottles later we were all feeling pretty good…and very tired.

In the morning, before we had to leave, we visited the waterfall again and damn am I glad we did. We had the place (basically) to ourselves and the surf was crashing. So beautiful.

At this point we were all ready to head home to our own beds and crash before the school week began. Of course, anyone following my life knows that we did not get on a ferry that day and we were stuck on the island for an extra 20 hours or so. Without notice (to us, but apparently to everyone else) the ferry was cancelled. A typhoon was sweeping up to Japan and the winds were too high for us to safely get to the Korean peninsula. Given the recent Sewol ferry boat tragedy I would say that we are better safe than sorry. However, this was probably the most stressful situation I’ve had in Korea thus far. Let’s examine: We had no phones, no language skill, were without many of our co-teachers’ contact numbers, and the ferry terminal was shut down and locked without a person to even attempt to answer our questions. Fortunately, we stumbled upon quite possibly the most wonderful strangers who made sure to help us out. One of which went so far as to spend the ENTIRE day helping us figure everything out. He took us to the airport by bus where we questioned every airline for a flight (all full until Tuesday), and we finally got booked onto a ferry in the morning thanks to an incredible Korean friend back in Gwangju who has been so helpful since we’ve arrived.

Knowing we would be missing school the next day we were kind of worried about what that meant, but we were at least booked a ticket home and off the island. This kind stranger brought us back to Jeju City and showed us the ferry terminal. While scoping it out, we stumbled upon a culture festival and decided that would be our entertainment for the night. We booked ourselves a sketchy love motel room, got some festival grub and played around for one more night. In the morning, we were so beyond happy to be heading home. This time, we took the Ferry to Wando, where we had been before, and I’m so happy we did.

Some Korean cultural customs are weird, but in this case, the whole shoeless sitting/laying on the floor thing made for an awesome boat ride/nap time. We snoozed all snuggled next to each other in our claimed spot on the Ferry and headed home…finally. It was an adventure, but we made it the best time we could, all the while smiling and laughing about how ridiculous the situation was.

I can’t explain how grateful I am to have the people with me by my side throughout the ordeal. There are no mental weak links in that chain and we all rose to the occasion to help sort this shit out. Cheers to us. We are all back in Gwangju, content for now, but who knows what the next adventure will bring. Oh Korea, you silly, silly bitch.