Dear Korean Vacations and Escapades (Part II: Jeju Island)

Being a foreigner in Korea is kind of like being a 5 year old at a playground. You go to the playground, and you don't know any of the other kids, but it doesn't matter because you're all 5 years old and you all just want to play, and that's all you need to be friends. That's how Korea is. When you see another foreigner, you automatically share a common bond. It's really easy to make friends this way, and conversation is made easy through shared experience: "How long have you been here?" "What's your school like?" "Have you eaten...?" "Have you been to...?" "Isn't Korea weird because of...?"

As a foreigner, you can make friends wherever you go. And not just with other foreigners either. Koreans are often eager to practice their English and make a foreign friend to show off to others. Koreans love boasting about Korea to foreigners, and love hearing Korea praised in return. They like impressing us, and will go to great lengths to do it, often to the benefit of us travelers.

Several months ago, at the beginning of my week and a half vacation in July, I went to the nearby city of Busan with some friends. Busan is the 2nd biggest city in Korea, and only about a 40 minute bus ride from Changwon. It also has some really nice beaches, so we actually go there quite often. While we were there, a friend of a friend had come down from Seoul to hang with us. In conversation, she mentioned she was going to Jeju Island the next day, as it was the start of her vacation week.

Jeju Island is like the Korean version of Hawaii. Sort of. It's off the south of Korea, so it's climate is a bit warmer, and as it is an island, it has a lot of beaches. It's a popular tourist spot for Koreans, and a lot of people go there for honeymoons and such. I'd heard a lot about it from my co-teachers and other Koreans, and what I had heard had piqued my interest.

Despite only having known Nicki a few hours, we decided that since I was also beginning my vacation week, and hadn't really made any plans, that I should go along with her. The plan was made. We would take the ferry the next evening and spend the week in Jeju Island.

Let me explain about the ferry: it took 11 hours. That's almost as long as my flight over here. We were doing it overnight, so we figured we could sleep through it. But here's the other thing about Korean ferries: there's no seats. At least, if you pay for the cheapest ticket, there's no seats. It's just a big room where you stake out a spot and use your elbows and vicious glares to keep others from invading your space on the floor. The Koreans had come prepared with blankets, pillows, and all the accoutrements necessary for a good solid picnic. We, on the otherhand, had only our backpacks and towels that we had packed. It was a long night to say the least.

Early the next morning we went out on deck to catch our first glimpse of Jeju Island, just as the sun was rising:

tah dah!

Over the island hovered ominous clouds, threatening our plans of tanning-filled days lying on sun drenched beaches. But as the sun rose higher, the clouds began to break. A little.

Sunrise from the ferry

It was admittedly cloudy that first day, but we still decided to make the most of it, and after checking into the cheapest love hotel* we could find in town, we headed off to the beach.

*For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of love hotels, let me now explain. Love hotels are all over Korea. They are just what they sound like: hotels specifically for the purpose of sexual activity. Rooms are generally rented by the night, and come with wonderful freebies like condoms and pornography channels on the tv. However, they are also generally extremely inexpensive. Renting a room costs about 20,000-40,000 won per night (about $18-$36) which when you split between 2 people (or 5 if you're in a group that doesn't mind sleeping on the floor) is pretty darn cheap for a bed and a place to store your stuff during the day. Since they are literally EVERYWHERE in Korea, are much cheaper than regular hotels, and afford more privacy than a hostel dorm, they are very popular amongst travelers looking to stay on a budget. Most of the time they are actually pretty clean and nicely kept... most of the time...

Anyway, back to the beaches:

Beach #1: note the umbrella

Day 1 was a little rainy, but that didn't stop us from getting our beach on. We headed out with our swimwear and beach towels, picked a random beach from the tourist map, and hopped on what we hoped was the right bus to get us there. Because of the rain, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, and found a nice little spot surrounded by cool-looking volcanic rocks to store our stuff. We spent the rest of the day avoiding the coast guard and sneaking little swims into the ocean (the coast guard didn't want us swimming because of the "storm", but we are rebels and we laugh in the face of danger! and the water only came up to our waists).

The next day was a bit cloudy in the morning, but we decided to try out some other beaches. After checking out of our love motel we headed to a beach we had been told had black sand because of the volcanic something or other. This is what we found:

Beach #2: that is an old woman half buried in the sand

The second beach did indeed have darker sand than the previous beach, but it wasn't exactly what you might think of as "black." The only other people on the beach were a bunch of old ajumas (little old ladies) who had dug long trenches in the sand. We were standing around wondering what exactly these trenches were for-- perhaps some kind of fishing or clam collecting when the tide rose?-- when one of the ajumas lay down in one and ceremoniously began to bury herself in the sand. Huh? Had we stumbled across some sort of ajuma burial ground, like the fabled elephant graveyards where the old and sick elephants go to die?

(I later found out that older Korean women believe that burying themselves in the sand has spa-like health properties where the heat from the sun and the sand mix together to make you sweat out all the toxins in your body or something like that...)

A little freaked, we decided to move on. Further down on the bus line, this was our next stop:

NOW we're talking beaches! The clouds had all cleared away, the sun was beating down, and we had found a brilliant beach with pristine waters and glowing white sand! We quickly scouted out a cheap hotel, and were camped there on that beach for the next few days, where despite the constant application of sunscreen I quickly turned a luminous shade of red. So worth it.

beautiful beachy sunset

We did do some other touristy things while we were on Jeju Island, including a visit to Loveland.

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING PICTURES INVOLVE EROTIC SCULPTURE, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE GENITALIA OR OTHER EXPLICIT IMAGES, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Loveland is an erotica theme park. The brainchild of some art students from a university in Seoul, Loveland displays sculpture from different Korean artists all depiciting some form of genitalia, erotica, and sexual displays. Instead of a gift shop, they had an adult toy shop.

Compared to America or other western countries, Korea is pretty repressed sexually. Couples are not supposed to show affection in public, it is completely unacceptable for people to live together before marriage, sex is a totally off-limit subject, and homosexuality does not exist (it's genetically impossible for Koreans! or so I have been told many times, by Koreans). Taking this into account, Loveland is pretty extraordinary. Here is a completely open artistic discussion of sex and sexuality, which Nicki and I found pretty fun and interesting.

Again, the following pictures are fairly inappropriate, but are intended to be looked at as art, and not in a pornagraphic manner:

The whole park was filled with sculpture such as this, and we spent quite a while walking around and looking at all the different ways which artists had chosen to... express themselves...

Next time: Jisan Valley Rock Festival!