Jeju Island

Last weekend, my friend and I and her family went to Jeju island. Since my friend and I still have school we decided to only stay for 2 nights and 3 days. Her family was going to stay a couple more days than us. However, first we arrived in Jeju at around noon and met the tour guide. Since there was 6 of us all together one of us had to sit in the back. My friend's sister did it on the first day.
Once we arrived, we wanted lunch and we ate some galbitang. Galbitang is basically rib soup? or beef soup? They stick a piece of meat in a soup and you add salt and pepper to your own desire. It's very bland without salt and pepper and without all the side dishes they provide you. Since my friend's parents are not good with the spicy foods. Galbitang was good but it took a lot of time to eat.
On the way to our pension or resort house thing?, or the place we were going to stay over at, we stopped by the beach and took some pictures. The view was beautiful and the color of the ocean was soooo clean however the wind was blowing a lot!

After that we came back to the pension we were going to stay at. It was a 15 minute drive away from the airport but it was really pretty. It was sort of like a cabin like place. The room was bigger than our dorm room of course because it was equipped with a really big bathroom, and a small kitchenette thingy. It was really nice. Also my friend and I stayed in the room downstairs and her parents and sister slept upstairs. After placing our stuff in the room, we decided to take the bus and explore Jeju city.
The thing is... Jeju is really an island. It really felt like Victoria city except... further into the island. Waiting for the bus... took 20 minutes, which is something I am not used to anymore. Considering as buses in seoul comes every 5 - 10 minutes practically. Well, the bus that was supposed to come in 20 minutes, never came and we waited an extra 10 minutes before we decided to just ride the next bus that came. Thankfully, it went to the place we wanted to go to.
We walked for a couple minutes before arriving at a palace or temple thing? This was where all the Jeju Yangban or elite were residing and studying. Again, it was very windy.

After that we decided to do some shopping in the underground mall that they have. It was basically no different then Seoul in terms of fashion items and styles. My friend and I feel like the Confucian attitudes are very much still ingrained in the Korean society. Every age group in Korea has the same style or kind of fashion style. Unlike any other countries, Seoul is literally where everything happens and where all the trends begin and where everyone is. Being in Jeju it felt like being back in Victoria for a moment. Well, Jeju being an island is of course an obvious similarity but also in terms of wide space of land. 

After exploring Jeju city a bit, we ate some pizza and went back home. Going home was interesting because we didn't know which bus to take. So we got on a bus we THOUGHT went back to our place but in the end we realized it only stopped until one stop BEFORE the stop we needed to get off at. Good thing we talked to the driver and walked back to the pension.

The next day it was full day of touring. We started at a Sanbang Mountain where we hiked it up to see Buddhist temples and Shamman shrines. Again, another interesting thing for me to see the synchronism of Buddhism and the Korean traditional Shamman shrines.

OH! on our way to the mountain we stopped by a flower field where we took beautiful pictures with the flowers~

We went on a coast line walk afterwords. I forgot what it was called but it was something to do with dragon something? I'm sorry but I have pictures! 

Me and the Jeju guardian stone...

can you see the dragon?

We went to a couple of other nature tours. A waterfall, a cliff that is supposed to shape like a dragon but I can't see it, more mountains and etc. Each of them have a name but I don't remember them. but yet again I have picture. The view in Jeju is sooo pretty!

There were a couple museums we stopped at, the Teddy Bear museum and the National Museum. The teddy bear museum was more interesting because it was the man's history... using teddy bears! it was so cute!!! I enjoyed the teddy bear museum a lot. Wish I bought some but there's one in Seoul too! So I'll make sure to stop by someday and buy myself a teddy bear! 

For the whole tour day, we were driven around by the tour guide so there were no problems with the buses that day. Oh! We also went out to eat for some Black pig BBQ! It was amazingly delicious! it's completely different than normal pig bbq. oh~ i loved it so much. Wish I could eat it again! 

The next day, My friend and I were supposed to leave Jeju at 9:10pm. So we explored Shin-Jeju and decided to walk around a bit before realizing we had just walked to the airport. We decided to chill there until we had to leave and realized... our flight got cancel due to bad winds. So we went back to the pension using a taxi (which only costed us $8! you can't get a taxi that cheap ANYWHERE! i believe.) and slept a bit before coming back for the morning flight back to Seoul. We missed one class unintentionally so we scrambled to tell the professor but other than that, Jeju was fun and I definitely want to go there again! However, next time, hire a tour guide for all the time to take us places instead of relying on bus or public transportation. or even just get a taxi to go to places. lol

Everyone go to JEJU!