Jeju Island

The past couple of days have been a blur of bus rides, tourist stops and Korean food. We took a short trip down to Jeju Island, which is a small island south of the Korean mainland. During the summer months it serves as the sunny, warm get away for Koreans, but has it's own culture and history which shines through when the tourist aren't around. One interesting Korean regulation I've learned is that building is not allowed on fertile agricultural land. This is why their cities are primary built on the sides of mountains. The reasoning for this is that as a small country with a high population density, they need every available square inch to feed themselves. You see this even in Busan, where any unused spot of land literally has some sort of crop growing on it. It appears that most of this agriculture is small scale (family based), and so also provides income for countless numbers of people. This agricultural drive was the most apparent part of Jeju island, where corp upon crop stretched as far as you could see. Unlike farming in the US, these fields are SMALL, we're talking no more then 200 feet in any dimension. This island was volcanic formed and was hence littered with zillions of lava rocks. These rocks are the most visible resource, as miles and miles of fences, buildings, sidewalks and curbs, and even art were made from them. See the pictures below for some examples. Anyway, I asked to see some ocean and Korean history, and Jeju was the place chosen as the best to see this. This was definitely an off the beaten path kind of place, especially for foreigners, which is exactly what I was looking for! The island is fairly large, and the sites are pretty spread out, so lacking a car, we bused it between spots. Korea is very public transport oriented, so even in the sticks, a bus is pretty easy to come by. We hit some nice museums, botanical gardens, some caves, and a couple of tourist attractions. One spot of note was Kim Nyoung maze park which was started, and is run by an American. The real surprise came in the form of getting 1/2 off admission because we had taken the bus there, which was deemed environmentally friendly. The brochure was all in English, and talked about about the park's commitment to the environment. It was an odd place to find an American, and an even odder place to find a environmentalist American. One additional cool (from my perspective!) finding, is that it rained at one point, so instead of hiking, we decided to go see a movie, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they only subtitle the American movies here, so the are in English! It was like watching a movie in the US- but much cheaper! Note: I am Legend is a Horrible movie!!

In addition to seeing some sites, we ate a lot of food! This eating included my first venture in to what we Americans would call 'crazy asian food', in the form of a pigs blood and sheep intestine soup! It wasn't as bad as you might imagine, in fact the soup part was pretty darn good. I'd had blood before, and it's always had an odd smell and a bit of an odd back flavor, and this blood was no different. The intestine came in two forms, one which appeared to be thin slices of stomach, which were actually pretty tasty, and the other which appeared to be inch long sections of small intestine. These pieces were VERY chewy and had a rather unpleasant tasting substance inside. I chewed and chewed and got a couple of pieces of the tough stuff down before deciding it wasn't worth it. But the rest of the soup I ate up! It does help to be hungry when attempting such things!

I also visited a karaoke place, which was nothing like I expected. I knew Asians are krazy for karaoke, but I always pictured it like in the movies, a big room with someone up front singing. The reality (at least in Korea) is very different. The karaoke is done is small rooms, with small groups of people, usually friends or family. You rent the rooms by the hour and they have a big couch, tv, and some mikes. A single store will have a dozen or more of these rooms. You sit in these rooms, pick your song, and sing to/with your friends. It's all very private, and would never fly in the US. We don't mind making fools of ourselves in public, but not in private! Evidently, Koreans are the opposite!

Off to Thailand tomorrow! Stay tuned!