Jeju: Day 3

We spent the last day on the Northeastern side of the island. We first took the loong taxi ride to Seongsan Ilchulbong (aka Sunrise Peak because it's a popular place to watch the sun rise).
It was a very warm day. There were tons of tourists. We didn't know we had to hike up, but we were pretty prepared and got drinks and popsicles before we went up.
More than halfway up!
We saw all sorts of people walk up... women in heels, people of all ethnicities... and men in full suits! Was he contemplating life? haha
Up up up!
Almost there!
Waaaa~~~ pictures don't do the scenery justice! This place was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.
We made it to the top of the crater!
We were so happy, we took a lot of pictures!
Great view!
How Seongsan Ilchulbong was created!Then we went to eat raw hairtail fish and abalone porridge - both Jeju specialties and both quite yummy.
The lady said that these were hairtail fish. Not too sure though...After lunch, we were at a loss at how to taxi to our next destination because all the cars and taxis in the areas were for large groups or were reserved. Luckily, this ajumma called us into her restaurant to eat. We declined because we had just ate and I guess she realized we were looking for a taxi so she helped call one for us, which was very kind.

In the taxi... I saw a few string fences (as I call them) with a bunch of flat squid drying. I thought it looked cute.
Then we visited a Lava Tube Cave - the largest in the world!
We got the taxi driver to wait an hour for us.
It was really hard to take pictures inside because it was so dark, but it was neat seeing Lava balls, lava shelves, lava benches, and lava tables haha.. almost like in a house!
We only had time to walk 1km one way, but we got to see this lava column at the end which was whoa... especially for a geo major like myself!
At the Folklore Museum of Natural History!
An OARFISH... soooo long and atrocious!
More giant marine animals...
The types of coral we touched while scuba diving
Then we went to watch the sun set at Sarabong Park!
They had tons of different things for us to play with on the way up. It really reminded me of my elementary school days!! Flip flip flip! Oh no.. lost a flip flop...
Nice public exercise equipment in the middle of a forest hahaThe elderly were walking slowly along this sidewalk with only socks on. I was wondering why... and then I stepped on them (barefoot). Ouch. They were little pebbles that jutted out! The different colours indicated the levels of difficulty - black being the hardest! I assume that these are supposed to be good for you...
Finally made it to the top! Even more exercise equipment and people of all ages playing around and exercising!Downtown JejuAnother highlight!After that, we were hungry so we tried to get the taxi to take us to Cafe Street which was where the lady at the tourist info counter recommended for good food. There was a misunderstanding and he just took us to the closest place with a ton of restaurants (and a little carnival happening) which would have been wonderful if we wanted Korean food. We ended up asking the conceirge and he directed us to Outback Steakhouse. It's an American-Australian chain. There's quite a few in Seoul, too, but I've never been. A very delicious meal (oh how I miss Western food) and a great last meal!!!! Salad and steak have never tasted so good!
I usually don't buy souvenir tees, but this one was cute and it's a souvenir of my scuba diving experience!.All of us got one!
Bye bye Jeju!

Jeju: Day 2

The night before, the guy at the front desk told us that there would be breakfast for us the next morning at 7:30AM. We didn't actually make it there until 8:30. When we went downstairs, the guy held the door for us. He had prepared a traditional Korean breakfast for us with those mini side dishes in the middle, rice, and bean sprout/seaweed soup!

The meal room was completely empty. We felt a bit bad, hoping that we weren't the only guests in the hotel and that he didn't wait the whole hour for us to come down. Anyway, afterward, the scuba diving instructors came to pick us up from the hotel. We had an English translator accompany us. About 40 minutes later, we arrived at the harbour and hopped onto a boat along with around 5 other instructors.
They lugged our scuba equipment onto the boat and we were zipped off onto a really small island made out of some sort of lava rock.
Halla-san in the background.
We were given wetsuits (had to give in our height and foot size the day before). Putting it on was quite the ordeal! Then we were given instructions as to what to do if the salt water should get into our masks and the different signals we should give to our instructor if anything were to happen. Theeeen we hopped in!! Surprisingly, I didn't feel the cold water at all because of the wetsuits. The wetsuits made me float like no tomorrow hahaha.. but they later put weights on our hips and our tanks on our backs that almost made me tip over so it definitely helped me sink. We each got a rope. An instructor was with us the whole time. My goodness the pressure in my ear was intense!! About halfway down, I realized I couldn't take it anymore so we had to surface. We were told to plug our nose with our hands and blow really hard to ease the pressure but it only ended up working for one ear. I eventually gave up and decided to deal with the uncomfortableness. At the bottom, we let go of the rope and held an instructor's hand and swam around. We got to touch a bunch of different coral, seaweed, and jellyfish. We also had a personal underwater photographer and posed for a few pictures. I gave the photographer my e-mail but have not received any e-mail yet. The most amazing part for me was when one of the instructors gave me a piece of some white weiner and showed me how to crumble it up. It was fish food! The fish all came to eat the food!!

Afterward with the guy who told us to call him Oppa.
Resting and sunbathing while we were waiting for some of the instructors to dive.
They drove us back to our hotel where we showered and changed and then we took a taxi back down to Jumun Resort. The taxi ride was nice as the streets were lined with a ton of colourfully potted plants! We went to the Botanical Garden (the largest in Asia).
Very pretty here!
Dandelions! Make a wish!
They had different rooms for different types of plants such as the jungle plants... cactus.. water plants?
Bamboo -- you can carve your love on these!
Cactus garden:
Pretty flower!
lol...
Japanese garden with Koi fish in the pond.
In the Korean garden:
Then we walked over to the Teddy Bear Museum!
We got to see the history of teddy bears, teddies from all over the world, and how they've evolved over the years!
Look at how they used to look!
Paddington! From Darkest Peru...
Swarovski Bear.. bling bling
Louis Vuitton Bear - most expensive bear in the world
Mr. Grocer Teddy, here's some money for your apples and bananas!
Smallest teddy bears in the world - not even as big as my pinky toenail!
These bears were the reason why we visited this museum -- they are from the popular Korean drama called Princess Hours (or Goong).
At the teddy bear shop:Lotte Hotel @ night. We met a mother and daughter from New Jersey who told us that a lot of Korean dramas are filmed here and at the Hyatt.
Teddy bears pretty much took over the SW part of Jeju...
To keep with the teddybear-ness, here's a picture from our 3rd day @ the Ramada Hotel, I believe... we were trying to find a non-Korean restaurant to eat at. I was stealing the groom on his wedding day haha!
OH - we had heuk taeji (black pig) BBQ for dinner. These pigs (with black skin) are raised on the island and they are apparently unique to Jeju. Really just tasted like regular pork to me but now I can say that I've tasted black pig!