Carrie and Bradley's Excellent Adventure!!: Jeju

The first stop on our mouth long, South East Asia vacation/second honeymoon was Jeju Island. This is an island off the Southern coast of Korea. Many Koreans call it the Hawaii of Korea, we understood why. It was a very relaxing place to start our vacation. The people were very laid back and the atmosphere of the city was more easy going than any other city we visited in Korea. On our first day on the island we went to three museums

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Our first Flight of the trip to Jeju!

The first place we went to was a museum with the famous grandfather statues. Jeju is famous for a few things one of them is oranges and another thing is these grandfather statues called 돌하르방 (dol hareubang). The museum was very interesting because it was built in a place that used to be a landfill (it didn't smell like it used to be a landfill). The building that held a museum about the lava rocks was designed so that it flowed with the landscape rather than impede the beautiful scenery. We were not able to gather any of the information about the rocks because it was in Korean, but we were more interested in the grandfather statues.

A map of the bus system in Jeju because they couldn't provide one on paper.

These are gate posts that were used to signify what you were doing depending on how many posts were up.

19 steps that represent the founding of the park on the 19th of January

Even the trash "bins" were made from rocks

The top of the museum that flows with the landscape

Model of Jeju island.

One of the original grandfather statues!

Second we went to an optical illusion museum, which I had high hopes since I love optical illusions, but it wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be. The most famous picture is where one person stands in one corner and looks really big and another person in the opposite corner looks really small. The photos speak for themselves.

Who knew I could do a hand stand?

Lastly we headed to Love Land. Love Land was originally made to teach newlywed couples about sex, since Jeju is a very popular honeymoon destination. At the museum there are statues of people having sex. This is very unusual for a country that is very conservative when it comes to the topic of sex. Most people won’t even speak the words for the reproductive organs. So, this museum is very funny to see.

The only G rated photo from Loveland . . .

On the East coast of Jeju there is an archetypal tuff cone called sunrise peak. It is called sunrise peak because it faces East and many people visit to watch the sunrise. We didn't want to wake up that early but we still hiked up to the top and looked into a crater filled with grass and a few trees. The Koreans believed that a spirit lived there in the past and both Carrie and I would agree, since it was an extremely pleasant place to relax after the 30 minute hike up.

The view from the bottom

The beginning

The city below.

Rock monsters like to eat lighthouses

The crater

More crater

A little more crater

The cliffs of the crater.

More ocean

After our peaceful visit to the top we hiked back down to a beach where the sand was black from the lava stones. While there we witnessed a showing of how some women of Jeju made a living in the past and still do today. The women divers called Haenyeo which translates from Korean to English as Women Divers. These women free dive in shallow and deep waters to gather sea creatures from the bottom of the sea. This practice has been going on for hundreds of years in Jeju. When they were finished for the day they would build fires and have campfire meeting with one another and talk about everything that was going on in their lives. These women were instrumental in the rebellion against the Japanese during the occupation of Korea.

The black lava sand.

The women divers show!

She liked to wear her ruby red slippers to dive, others wore flippers.

We wanted to learn more about the history of these amazing women, so we hoped in a taxi and went to the museum of the Haeyneo. We learned about the tools they used and how much they were involved in the rebellion against the Japanese.

The tools the women used

A manikin dressed in the traditional diving suit.

Traditional diving suit

Second generation traditional diving suit

Their lids

Weights and flippers

Then we headed to one of the longest lava tube cave in the world. Only 1 km, about half a mile, is open to the public but it is 13,422 meters long. We climbed down about 40 steps then walked into the 1 km point where there was a large stalagmite that was created by a whole in surface helped create. We took a few pictures of the different types of lava formations that were created when the magma was flowing through the Earth. It was a long but fun day.

The famous stalagmite

The floor is lave, no really it was magma then it cooled and turned to lava rock!!!

On the third day we went to two beautiful waterfalls and a coarse sand beach. The waterfalls were very lovely and the ocean water was like bath water, but we were not allowed to swim past water higher than our waist. Carrie and I just took a nap on the beach because we were tired from trekking to find the waterfalls. It was a relaxing day.

A nice view of the first waterfall

I need to learn how to smile and take a selfie!

No humans in my photos!!!

The first waterfall went directly into the ocean.

The second waterfall was in a valley.

The beach

The course sand.

Our last day was long and hard. We hiked up the tallest mountain in Korea, Hallasan. Hallasan is 6,398 feet tall. It took four and half hours to get to the top and then four and half to walk down. It was well worth the hike. We got some amazing photos of the crater at the top and some of the clouds floating past as we enjoyed a delicious lunch.