south korea (part 5 of 9)

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9

South Korea 2010: A day by day retrospective

It's 2am on Saturday (Sunday). I can't sleep. I'm feeling a little punchy.

Day 5; Back to Seoul

The image on the right, beautiful isn't it? It's at the eastern tip of Jeju Island and is called "seongsan ilchulbong".

I was delighted to learn that our tour bus would take us to this special destination. I anticipated seeing a beautiful green mound of land mass unlike anything we've witnessed previously. We heard that the true gem of this place is to be here to catch the morning sunrise. Our schedule didn't accommodate, and I had no avoiding a dawn wake up. We arrived around 10am, and even at that early hour, the island air was thick and humid. This made the 20 minute required climb up to the top a bit undesirable, especially for the teenagers in our group wearing jeans that day (they were absolutely miserable when we all returned and met at the base of the peak).

The climb was not arduous but sweat-inducing and uncomfortable. The narrow walkway was crowded with tourists moving up and down the path. I felt a little anxious as the morning fog had settled in around us and created fairly minimal visibility.

And worse, my Nikon D60 started flipping out. That's entirely inaccurate; it wasn't doing anything. Nothing happened when I flipped the "ON" switch. Issue with altitude? Humidity? Too much volcanic radiation? My panic subsided in moments when the gadget would actually come to life. "Just a temporary issue," I assured myself. It would all be worth it however. Emmelle and I were about to behold something truly majestic.

This is what we saw:

Hhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Looks like I could have taken this anywhere. I was really tempted to put some thought bubbles or cover my handsome face with an angry emoticon on this photo because really, I wasn't feeling like Seongsan Ilchulbong deserved a smile from yours truly.

To top it off, we learned that the famed haenyo were swimming very close to our bus. What's the fun in travel if there aren't any slight setbacks and missed opportunities? I'm being a little too critical of the island; I've been scouring through some blogs and various pictures on Google. It really does look like some of the locations are charming and tropical. I blame our tour bus. Or tour buses in general. Wait, but I blame the island for my camera. My broken camera, we must go back to the island to make it right! (That's a little topical humor - I am watching Lost Season 6).

The Jeju-doh detour of our Korea sprint finally came to a close. Now, it was back to Seoul to stay with Emmelle's aunt and uncle. I'd met them once before when they visited California last year, and I can't say enough about how hospitable they were during the nights that we stayed with them. Wonderful people. I'm excited to see them again in May for our wedding.

Emmelle's cousin picked us up from a bus station near their home, and we drove immediately to dinner. What a feast! I can easily say that I ate the best duck and pig's feet (or is it pigs' feet? Is your order of porcine hooves sourced from the same pig? Doubtful...) I've ever had, and this meal really set off a handful of days of massive carb and sodium intake. This is why we went in the first place.

Thanks for stopping by.

Return to the GreensandBrowns home page.