Day One: Jeju

Having completed my contract at Reading Town, somehow weathered the storm of the final week (with a lot of sweat and a few tears), outlived the guilt of occupying Adam and Elaine's couch for the weekend (excuse me, I mean setee), and moved all my garbage out of my old apartment...I was ready to go. Go, on two weeks of sightseeing around Korea to desperately try to catch up on everything that I missed. I'm going to try to update this every day. It should be easy the first week, 'cause the hostel where I'm staying has a computer lab, but I don't know how things will fall out later on. Bear with me. Oh, and one more thing: I had to amend my previous plans, unsurprisingly. I've got some things I absolutely MUST take care of when I get back to Gohyeon, like a police background check and the final withdrawal of all my money from my Korean bank account. So, to that end, I have to be back in Gohyeon no later than the night of Thursday, July 9th. That cuts, like, three whole days off my roamin' and viewin' schedule, which means I had to completely excise Gangwon-do from my list of things to see. I'll still get to see Jeju and certainly Gwangju, even if I have to cut my time in Mokpo a bit short. So, all in all, I'll be happy with the holiday island and the mysterious province of Jeollanam-do. I guess I'll kip on the setee for the remainder of the time, if A and E will still have me... Alright, down to business. I was all packed up and had pretty much settled my affairs (as far as possible) by the time the weekend rolled around. I spent a relaxed couple of days at Adam and Elaine's place (Jeff and Kevin came over a lot)...which was nice, seeing as how we're going to be parted for a while. Then I got up at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, today, checked through all my belongings one more time, made sure I had all my documentation with me, snarfed some more of A & E's food, and then headed out. ...into the pouring rain. Yep, a storm front had moved in overnight and it was bucketing down. And there's me, the stupid Samaritan, donating my spacious man-sized umbrella to my successor. In a dilemma, I finally set my things down on the threshold of Adam and Elaine's building and sprinted down to the nearest GS25 to buy a tiny, cheap replacement. It was this umbrella I cowered under as the wind drove sheets of rain all over my pants and shoes and ungainly duffel bag, while I marched down the road to the main drag to hail a cab. I finally got one and managed to make the station, but I was a little irked. Normally I don't let the weather get me down, but normally my socks and pant cuffs aren't soaking wet, either. I also slipped walking down the steep, smooth sidewalk by Meat Home (now Meat Rak) and scraped my knee something fierce; it throbbed for a long while afterwards. Meteorological and physical setbacks aside, however, I made it to the bus station, bought my ₩9,000 ticket, boarded, and spent the next two hours in a lurching bus trying to dry off. I had to the backseat to myself, so I was fairly successful, but I could barely keep my eyes open. We'd been staying up late and partying all weekend, and having to get up at six o'clock was only compounding matters. Even pleasant daydreams about myself and Keeley Hazell alone on an inexplicably deserted Jeju Island didn't help; I nodded all the way to Masan. There, I easily secured a cab to the airport limousine terminal. "Limousine" is a bit of a misnomer: it's actually just the airport bus. Perhaps that was an error; perhaps it's customary to label any shuttle vehicle that links up with an airport a "limousine," and I wasn't aware of it. I think some Korean didn't read the American travel brochure very well when he was looking for inspiration. Anyway, I bought a ₩6,500 ticket and within a half-hour we were rolling toward Gimhae, reaching it at about 11:00. So, I was at the domestic terminal at the required airport after a trip that had gone incredibly smoothly compared to what I was used to...so swimmingly, in fact, that I trapped myself. Check-ins for my 2:30 flight didn't even begin for another three hours. (Insert weak laugh here.) So I just kind of lounged around the terminal, stopping off at the Sky View Restaurant upstairs for a quick meal of haemuldwenjang, a spicy, chunky seafood-and-tofu soup. With side dishes the bill came to a whopping ₩6,000 (about $5.50). Then I just plunked myself down and read my trashy adventure novel until it was finally time to go. (Oh yeah, I logged on Facebook at the airport cluster and wrote a rather vitriolic pamphlet against the intercity bus system, but I've spoken liberally about that elsewhere, too, so I won't go into detail here.) But for a slight setback that occurred when I forgot to put my Swiss Army knife in my checked baggage, and had to return to where I got my boarding pass to check it, I made it through security smoothly. I sat around in the concourse a bit more (in the tiny, tiny Gimhae domestic terminal; so much smaller than what I was used to in domestic terminals, unsurprisingly), and then boarded. My ride was a de Havilland Q400, better known as a Dash-8. I was so pumped to be riding in one...it was the first time I'd flown (commercially) in a propeller-driven aircraft! It was really neat to look out my window in seat 3D (which on this lovely cheap airline, Jeju Air, only cost me ₩34,000, or around thirty bucks) and see that massive propeller spinning around at blinding speed. Our flight was a paltry 45 minutes, up above the snowscape of clouds, jarringly beautiful. (I realized with a shock that it's been over a year since I've flown, period.) We landed and taxied. We weren't at a terminal, so a bus had to pick us all up from the ramp and take us to the gate. That was a new one on me. We reclaimed our baggage (my black duffel bag, and my Swiss Army knife in the orange-and-white livery of Jeju Air). I waltzed out of the airport, consulted my guidebook briefly, then caught the ₩5,000 airport limousine for Seogwipo. It was a long ride, but smooth and scenic (but for the fog, clouds, and mist). I got off at the Sunbeach Hotel, per the instructions on my room reservation at the Jeju Hiking Inn, and found the place without any difficulty at all. Checking in was a snap, even though I had to hit the pause button to run out and find an ATM to get the necessary 140,000 won in cash to pay for the full seven nights of my stay. (I'd found the Jeju Hiking Inn on Hostelworld.com, at a ridiculously cheap rate of $18.00, or 20,000 won per night; I'd booked the entire week right then and there.) That concluded, I dumped off my stuff, sallied forth into the downtown area (a steep climb up the hill away from the harbor), and just sort of cast about. I visited the covered market and bought some unhealthy snacks (meat on a stick and triangle gimbap, mmmm) at Family Mart. I then strolled down past the harbor to get a look at Cheonjiyeon Falls, a massive and beautiful waterfall hidden up a gorge a little ways down the coastline. It was gorgeous, but its effects were somewhat muted by the gathering dark and the mist and sullen skies. I concluded, right then and there, drawing on evidence that had been accumulating ever since I exited the airport in Jeju City, that Jeju Island was only meant to be seen under the clear light of day or a starry night. It should never be cloudy here. The palm trees seem to wilt, the people's faces seem to cloud over and even the sea becomes gray and grumpy. This place needs a warm breeze and a sunny sky constantly to have any cheery effects whatsoever. Anyway, those are my first impressions. I'm going to take another shot at the waterfall when the weather clears up; in the meantime, I familiarized myself with the location of some bars and restaurants in my guidebook which I'll also assay later. When I finish this I'm just going to pop out for some shampoo and a bottle of water, then hit the sack for the night...though the football (soccer) match is on between the U.S. and some other country in some Cup or other, so I gotta get back and see how we've done. We've beaten Spain and Italy so far...