Little Butterfly : JEJU Island

Lava rocks, Volcano's, Oceans and Evergreens

What a jam-packed weekend filled with the most fun I had in a long time.

The weekend kicked off with a rushed session of packing and hoping on the train to be in time for the bus leaving for Jeju. I met up with 2 friends before hand to grab a bite at the newly opened WinK bar. WinK (When in Korea) are local trip organisers. I joined them on their trip to Jeju Island. As it normally work with me I never really look at the itinerary before the time. It kind of spoils the surprise of seeing a new place for me.

Jeju and Udo Island is situated in the southern point of Korea and was formed by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago with the most recent eruption being 5000 years ago. Lava created the most beautiful structures and mountains all around this little island and the composition of lava rock causes the ground to be nutritious causing the area Island to have the most beautiful plants and evergreens. The geometry of both islands were magnificent and extremely interesting.

After more or less 9 hours of being on a bus through the night I suffered a little of sleep deprivation and swollen feet. I guess sitting so long does not work for your blood circulation. We took a ferry over the waters to Jeju Island and as there isn't much to do I slept all the way. It's almost like movement of a car or a boat makes me sleepy these days. When we arrived we didn't even use the toilets on Jeju Islands before getting onto another Ferry to go over the dam (it's actually the ocean but there was literally no waves) to Udo Island, which is actually just like Robben Island.

Udo Island was great. We met up with another South African Friend that completed the Big Five SA teachers. It was really crazy nice to spend time with people who know where you are coming from and who share a common interest. Udo Island is a beautiful island with beaches right around the island. They also have the most beautiful caves which couldn't be entered because for some reason high tide there is about 15 days and not only 6 hours like in SA. When we got to the island we had the choice to take a bicycle, bike, quad bike or bus around the island. We wanted to take the bicycles but because we only had 3 hours on the island we decided to rather take the bus since the bus knows where his going and we could hop on and off as we pleased. The most beautiful place to me was the black formed beach and caves at the foot of the hill. The black beach formed over decades from erosion of lava rock.

After jumping on a ferry to Jeju Island we went for a nice hike up the Sunrise mountain or Volcano. The Sunrise Mountain Volcano is the one which erupted about 5000 years ago. It was so marvellous to actually see the hollowed out top of this mountain. The overview we had of the whole Island and the city of Jeju was also a sight to see. After enjoying the sunset and the beautiful views everyone was up for a beach party. We arrived at the motel, freshened up, went for Korean barbecue and sorted ourselves out with a bit of soju and beer. In Korea you can buy alcohol at any time of the day and drink where ever you want too. Ever drank a cord beer just outside a 7/11 playing flip a cup? I have. It's awesome not to have those rules to worry about. We also bought fireworks and sparkles, a lighter and headed to the beach for a lekker party. Yes you can drink on the beach here and on the streets.

We stood up the next morning (Sunday) not feeling the freshest ever but it was more the doing of sleep deprivation than alcohol overdose. Us 4 SAffas all paid extra money to go on the South West tour and I don't regret it at all. We started off the morning with a muffin and a drinking yogurt, climbed on the bus in our bikini's and off we went. The first stop was the Penis man stop. Although we never saw the penis man the tale goes sort of like this. There was a fisherman who never returned to the mainland and after 2 days of not seeing returning the wife started walking to the place where he used to dock his boat in search for her husband. She did this year in and year out until she eventually turned into stone. Anyway we didn't see the Penis man. Not sure how the tale and the name fits together but that's lost in translation. Here is what we did. Four meter cliff jumping into a volcanically formed hole in the ocean with water rushing in and out. I was so scared at first but having 70 people cheer you on isn't something you can just ignore and pull out of. I committed to that jumps not knowing how deep it was, nor how cold the water was. The water was freezing cold. Remember it wasn't winter so long ago in Korea. It's just the beginning of summer now. My blond friend and I went in for the kill and jumped twice. Adrenaline rush!!! And of course I didn't want to say No - FOMO!!! Wet and Salty We climbed back on the bus. The salt felt like fine sand on my body.

The second place we went to was the natural Cheonjeyeon waterfalls. With 3 waterfalls to look at in a really tropic area just nourishes my soul. If I could stay next to a waterfall I would. There was also at the 3rd waterfall a nice little board saying... Swimming not allowed. What did I do? I swam in the coldest water ever. It felt like my muscles didn't want to swim. But if you want the perfect shot you need to go the extra length to get it. Security chased us out eventually. So wet and salt free I got back on the bus and off we went to the next place. The caves.

Up the mountain we went passed the Buddha status and temple, decorated with lanterns of all colours for Buddha's birthday, to see the cave. In the cave there was a big Buddha statue looking over the valley. In the cave we drank the water of fertility - only three sips of water was allowed from the holy water. In Jeju they have the grandfather statue. (They are considered to be gods offering both protection and fertility and were placed outside of gates for protection against demons traveling between realities) Newly married woman would touch the nose of the statue to be blessed with boys. In Korea having a boy are relatively scars. They didn't worry about girls. I touched the nose of the grandfather so lets wait and see if the stories are true.

After the temple we went to our last stop. LOVELAND!!!! I can't say much about it except that I had a very successful biology class on all the different ways of conceiving a baby... or maybe just having beastly sex and making things interesting with Kama-sutra. With that being said bare in mind that this was an odd thing to see in Korea with people being so conservative. There were a few Korean men who walked around and they were like boys laughing at every statue as if it's unreal and they have never seen naked woman before. It was quite funny. There were penises in all shapes and sizes. They didn't really expand to sex toys and other things but it was still quite amusing.

We headed for an Indian dinner there after and hit the town. We were the only people (Saffas) who went out to town to have a jol. And that we did with the tour guide. Although we felt super dirty and stinky after everything we did that whole day it didn't stop us from spending time the last night with our wonderful friend from Jeju. We ended up in a photo booth taking photos, wearing all sorts of props and having some really interesting facial expressions.

Being Crazy.

On the Monday morning being again sleep deprived we headed to the lava tubes. That was quite awesome to see. The lava formed tubes under the ground as it rushed to the ocean I assume. It was quite something to see. This was our last stop before getting back on the bus, then the ferry and the bus again to head home.

All in All this weekend was an absolute blast. And being able to share it with fellow Friends from South Africa was the cherry on top. Broke and tired now I would honestly do this trip again soon.

The million of photo's and video's will come soon.