so, last weekend, jeju island:
I arrived saturday night and met michelle (who'd been there since thursday) at the bus stop near our hostel. from all the hype about jeju, I was expecting something tropical...lots of swimming and sun and humidity. a tropical paradise it was definitely not, but my one full day there (sunday) still kicked a good deal of tail.
our plan was to hike the eorimok trail, from which, at its highest point, you can get a good view of hallasan, an extinct volcano. at 4.7 km, we figured it wouldn't take the whole day, especially if we hiked down back down the shorter yeongsil trail.
it took awhile to reach the trail's starting point. we had to transfer buses, and had an hour to kill in between them, so we walked around the neighborhood near the bus stop, looking for a convenience store to buy water and snacks for the hike. jeju is famous for its oranges, which grow on trees all over the roadside but for which people pay exorbitant prices in supermarkets. I suppose this is because either a) it is illegal to pick oranges from the wild trees or b) the quality of the fruit from the wild trees is lower than that of those grown for selling. either way though, as soon as I spotted my first orange tree I had an intense desire to pick an orange. so when, on our search for the convenience store, we came upon several untended orange trees, I quickly picked one and gleefully absconded with it. that was a week ago, and I still have it. it's pretty hard and, I assume, not delicious. but the point is, I got it.
after my orange thievery, we found a convenience store and then got on the bus to the trail. the hike up took about four hours, including several short rests. it was an awesome trail. the beginning was all stone steps through the woods. then, farther up, the woods gave way to flat fields, so that we could see all of the surrounding mountains. we kept seeing signs describing all of the mountain's alleged flora, but apparently, in mid april, spring had not yet visited jeju island. almost all of the plants we could see appeared dead, and near the top of the trail we found several large patches of dirty, icy snow. I know it doesn't sound beautiful, but it was. we hopped the rails and went off trail to play on the snow and the rocks. once or twice I ended up leg-deep in the snow, but it wasn't disastrous.
when we got to trail's summit, we only had a few minutes to rest before we had to start back down. we spoke with a few other hikers, including a nice american guy from whom we got a very peaceful, positive vibe. we started off before he did, but we ran into him again on the trail down, and we ended up hiking down together. we learned that his name was sasha, he was from new mexico/ chicago, he was an english teacher on the island, and he had ridden his motorcycle to the mountain.
when we reached the bottom (it took over an hour), we realized that we only had twenty minutes to make it in time for the last bus, and that wasn't going to happen since we still had a long walk down the road to the bus stop. sasha graciously offered to shuttle us one by one back to town on his motorcycle, and after a bit of hesitation at first on michelle's part, we agreed that this was the best option. I was keen on having some quiet time, so I let michelle go first and I waited for 45 minutes at an intersection, sitting by the side of the road enjoying the birdsong.
a lot of people in passing cars honked and gestured to ask if I needed a ride. as it was beginning to get dark, sasha came back, and I hopped on the back of the motorcycle for what turned out to be an awesome ride down the tree-lined road back to seogwipo. he'd left michelle 9so he thought) in a coffee shop just next to the road, but when we walked up the stairs to find her, we discovered that the coffee shop, and the entire plaza (which included a hooters restaurant) was abandoned and even gutted. the next hour involved lots of short rides on the bike, about ten minutes listening to a russian violin/piano duet in the basement of the obscenely luxurious lotte hotel (where we clearly belonged, all sweaty and in our hiking clothes), and several calls from the lobby payphone to michelle's cell. she finally answered after the third or fourth try, and said she'd been waiting in front of the teddy bear museum (ten feet across the street from where we'd first parked) the whole time. I still don't quite believe that, but we went back to retrieve her and she was indeed there. we insisted that sasha let us take him to dinner, and we had a long meal full of great conversation and many laughs. then we parted ways, and michelle and I went back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and take a bus to the airport the next morning.
I arrived saturday night and met michelle (who'd been there since thursday) at the bus stop near our hostel. from all the hype about jeju, I was expecting something tropical...lots of swimming and sun and humidity. a tropical paradise it was definitely not, but my one full day there (sunday) still kicked a good deal of tail.
our plan was to hike the eorimok trail, from which, at its highest point, you can get a good view of hallasan, an extinct volcano. at 4.7 km, we figured it wouldn't take the whole day, especially if we hiked down back down the shorter yeongsil trail.
it took awhile to reach the trail's starting point. we had to transfer buses, and had an hour to kill in between them, so we walked around the neighborhood near the bus stop, looking for a convenience store to buy water and snacks for the hike. jeju is famous for its oranges, which grow on trees all over the roadside but for which people pay exorbitant prices in supermarkets. I suppose this is because either a) it is illegal to pick oranges from the wild trees or b) the quality of the fruit from the wild trees is lower than that of those grown for selling. either way though, as soon as I spotted my first orange tree I had an intense desire to pick an orange. so when, on our search for the convenience store, we came upon several untended orange trees, I quickly picked one and gleefully absconded with it. that was a week ago, and I still have it. it's pretty hard and, I assume, not delicious. but the point is, I got it.
after my orange thievery, we found a convenience store and then got on the bus to the trail. the hike up took about four hours, including several short rests. it was an awesome trail. the beginning was all stone steps through the woods. then, farther up, the woods gave way to flat fields, so that we could see all of the surrounding mountains. we kept seeing signs describing all of the mountain's alleged flora, but apparently, in mid april, spring had not yet visited jeju island. almost all of the plants we could see appeared dead, and near the top of the trail we found several large patches of dirty, icy snow. I know it doesn't sound beautiful, but it was. we hopped the rails and went off trail to play on the snow and the rocks. once or twice I ended up leg-deep in the snow, but it wasn't disastrous.
when we got to trail's summit, we only had a few minutes to rest before we had to start back down. we spoke with a few other hikers, including a nice american guy from whom we got a very peaceful, positive vibe. we started off before he did, but we ran into him again on the trail down, and we ended up hiking down together. we learned that his name was sasha, he was from new mexico/ chicago, he was an english teacher on the island, and he had ridden his motorcycle to the mountain.
when we reached the bottom (it took over an hour), we realized that we only had twenty minutes to make it in time for the last bus, and that wasn't going to happen since we still had a long walk down the road to the bus stop. sasha graciously offered to shuttle us one by one back to town on his motorcycle, and after a bit of hesitation at first on michelle's part, we agreed that this was the best option. I was keen on having some quiet time, so I let michelle go first and I waited for 45 minutes at an intersection, sitting by the side of the road enjoying the birdsong.
a lot of people in passing cars honked and gestured to ask if I needed a ride. as it was beginning to get dark, sasha came back, and I hopped on the back of the motorcycle for what turned out to be an awesome ride down the tree-lined road back to seogwipo. he'd left michelle 9so he thought) in a coffee shop just next to the road, but when we walked up the stairs to find her, we discovered that the coffee shop, and the entire plaza (which included a hooters restaurant) was abandoned and even gutted. the next hour involved lots of short rides on the bike, about ten minutes listening to a russian violin/piano duet in the basement of the obscenely luxurious lotte hotel (where we clearly belonged, all sweaty and in our hiking clothes), and several calls from the lobby payphone to michelle's cell. she finally answered after the third or fourth try, and said she'd been waiting in front of the teddy bear museum (ten feet across the street from where we'd first parked) the whole time. I still don't quite believe that, but we went back to retrieve her and she was indeed there. we insisted that sasha let us take him to dinner, and we had a long meal full of great conversation and many laughs. then we parted ways, and michelle and I went back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and take a bus to the airport the next morning.
posted by Becca at
6:08 AM
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