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jeju island
Jeju island, 80 km off the south coast of the Korean Peninsula, was formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. The island has a subtropical climate and is home to more than 4000 species of flora and fauna. The largest volcano , Mt. Halla, is now dormant and towers over the island. I flew to Jeju island from Seoul during my school's Christmas Vacation. I arrived on Christmas Day and stayed until New Year's Eve, 2003. Jeju island is famous in Korea and around the world for it's warm winters and  sweet oranges. The island was isolated from Korea for a long time and developed it's own culture and traditions independent of outside influence.
Christmas morning was stormy and cold. The waves were splashing up over the boardwalk. I didn't really have much to do as everything was closed, so I wandered the streets and spent the most of the day  hanging out in the lobbies of really nice hotels. It even snowed on Boxing Day! Though, I did manage to find this cool sculpture hidden in an alley somewhere.
I went looking for the Tourist Office and found a fish market and rows of squid boats. The large light bulbs are turned on at night and attract squid up to the surface from the depths.
Gloves and aprons left to dry outside the fish market.
Carved statues for sale near Yongduam Rock.
Korean mound graves.
After some wandering, I came across a small bridge that crossed a rock gulley. Around the corner I found one of Jeju's most famous tourist sites, Yongduam Rock. There are two ancient legends to explain the mystery rock formation. According to one, a dragon envoy of the Dragon King was sent to Mt. Halla to retrieve a herb which would give Eternal Youth. But the Mountain God cast the dragon envoy into the sea and turned him to stone. The second legend tells of a dragon who stole the jade bead amulet of the Mountain God. While trying to escape, the Mountain God shot down the dragon with a golden arrow and it fell into the sea, turned to stone. The two-million year old basalt rock formation resembles a partially sumberged dragon, with it's head above water.
Yongduam (Dragon's Head) Rock
Tamna Mokseokwon
I took a local bus out of downtown to the Tamna Mokseokwon Garden. This garden is a private collection of natural and carved stones and branches that resemble the human form. Many have been collected from across the island. The ones pictures above are basalt carvings of servants placed by graves to aid the dead in their next life.
I also found the National Museum but unfortunately it was closed. In a park just outside was this spiral monument to the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
Bunjae Artpia
Two days into my trip, I decided to do a two day organized tour around the island. On Day 1, our first stop was the Bunjae Artpia. The creator of the garden spent over 30 years of his life collecting, shaping and growing Korean Bonsai trees. This is the largest collection of it's type in the world with over ten thousand specimens and species. The tree on the right has been specially twisted with wires to expose both dead (white) and living (brown) wood. One thing I learned was that Bonsai was actually first started in Korea and later brought to Japan by explorers. The trees were all beautiful and it was interesting to see the many different types of Bunjae.
Hallasan and Jusangjollidae
From the Bunjae Artpia, we drove down the east coast of the island to some cliff rock formations called Jusangjollidae. There was a nice view of the dormant volcano, Mt. Halla from the road. The rocks themselves form a cliff face and are composed of hundreds of basalt, hexagonally-shaped rocks. This phenomenon is fairly common and is much like what happens to mud when it dries very quickly, forming separate layers and evenly shaped pieces.
Songeup Folklore Village
We arrived at the Songeup Folklore Village and had lunch. It's a collection of ancient Korean huts and recreates a Jeju village. There is a small museum that shows what life on Jeju was like hundreds of years ago. There were also many of the mysterious basalt dolhareubangs everywhere. These statues of men with little hats are found all over Jeju island. No one knows why they were created.
We also went to an orange grove. Jeju's oranges are really one of the most amazing fruits I've ever tried. They're kind of a cross between a tangerine and a mandarin and are sweet and juicy. The farm also had some interesting lava tubes. These are formed as hot magma flows under the ground, cooling on the outside. They are many of these on the island, some of them are large enough to walk through and often twist over one another. By this time on the tour, a Korean family had "adopted" me and kept on handing me oranges to eat. I had so many that my back pack was filled to the brim.
Miniature World
Next stop was Miniature World. A collection of models of famous buildings and sites from around the world. There was even a seated Buddha statue which, ironically, is the largest Buddha statue on the island.
Seogwipo Boat Trip and Chunjiyeon Pokpo (Waterfall)
From Miniature World, we drove to the second largest city on the island, Seogwipo for a boat tour around some small islets off the south coast. Many of the islets have cliff formations of basalt rock and are home to many species of unique wildlife. A diver with a video camera went deep under the boat and filmed much of the sealife along the ocean floor. The camera was connected by a cable to a televison on board and we could watch and hear him speak in real time about the different animals he encountered. After the boat trip we went on a small hike to Chunjiyeon Waterfall. The river area around the waterfall is the only known place to find a certain endangered species of electric eel. The photo on the left below shows Mt. Halla from the boat.
One of the islets as viewed from the boat, Chunjiyeon Pokpo on the right and a pair of alien dolhareubangs at a one of Jeju's Mystery Ghost Roads.
Day 2 began with a trip to a Pony Farm and Circus. Jeju's horses and ponies are also famous in Korea, so it was worth checking out. The circus was decent, but all in Korean and I wasn't allowed to take any photos. The farm was charging an extra 20,000 won just to ride one of the horses they had there. I decided against it, as the whole tour cost about the same and I'm not really that into horses. From the farm, we drove to one of Jeju's Mystery Ghost Roads. Exactly, the same phenomenom as Magnetic Hill in New Brunswick. It's an optical illusion created by the surrounding landscape at the base of Mt. Halla that gives you the impression that a hill is going up when it's actually going down. I only took one picture of these cool alien dolhareubangs off the side of the road.
Illchul Land and Micheon Cave
Next stop was Illchul Land. A park that houses one of Jeju's famous lava tube caves, Micheon. These caves are formed as lava travelled underground towards the sea. As the outer edge cooled and the inside stayed hot, long caves formed, sometimes stretching for many kilometres and even snaking over one another creating layers. The caves are fairly symmetrical and oval shaped and the surface of the walls inside was smooth. It was hard to take photos inside but I got this interesting one a few hundred metres in. Some ferns were growing in a complete lack of sunlight and surviving only off the trickle of groundwater from above and whatever lighting they had inside. The park also housed enormous sub-tropical gardens of huge prehistoric looking ferns and cacti. There was also a beautiful pond and fountain, as seen on the right.
Seongsan Illchulbong (Sunrise Peak)
Near the eastern town of Songsan-ri lies one of Jeju's most scenic volcanic craters, the Seongsan Illchulbong. If you're up early enough and staying in one of the numerous minbaks around the town you can hike up a jagged rock staircase to the peak and watch the sunrise. As I was on a tour, I didn't get the chance to do this, but we did stop on the beach for an amazing view. On the way back to Jeju city we stopped at a field of rape flowers for some photographs. Some ajummah's had set up a heart shaped bench and were charging 10,000 won a piece for photos on it. The tour guide took this one of myself and the Korean family that had "adopted" me. It was amazing as the flowers were everywhere to be seen and the fields stretched on for kilometres.
We stopped at a small seafood restaurant on the coast. I joined my Korean friends from the tour for some dinner. They were particularily interested in seeing me pound back some Soju one-shots and sample some of Jeju's cuisine. First it was steamed octopus, cooked live straight out of tanks in the restaurant and served with hot sauce, then sea slug also steamed live and then chilled. The sea-slug was disgusting, kind of chewy and tough but coated in a thick mucousy slime. It was bright pink and green while swimming in the tank, but turned grey after cooking. Outside the restaurant was a statue of one of Jeju island's female haenyo divers. These women train from a very young age and can hold their breath for up to two minutes as they dive off shore searching for abalone, octopus, urchins, conch and seaweed. This 2000-year old tradition is now dying out though as the daughters of the haenyo head to the city for easier jobs. The ones still doing it are in their eighties and work to supplement the income of their husbands who farm land. From over 30,000 divers in the 1980's, the number has now dropped to less than 6000, most  of whom are over 40.
My last day in Jeju, I went to the Samseonghyeol Shrine. This shrine houses three small caves from which, according to Jeju folklore, three god deities emerged and went on to create the three provinces of Jeju island and populate the island. The three young men emerged from the caves and lived a happy life together on the island. A king on the mainland was visited by a messenger who told him to send his three daughter princesses on a boat to the island with livestock and seeds. The three daughters taught the men on the island how to farm. They were married and spent their honeymoon nights within the caves. Afterwards, each of the three men shot an arrow into the air. Wherever their arrow landed, they were to make their homes. Thus, the three provinces and kingdoms of Jeju island were created. The shrine also houses a rock that bears the marking of an arrowhead where one of the arrows was said to have landed. On a special holiday on Jeju, the direct descendants of these three couples, which inlcudes the majority of Jeju's population gather together at this Shrine and pay tribute to the ancestors.
Samseonghyeol Shrine
The picture on the left shows the gate to the Samseonghyeol Shrine. One the right are the three underground caves, from which, the three god deities who created Jeju's people are said to have emerged. All the trees surrounding the pit have their branches pointed downwards towards it. Heat still emanates from them and all life on the island is said to pay homage to the three men by bowing towards this site. It was a really interesting experience. I had my own private tour guide who spoke English very well and was very knowledgeable about the site. They even had this funny Korean animation video, fortunately in English, which told the history of Jeju's three kingdoms.