Folk village, women divers, lava cave in Jeju

Before our departure, I booked two organized activities, the cooking class in Seoul and a bus tour while in Jeju. Today's post covers the activites and sights from the Jeju tour.

Yeha Bus Tours operates three different tours on Jeju, an east, west, and a south course. Yeha was highly recommended on TripAdvisor and, except for a weather-related delay, our east tour did not disappoint and we enjoyed the day with our tour guide, Cindy.  Although it rained in the morning, the skies cleared after lunch and we were able to do the outside tour activities. A happy circumstance with this tour bus... At the locations where we stopped, sometimes there were dozens of tour buses. I could always remember ours because I'd tell Phillip to look for the "Yee-haw!" bus.

The first stop was actually the least enjoyable. Because of the rain, we couldn't go horseback riding, so the tour went to a horse riding show. We arrived after it had started and the arena was packed. We had to stand and I had trouble seeing over people to view the show. Riders in warrior costumes "fought" each other and the horses were trained to go down to the ground with their riders or to carry several standing riders. None of the pictures of the actual performance came out because the horses were moving so fast and we were standing close to the performance area.

The second stop was at a folk village where this man and his wife told, in English, about the way the Koreans used to live in the villages. He was funny as he talked about how the husband was considered "king" of the house, but the wife was "super woman" who did all the work and actually made society function. During Cindy's pre-arrival discussion of the folk village, we thought we had misunderstood her when she talked about the pigs being housed in the toilet.  Nope, we heard correctly. The picture above is the pig pen and the toilet is actually a hole in the stone wall just behind where the man is sitting. The waste would flow into the pig pen and the pigs would eat it. Pigs eat just about anything and this took care of things. (It's not done anymore for sanitary reasons). The stick in the man's hand is also significant as the homeowner had to get any snakes out of the hole before squatting over it!

Although he's not fed human waste, this little guy does appear to get plenty to eat. All the pigs on Jeju are black and domesticated. No feral hogs here, but the pork from these black pigs is everywhere in restaurants. After this tour stop, we went nearby and had the pork for lunch. It is served a bit differently than we are used to, as the fat and skin is left on the slices which were cooked in a pan at our table with seasonings and cabbage. The pork, some bean paste, and rice is put on a leaf of lettuce, rolled up, and eaten like a burrito. This was served with the traditional sides of various forms of kim chee.

The rain stopped so we were able to see the woman divers of Jeju. These women, about 100 of them in age from 65 to 93, actually dive for abalone, conch, sea cucumber, and even octopus. They do not use any apparatus and stay under for around two minutes as they pry the creatures from the underwater rocks. Four of them put on a demonstration twice a day for visitors. 

Each diver wears a wet suit and has an orange float with a rope basket under it. They put their ocean harvest in the rope basket so they can continue until the basket is full. Our demonstration divers just stayed long enough to harvest a few of the items today. 

We could have climbed to the Seongsan Peak, a volcano crater that we saw from the air as we flew into Jeju; however, Phillip and I knew that we would not have time as I do not skip up the stairs like the Koreans do... I trudge up them. Instead, we walked around the area and I took this picture across the bay of Udo, also called Cow Island because of its shape. We couldn't see the cow shape from our vantage point, but it is a pretty picture of the blue water.

The tour bus drove along the shore road to our final stop, the lava caves. I wish the bus would've had a stop for us to take pictures, as ones out of a moving bus window are not good. The black volcanic rocks reached out from the road, turning into white sand, then blue water. Where the black lava rocks met the water, scores of people were scrambling in the rocks to get the sea urchins that are accessible during low tide. We saw this same activity in Ecuador (I still have the scar on my knee from that as my balance on wet rocks is not as good as a native's balance!)

Our final stop was Manjang Cave, the longest lava cave in Asia and one of three UNESCO Heritage sites in Jeju. From the entrance, pictured above, looking out to the sky, we walked down steps into the lava tunnel floor. This cave was formed around 250,000 years ago when lava deep in the ground pushed and flowed its way to the surface. We walked the entire 1 km (6/10 of a mile) distance of the public area over wet, uneven lava rock. It was fascinating to see the different formation and striation of the solified lava. 

This is a 7.6 meter high lava column, the largest in the world. We'd seen stalactites and stalagmites and limestone columns in other caves we've visited, but this was our first lava column. I love caves. 

The rain for the past few days knocked a lot of the blossoms off of the trees. I saw this near the parking area at Manjang Cave and thought of pink snow carpeting the ground.

Phillip and I enjoyed our day visiting the sights. The best part of the tour, and of traveling in general, however, is meeting people. Some of the people we shared the day with were Andy and Yuki. Andy is from China and Yuki is from Vietnam. They met two years ago when Andy was in Vietnam. Neither one speaks the other's native language, so they speak English to each other. Andy was a tour guide, so his English was quite good. He owns a tatoo shop in China now, and said that tattoing is becoming quite popular. A fairly young woman with beautiful silver hair and Asian features sat in front of Andy and Yuki on the bus. Phillip and I were amazed with this woman spoke to us, as she was from Australia! She was born in Vietnam, but had moved to Australia when she was 10 and had been raised there, so her speech had a definite Australian accent. And I have to mention the young girl, probably about 12 years old, who approached me and began a hesitant conversation, in English, while we were waiting for the woman diver show. She was learning English at home and at school and we exchanged pleasantries and simple conversation. It was clear that she was a work in progress with the English skills, but she just beamed as I was able to understand her and told her she was speaking English very well. Her parents, standing nearby, smiled broadly when I complimented their daughter's effort.

Traveling teaches many lessons: you can't judge a book by its cover, people all over the world are the same, wanting a satisfying life and good things for their children, and everyone likes to hear sincere compliments about their country and culture.