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.

A history lesson then on to Jeju

Yesterday, Tuesday here, was our travel day; however, our flight didn't leave Seoul

until 3 pm, so we visited the Korean War Memorial in the morning.

We arrived before the museum opened, but the outside exhibits of numerous airplanes, helicopters, and tanks were accessible for viewing. Phillip, being former Air Force, really enjoyed walking thru and telling me about the planes.

As we walked thru the equipment exhibits, we noticed soldiers in formation marching toward the entrance to the museum, so we went to see if there was a ceremony. A man announced in Korean and in English that the soldiers were the Honor Guard who were practicing today for a ceremony on April 20th.

I'm sure they did not intend it, but we got some chuckles as we watched them try to get their formation right and their lines straight. It took about ten minutes after they got on the steps to get everyone in place. We understood why the officials are having a few weeks of practice! This is probably a newly assigned Honor Guard. 

We watched the soldiers for a few minutes, but it really was a practice, so we went on inside the museum. I didn't take a lot of pictures as we stayed busy reading the English signs and flash photography is frowned upon in museums. However, I did take the above picture (no flash) because this first exhibit/video was the most chilling. Upon entering the exhibit hall, we went into a room for a short overview video that was projected on the entire wall of the room. The video spoke of the losses of life during the war and the terrible toll it took on the Korean people and their allies. At the end of the video, the room stayed dark, then the floor panels lit up to the above scene, a battlefield aftermath of bones and guns in the dirt. The phrase "Freedom is not free" came across the wall. For a short history lesson, Korea had been occupied by the Japanese thru WW II. With Japan's surrender, the major world players, the USA and the Soviet Union, divided Korea into two protectorates, North Korea and South Korea, at the 38th parallel. South Korea, with US help, created a democracy, but North Korea leveraged its Soviet help against help from Communist China, and decided to invade the South, which it did in 1950. It swept thru the South until the United Nations forces were able to get there and push them back under General MacArthur. They actually pushed the Northern forces all the way to the Chinese border. China, however, didn't like that one bit and sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers to Korea and pushed the UN and South Korean forces back south. This back and forth battling went on until 1953 when an armistice was signed, setting the border back at the 38th parallel. This war memorial is dedicated to the 415,000 South Koreans, over 36,000 Americans, and about 40,000 soldiers from other countries who died during the three years of fighting. 

I'm not sure what the ceremonial significance is of April 20 as the war started on June 25, 1950 and the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, but the officials at the Memorial are apparently expecting families that day. The mascots were also at the practice! Eight of them, people in costumes, including this guy who represented the Navy. 

I planned to get a picture of Phillip with the traditionally dressed mascot, but I ended up next to two of them, representing a man and a woman in the traditional Korean dress called a hanbuk.

We left the museum, collected our luggage and headed for the airport for our flight to Jeju. I was a bit apprehensive when we didn't load from the terminal, but were bussed to the plane. The plane, however, was a Boeing 737, albeit probably an older 737, but it was airworthy (we did make it to Jeju) and there simply might not have been enough gates at the airport to accomodate all the flights. 

This is our hotel room for the next week. That is not a bed on the right. It is a folded yo, which is a padded mat; a comfortor; and a pillow. No bed. No chairs either, I sit on the floor to type this.

And here you have the yo laid out for sleeping. This is called an ondol room, as the floor is heated during the night. The warm floor made up for the lack of padding. We did sleep pretty well as it was like sleeping on a really firm mattress. 

Today, we walked to the tourism office to get an island map and a bus route map. No subways here, but we can use the Seoul T-money subway card to pay for our bus rides. The tourism lady said they work all across South Korea for any kind of mass transit. After the toursim office, we walked along the seawall boardwalk. Yes, it has been an overcast, drizzly day, but that didn't stop us from exploring. 

On our way to another sight, we walked across this pedestrian suspension bridge, flanked by blooming cherry trees and a picturesque pagoda. Beauty is everwhere here.

Our destination was this: Dragon Head Rock. Jeju Island was created from black lava erupting from volcanoes eons ago. This lava rock formation juts from the land like the head of a dragon. After this visit, we wandered back toward our hotel, finding yet another underground mall and visiting the market near our hotel again. It's raining enough now to need an umbrella, so I decided to catch up on this blog.

Tomorrow, we have an all-day tour of some of the major island attractions. The rain is predicted to stop by noon, so we should be fine on the tour.

Cherry Blossoms at the Flower Festival

Today's weather was ideal for our visit to the Cherry Blossom Festival. Phillip and I, and a couple thousand of our close friends, went to Yeoiudo to see the cherry trees that lined both sides of the circle road. The cherry blossoms were indeed spectacular. It wasn't a field of cherry trees, rather miles of them planted, quite awhile ago as they are mature trees, along both sides of both sidewalks of the road next to the river.

This was an advertised festival of flowers which meant that the sidewalks were also lined with vendors, mainly food vendors. We arrived at about 10 am and since I hadn't had breakfast yet, when I saw the first egg bread vendor, Phillip bought me one. I expected festival vendors to charge double, like they do in the States, but this egg bread was only 1,000 won, half the price we paid for my first one!

This picture shows the vendor removing one from the little pan and putting it in top of the actual cooker to keep it warm and displayed for sale. Little loaves of deliciousness for about US 90 cents!

The sidewalk opened into a park area where we found flower displays, more colorful than just the cherry blossoms. All our friends were also taking pictures next to these displays, so we had to be quick to get one, then I needed to crop out the other photo subjects. It was fun to watch the dance of getting pictures next to the prettiest displays. Everyone was so polite, but still jostling in for a picture, then darting out of the way of other people. 

For lunch, we bought these rolls of kimbop. Phillip was happy to get the standard kimbop, seaweed around rice with the middle containing pickled daikon, carrot, egg, and green onion slivers. The lady from whom we bought these had apparently brushed the outside with a bit of sesame oil and sprinkled sesame seeds on them. Very nice and tasty as we sat in the grass in the park and watched the people as we ate them. We walked several miles thru the festival and finally walked out of the festival area, i.e., the vendors became scarce but the cherry blossoms remained along the sidewalk. As we headed for the subway stop, we came across this building:

I did not know that Donald had a building in Seoul, but sure enough, there it was. We were actually on the back side, the parking garage entrance, of the building. It was decorated with gold-colored signs. We weren't quite interested enough to walk around to see how ornate the front of the building was, but the word gaudy comes to mind with what we did see. We left Yeoiudo and rode the subway north to the area around City Hall. As if we hadn't already walked enough... our next destination was Cheongyecheon, an urban stream.

This is a 7 km stream right in the middle of the business/government buildings area. Walkways on both sides, fish in the stream, an oasis of calm in the bustling area. 

In keeping with the flower festival theme of this post, here's the art that decorated the wall of one of the stream underpasses. Traffic overhead, crossing the stream, and brightly colored flower art next to the stream. And I leave you with this picture, animals painted into the flowers. Phillip noticed them before I did, can you pick out which animals are depicted?

My next post will be from Jeju as we leave Seoul and head on to other adventures. We have really enjoyed Seoul and are glad we were able to see the flower festival today.

Cooking Class with Jessie

Phillip and I attended our personal cooking class with Jessie and it was wonderful! Jessie has a full-time job and is working on her PhD, but she loves to cook and speaks English very well. She learned her English from the US military TV channels and from watching US soap operas when she was a child. She has traveled to the United States and her sister lives in Los Angeles. Jessie was joined by her mother, who does not speak English, but that was fine as her mom and I could communicate with the food preparation and through Jessie. Phillip and Jessie talked while her mom and I chopped.

The above picture contains the ingredients (except the noodles) for a dish called japchae. It is the main dish that I wanted to learn how to cook. Marinated stips of meat, veggies, and mushrooms. The noodles in japchae are sweet potato glass noodles that are added to the pan after the meat and veggies get cooked.

The bowl above contains the ingredients that go into the cucumber kim chee, another dish I wanted to learn how to prepare. I've tried at home, but it never came out the way it should. One of the ingredients that I had not incuded, and is essential for the flavor, is the shrimp. The light-colored ingredient in the above picture is finely minced tiny shrimp. It doesn't make the cucmber kim chee taste fishy at all, but is

essential.

And the red pepper! All kim chee, whether cabbage, radish, cucumber, or any other, contains Korean red pepper. Jessie's mom used a plastic glove to mix the ingredients once she added the red pepper as it does stain one's hands. I used a glove when she and I stuffed this mixture into the cucumbers.

This is the rolling of the egg pancake. It contains finely diced veggies and about 1/4 cup of finely diced Spam. Think of a rolled, thick fritatta or egg pancake with veggies and seasoning. Because of all the vegetbles, it does take skill and practice to roll it as it cooks so that it doesn't fall apart on you. If it does, I expect you would have scrambled eggs with veggies instead of the rolled egg pancake! Jessie's mom knew how to do it, and it was like watching an artist as she coaxed the roll into shape.

Although my pictures so far have been of Jessie's mom's hands, Jessie also taught and of course was the one explaining and telling what her mother was doing or adding.  Here's a change: Jessie hands as she is making the soup. She boiled dried anchovies in water to create a broth then removed the anchovies and added vegetables. In the above step, Jessie is adding bean paste for seasoning, but because it may have chunks of bean she doesn't want in the soup, she is adding it thru a strainer, pressing the paste to get the "good stuff" out but leaving any solids in the strainer. 

This is our meal. We each have a bowl of rice at our place. From left to right are fried tofu (I didn't get a picture of it cooking, but it is sliced tofu fried in sunflower oil), a small bowl of sauce we prepared for the tofu, the japchae, the cucmber kim chee and the egg pancake. The soup hadn't made it to the table yet when I took this picture. All very delicious and all foods that I now feel comfortable making! I will say that my egg pancakes will probably not look as good as these, as Jessie's mom has years of experience rolling them. 

And Phillip and I seated to enjoy our meal, which included makli (not sure of the spelling) which is rice wine. Bubbly rice wine because of the fermentation. Jessie had to shake the bottle to get it mixed up, but it had the bubbles, so she had to very slowly open the bottle or it would spew out like a shaken Dr. Pepper! 

And the cooks! You've seen their hands, now here are their faces! Jessie and her mom were very gracious hosts and I learned so much from them. Jessie's class is thru an organization called "The Traveling Spoon," and you can bet that we will look for classes thru The Travelling Spoon in the future when we visit other countries. It was a wonderful experience and I highly recommend it and thank Jessie and her mother for sharing their knowledge and hospitality.

We finished our class and lunch at about 2 pm. Jessie had suggested visiting the cherry blossoms where the festival will start soon at Yeouido. We headed that way and got off at the subway stop nearest to the park, but as we walked toward the park, it began raining, enough that we sought shelter in front of an office building. We tried to wait the rain out, but when large groups of people with umbrellas passed by going away from the park, we decided to save the cherry blossoms for another day, a day when it wasn't raining cats and dogs. 

One of the subway stops on the way back to our hotel was for the Museum of Korea. All museums have free admission in Korea, so we decided to stop and view the collections. The museum collection took the people of Korea from pre-history to about 1900. It was a well organized museum and one of my favorite displays was of this Goya warrior from about 500 AD. The armor that the horses wore was intricate and fascinating, but the picture wasn't as good as this one. 

We spent several hours in the museum, then walked around the grounds. This is a view of the museum from across the small lake in front of it. Even in the drizzly rain, the bushes were blooming and you can see the pagoda in the lake. 

We enjoyed the museum, but of course the high point of the day had been the cooking class. I can't say enough good things about it - it exceeded my expectations and I am so grateful to Jessie and her mother for their hospitality.

Everything is uphill in Seoul

Although I read it and Phillip said it, I did not realize the extent to which South Korea is a mountainous country. We've only been in Seoul so far, but I can say that every destination seems to be uphill from one's present position! I don't mind and the workout we get from walking and climbing stairs is good for us. We understand why the obesity rate is 3% in South Korea. Seoul is not crowded with cars like Bangkok, even though many millions of people live here. Walking and the subway seem to be the more popular means of getting from point A to point B than driving.

We returned to Seoul Station yesterday morning and I did "conquer" it before we went on any further adventures. I had compared it to the DC Metro on steroids, but I now need to add a caveat to that comparison: The Metro has escalators at almost every exit. Seoul Station has no escalators at its exits. None. Nada. This is a view up one of the smaller staircases to ground level. We walked around the maze of tunnels and came up at various locations, found the subway line we need to go to class on Sunday, got help from a nice young lady who witnessed me trying to get a new fare card from a reload-only machine (convenience stores sell the new cards), and then rode the subway to another district to experience the loading and unloading process. 

The other district to which we traveled was the Myeongdong shopping district. It was more stores than street vendors, although Phillip did buy me an egg bread - an item I will definitely try to replcate when I get home and will eat more of here. Think sweet cornbread with an egg cooked on top of it. Again I started eating before I remembered the picture! 

We walked back to the Namdaemun area closer to our hotel, a warren of alleys with more street vendors. After lunch, we had a choice of visiting palaces or riding the cable car to the top of the mountain in Namsan Park. We decided on the cable car ride, so we walked back to Myeongdong and found the beginning of the cable car. The line, however, was terribly long to get a ticket and it did not bode well that the facility had a waiting room in addition to a boarding room. We gave up on the cable car rode and crossed the street into Namsan Park. Two park entrances greeted us: a meandering path along the side on the mountain with a gentle incline or the other entrance: steps that seemed to go on forever up the mountain. Yes, the masochists that we are, we chose the steps. 1200 meters uphill to the Seoul Tower at the top. 

It was scenic as it followed the ancient city wall, there were stopping areas for pictures and rest, but it was uphill all the way. I wanted to turn around a few times, but Phillip pointed out the 80-ish year old man who was climbing the mountain also, so I kept going. We made it to the top and could see all of Seoul. We didn't pay to go up into the tower, as the view from the ground near the tower was quite good enough.

This picture was actually taken by a fellow stair-climber at the viewing area about 1/2 way up the mountain. No, I hadn't pushed Phillip over the edge for suggesting we take the stairs instead of the path!

This is one of the views of Seoul from the top, and yes, there is a layer of haze. We walked around to top area, then headed back down the stairs. Fortunately, I had a pedicure before we came on the trip or my toenails would have punched thru the ends of my tennis shoes. I didn't notice it coming up, but going down, it was obvious that each step surface was also sloped up. An incline walk and a stair workout!

We walked back a different route toward our hotel. At one point, we could see our hotel straight across in the distance; however, we couldn't walk that way because we were on the sidewalk of an elevated road. So, more steps down, then up again and up a hill to get to the hotel. Everything is uphill in Seoul!

Seoul Time came early

We've made it to Seoul without incident. In fact, getting here was quite uneventful. Our "Goober driver" (that's what son-in-law Rock texted from our driveway) arrived on time and dropped us off at DFW Airport with plenty of time before our flight.

Phillip had used frequent flier miles to get our tickets for the non-stop flight to Seoul and he had booked us on business class. One of the perks of business class on international flights is the included use of the Admirals Club while waiting at the airport. We had never been in the Admirals Club since we generally fly coach. So, we took the opportunity - and I can tell you we would get spoiled if we did that very often! 

Comfy chairs with computers, continental breakfast, restrooms with Bigelow lime and cilantro soap and lotion (their scent reminded me of a mojito!), and all the coffee we wanted. We had a voucher for a top shelf alcoholic drink, but I used mine for a bottle of water instead. Phillip had a drink with whiskey. Yes, at 9:30 am! It was, however, 11:30 pm in Seoul. I guess he was already on Seoul time.

Our seats were as we remembered from our Miami flight, roomy with lots of controls for any position you'd want to put it in. 

The seat also came with a pair of slippers and a complimentary toiletries kit. The pillow was a real size, not 1/10 the size of a bed pillow. The blanket was a duvet and the flight attendant kept bringing food. Again, we could get spoiled! The first snacks she delivered, warmed nuts, were cashews, pistacios, almonds and pecans. No peanuts to dilute the "good stuff." And OK, those warm nuts called for me to move to Seoul time with Phillip, so I had a Sam Adams beer. Well, to be honest, I had two Sam Adams beers. 

The food was pretty darn tasty also. Phillip had bibambap, a seasoned meat and rice dish, and I had grilled chicken. I wasn't yet into travel mode enough to remember to take pictures before we dig into the food, so there's no picture of this meal. We had plenty of time to watch movies. Since the screen was in the seatback in front of us, we could each watch whatever we wanted. I re-watched the latest Stars Wars movie and saw Spotlight and The Big Short, two movies Phillip would not have wanted to watch - and he didn't. He re-watched Creed (the boxing movie) instead.

When we arrived at Incheon Airport, we just followed the crowds thru the airport to immigration. A long line awaited us, but it was orderly and moved fairly quickly. Almost all the positions had been staffed to handle the travellers and an employee directed people into individual lines at the right time. We followed the crowd again and made our way to the KTX train area. We waited in line to get a ticket, but on the way to the train, I saw that I can use a kiosk next time. The ticket has the departure time and seat assignment, and there's just one waiting area as this train only goes from the airport to downtown. A very clean train, not a subway, with a lady who walked thru a few times, stopping and bowing to the passengers when she entered and left the connecting cars at this doorway.

Our only issue for the day was getting out of the train station when we arrived in Seoul. Think DC Metro stations on steroids. I did not realize that the KTX train platform was seven floors below ground level. Yes, we were on floor B7. We followed the crowd again, repeatedly going up escalators. I knew that I shouldn't make it all the way to ground level, that we needed to walk thru the subway to get under the tracks to be near our hotel. However, we stopped to ask where exit 7 was and a lady directed up to an elevator. We ended up on ground level in a shopping area, faced with a street that had no pedestrian crosswalk and subway lines that one couldn't possibly cross. We wandered around in this area for awhile as I got more frustrated. We finally when back down a bit and I took a picture of the map of the subway tunnels. Back upstairs, we found a police station and a nice officer who spoke enough English to direct us to the subway entrance about 50 yards away, from which we could walk under the street and find our elusive exit 7. Sure enough, our hotel had been less than two blocks away as we wandered around the Seoul Station. Today, I plan to go back and master that station!

Our hotel is nice and modern, and the beds are great. We went to sleep at about 8:30 pm Seoul time, waking up at 4:30 am. We walked to the 7-11 and came back where I began this post! It took me awhile to get the pictures transferred, but I'll be doing better on future posts.