Jesse and I set out at 2:30 pm this Saturday for our first “trip”. Our destination? Jeju Island. We had a 6:25 flight out of Gimpo airport, so we boarded a bus after lunch and set out on our epic quest.
Jeju is an isle off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. It's famous for hiking, horseback riding, black pork, and chocolate. The Koreans call it Honeymoon island, since it was pretty much the only place the Korean people could afford to go back before they uber-industrialized and became an economic power. It remains to this day the most popular vacation destination for Koreans. We would be on the island for four nights and three days, and in a brilliant feat of planning-ahead skills, I got a list of must-see attractions from Sacha and decided to make it up as I went along.
So we get to the airport with little trouble, and utilize some mad direction skills to reach the check in counter... only to discover that our flight has been delayed by an hour. Not ideal, but we make the best of it by grabbing some cheesecake and frappucinos from Starbucks to pass the time.
Upon locating the gate, we bunk down for our 90 minute wait. About 40 minutes later, I look up at the sign board for the gate, and discover that our flight is no longer listed on it.
But Jesse and I are seasoned travellers, and we were far too hip to panic. Instead, we located the new and improved gate by following the directions of the mumbling loudspeaker lady. At this point I noticed that our airplane tickets read “Gimpo --> Gwangju”. Since we had a stopover in Gwangju, I didn't get too concerned. As it turns out, I probably should have.
An hour later, and we were landing at Gwangju airport. I wanted to make sure we knew where we were going next, so I called over a flight attendant and showed her our tickets. “Where do we go?” I asked, putting my months of sign-language practice to good use.
The stewardess was baffled. Our ticket said Gwangju, and the plane was in Gwangju – what was the problem? No, I said desperately, we need to go to Jeju! We're supposed to transfer in Gwangju! Transfer!
This incited mass panic amongst the flight attendants. They handed us off to a ground control guy, who led us across the tarmac at a spirited pace – by this point, Jesse and I were somewhat concerned. Inside, he brought us to the check-in counter, where we were issued a second ticket that would bring us to Jeju. According to some foreigners we talked to later, who allegedly went through the same process, you have to get a new ticket when you reach your transfer airport. Since this seems like an asinine approach to managing stopover flights, I can only hope that the fault lies in Jesse and I for this extremely confusing set of events. Otherwise... get it together, Korean airline system. Seriously.
On the second flight, we sat next to Sketchy Guy. He was an old man whose carry on luggage was in the form of several large pieces of styrofoam taped together with bright red packing tape. When the tv screens played an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos, he laughed so uproariously that we resorted to glancing at him askance. And when the plane touched down, he evacuated his seat so quickly that I actually had to climb up on my own seat so that I wasn't bowled over. Not to mention that the aisle was filled with people, so he couldn't actually get anywhere, even if he tried. As Jesse would say, Sketchy Guy is sketchy.
From there it was a simple matter to take a cab to our hotel and check in. Ha! As if. First we had to figure out how to communicate our hotel name to the cab driver. The name of our hotel was “Jeju Palace Hotel”. “Jeju Palace Hotel”, I said to the driver. “Paradise Hotel?” he replied. “No. Palace. Pah-lass”. “Paradise?” “Pah. Lass.” “Ahhhh! Jeju Pah-lass”. “Yes. Pah-lass”. Siiiigh.
We hadn't eaten since our Starbucks snack, so we wandered down the street – which was much like the hotel strip in Las Vegas, except less ostentatious – and found a pork BBQ place. It was delicious, but we were perplexed about the black pork. According to our waitress, she had served it to us, but we couldn't remember eating any black pork. We had to google “black pork” to figure out what was going on. Jesse and I pictured it like pork that they had blackened – as in, charred the outside. No. It's called black pork because the pork comes from a black pig. Live and learn.
After fighting a valiant battle with the AC unit in our room, we retired for the day in order to rest up for our adventures on the morrow.
July 31, 2011
Day 2 of our Jeju trip! For our first full day on Jeju Island, we wanted to stay fairly close to Jeju city where our hotel was, since we had no idea how to get around the island. We could always take a taxi, of course, but it's about 2 hours from top to bottom of the island, so taxis aren't exactly ideal.
We grabbed a bunch of pamphlets from the hotel lobby, and brought them all to the man at the front desk. He told us which ones were nearby in Jeju city. The winners were Dinoland and Loveland. There are a lot of “lands” in Jeju. As far as Jesse and I can tell, think of any theme – dinosaurs, chocolate, teddy bears, erotic art – and Jeju has a theme park for it.
So we took a taxi out of Jeju city down to Dinoland. The park started off well, with a life-sized brachiosaurus statue that was amusingly gigantic. Then there was a garden area with various dinosaurs, followed by an awesome animatronic cave. The best part was the two raptor robots ripping into the intestines of a downed iguanadon. Dinoland, we discovered, likes their intestines.
From there, we went to the 3D movie, which featured the heart-warming tale of a boy and his robot friend who break into a museum, steal a time machine, and go back to the Cretaceous period. Shenanigans ensue. At the end they jump back to present day to escape a sea monster, and accidentally bring the monster with them. Nasty surprise for whoever goes to use the time machine next.
The best part, hands down, of Dinoland was the parrot cage. It was basically a greenhouse full of parrots and assorted avian wildlife. And out back there was a turtle pond. I like turtles. These turtles were very non-conventional, in that they were shockingly ambulatory and moved very quickly. One turtle in particular had someplace to be, and it decided to get there by walking over top of a much smaller turtle, who wiggled its feet and had to scramble out of the way, lest it be squashed. Jesse and I were very amused.
While at Dinoland, we tried Dippin Dots for the first time – those little ice cream balls that you find everywhere. I wasn't all that impressed. The flavor I got, rainbow, didn't taste like ice cream at all. It was like someone had taken a popsicle, chopped it into little bits, and then put it in a cup. Harumph.
After that we went to Loveland, which was just hilarious. It's essentially an outdoor art gallery devoted entirely to erotic sculptures. I won't go into details, but let's just say that we didn't stop laughing pretty much the entire time we were there – although we did turn down the volume when we were around other people.
Now, when I say erotic art, I mean erotic art. The arrows painted on the ground, to show you which way to walk through the park? Penises. The first sculpture you see, walking into the park? A giant, naked woman, arched up in the throws of ecstasy. The “gift shop”? Well, I'm sure you can imagine.
Pizza Hut is gourmet food in Korea, and we ended up with a sweet-potato stuffed crust Double BBQ Deluxe pizza, which cost 22,000 won and was about the size of a small pizza in Canada. Still, it was extremely delicious, and we retired to our hotel room to eat and enjoy.
Hehe penis arrows
ReplyDelete