Day 19: Friends

Some background information: Before I left for Korea I tried to do a lot of research and speak to people that I knew had visited there before. I knew that this guy from my residence in first year had been there for a few weeks. He is also really close friends with one of my close friends so I decided to reach out to him to ask a couple questions. He was beyond helpful and made me feel so much less stressed about the whole thing and I can't thank him enough for everything he has done to help me with this trip. Thank you Steven! He was a don for our residence that term and he introduced me to a few students on his floor that were from Korea. He set up a meeting with him, myself, Sumin, and Kyeongbin and they answered a bunch of questions for me. I also found out that Kyeongbin lives in Jeju and he said I could contact him if I ended up coming to Jeju. I did and we planned to meet up on Sunday so he could show me around his area a little. It was such a cool day and we saw a lot of different places that I would never have thought to go to. He also brought his girlfriend who was super sweet!

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We were meeting in Jeju city at 1 pm so I was able to sleep in for the first time since coming to Jeju. I woke up around 10 am and decided to visit a place nearby since I didn't want to go back to bed and I had lots of time to spare. I bussed to a place called Namwon Keuneong Coastal Scenic Point, which is a small cliff near a resort. There is a really pretty path along the top of the cliff that you can walk along to get to the main point.

There was a nice lady at the main point who was selling some homemade rice puff things. She was very friendly and spoke English so she told me about her family who were living in America and asked what I was doing in Korea.

The path to get to the point kept going under trees so it looked like there were lots of little secret passages.

I was able to get on a bus very close to the point that took me all the way to Jeju city without having to transfer. Kyeongbin and his girlfriend (Danbi) picked me up at the main transit station and we went for lunch.

We listened to Justin Bieber's Baby in the car...

I can't remember what the stuff that we ate was called but it was chicken that was cooked in a huge pan with cabbage and then covered in cheese. It was such an amazing dish with so much flavour but I had to be careful how much I was eating because of the cheese. After lunch we walked back to Kyeongbin's car and drove to a cafe area in Aewol. It took about 50 minutes to drive there. It wasn't a place I was going to go to because it was so far from my hostel so I was very happy when they mentioned that we would be going to it.

The area is filled with really cute looking cafes that have amazing decorations. One of the cafes is called Bom Nal (Spring Day) and is famous because it was in a Korean drama. The other cafe near it is owned by BigBang's G-Dragon (a k-pop artist). We walked through the cafes and I took lots of pictures.

Spring Day cafe:

G-Dragon's cafe:

Others:

There was also an area where people could rent what are called 'visual kayaks'. They are completely made of plastic so people can see into the water underneath them while kayaking. Unfortunately, the weather was fairly chilly so we didn't go on them. We walked along a path that Kyeongbin explained is called the Aewol walkway. He said it is a very well-known walkway where lots of celebrities come to film. IU and Lee Hyori from Lee Hyori's Bed and Breakfast have filmed scenes here. On the way back Kyeongbin had to get gas and I was super surprised to see that the gas station had someone there to fill up for you.

We chatted a bit about differences between Canada and Jeju in the car. Kyeongbin had been in Waterloo for a couple months for school during the summer so he could compare the two places. He said that he noticed lobster and alcohol were much less expensive in Canada than in Jeju. Lobster in Jeju is around 100,000 won and a mickey of vodka can cost 70,000 won (the price in Canadian dollars is a little higher than won, approx. 1.3). He said that when he visited the east coast he ate a lot of lobster because it was less than half the price of lobster in Jeju. He also explained the meaning of the stone grandpas that I had seen around the island.

Once we got back to the city we went to the Dongmun Market, which was the stop I was most excited about. It is a huge market lined with all sorts of different booths, from fish to tteokbokki to clothing. There were even pigs' heads available to purchase!

I have wanted to buy omegi tteok ever since I met the Korean people at my first hostel and they gave me some (it is a kind of rice cake with different fillings). Danbi found a yummy omegi tteok store in the market and I bought a pack of 10 assorted ones. There were 5 different flavours: mango, banana, red bean, green tea, and a nut one. The banana was definitely my favourite! I figured that 10 would be enough to last me through the week that I was here and I could treat myself to one each morning for breakfast. I also bought a small bag of stone grandpa bread treats for all of us to eat.

After the market we walked around a big shopping street and I bought an extra power bank (a BT21 one) because both my phones had been getting very low on battery each day I was exploring. I also bought a selfie stick for 3,000 won (which I never ended up using)! We then walked through an underground shopping area to get to the entrance for the Tamna Culture Festival.

The Tamna Culture Festival is a festival to showcase Jeju's history, cultural heritage, and arts. It was fortunately being held on a day when Kyeongbin and Danbi were free so we could all see it together. There were lots of booths where people were selling hand-made items or food. We got to try rice cakes and green tea and watch a performance.

Once we had explored the festival we went for dinner. I had told them ahead of time that I really wanted to go to a bbq place. Danbi had researched bbq places before hand to find a famous one for us to try. It was super yummy and I ate a ton of food! We had lots of pork but they also brought out a piece of pig skin which is supposedly very popular to eat because it helps your skin. I was not adventurous enough to try it.

We originally planned to see a famous bridge next but it started to rain and it was very dark out by the time we finished eating. I was also really tired from all the socializing. I am introverted to begin with and I had just had two weeks of time to myself so spending an entire day with two other people was a little overwhelming. They dropped me back off at the main transit station and I hopped on a bus home. It was so much fun to have people to explore with and explain things that I wouldn't know because I'm not from Jeju. I promised that I will do the same for them the next time they are in Canada!

We also tried to go to a traditional police station but they closed right before we arrived.

Between the bus ride home and bed time I managed to eat almost the entire box of omegi tteok (so much for saving it for the whole week). I ate the rest of them the next morning...

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(October 14, 2018)

Distance walked: 10.9 km

P.S. I am writing this on Oct 24 (so I am back in Seoul). I've been riding the subway so much that I was sitting in a cafe today and started humming the subway arrival song.