Foreigners in Hajung?

My first 8 months of living here, I would have sworn on my life that I was the only foreigner living in my neighbourhood. No matter what time of day I went out. No matter where in the neighbourhood I went. ONE time I caught a glimpse of a foreigner in the gym, but he made a point of NOT looking at me and was gone in a flash. But about a month or so ago, a friend of mine who I'd met in September, got a new contract RIGHT HERE IN HAJUNG-DONG! And I thought, "Yeah! There are 2 of us now!" Tell me why just last week Wednesday I met two more who knew TWO MORE?!

There are at least SIX of us!! And one of them lives TWO BUILDINGS away from me!! HOW? To be fair, he has only been here 2 months, but another of the guys I met has been here for over a year! Is there some kind of schedule that the Koreans have to ensure that the foreigners are never out on the street at the same time? It's bizarre for real. 5 of us had drinks last night and it was really fun! Lots of laughs.

The best part was that ALL of us were able to just WALK home afterwards! No one had to crash at anyone's place cuz they missed the last train. No one had to take a taxi home cuz they missed the last bus. Everyone just decided when it was time to go home, so we all just..... walked home. It was a beautiful thing. And for those of you who have tons of foreigners and friends who live within walking distance of you..... just know it's a very fortunate thing to have!!! Especially way out here.

Jeju Juice

So last month (May) I was blessed with the gift of a 6-day weekend due to Children's Day being on Thursday the 5th and Buddha's birthday being Tuesday the 10th. Not everyone was as fortunate as I was, but I wasn't about to let that stop me from rejoicing lol. What did I do with that time you ask? I went to Jeju! I'd booked the flights as soon as I found out, a month ahead, and already flights were sold out. Madness!

So anyway I went to Jeju with my friend Nikita, and it really was quite beautiful. We stayed in Seogwipo, the south side of the island and a lot of it reminded me of parts of Jamaica, if you can believe that.

This post is long overdue, so I'm gonna keep the text fairly short and just give you some pictures.

We went to:

The Manjanggul Lava Tubes/Cave (it went by both names)

Squinting cuz my sunglasses broke before I got to Jeju.

Descending...

More descending...

Into the belly of the beast...

Lava flow lines

Flow lines up close

Turtle Rock a.k.a. "Voyager"

Testing out the panaroma app on my iPod (it's called Photosynth if you're interested)

"Now leaving Manjanggul Cave"

Sunrise Peak

About to start our journey

Daunting, and that's not even the top!

Here we go!

Somewhere in the middle.

Apparently those craters in the rock are some guy's footprints from jumping on it a lot...?

Took a break to look down.

We made it to the top! Sweaty and squinty

Yes, we saw a.... rooster?  At the top of the mountain

Back down on the ground.

Another attempt at the panorama thing.

There's more than just the peak

Like how beautiful is that?!

Just lovely.

Jeongbang Waterfall

Treacherous stairs. 

Probably my most invested and most failed attempt at a panorama shot.

The Teddy Bear Museum (that was just me)

Charlie Chaplin

Elvis... The King

Some dude and Marilyn Monroe

The moon landing

RUPERT!!!! Anyone else remember Rupert??

Winnie The Pooh!

Care Bear~

Michael Jordan

The Thinker

Hrmmm...

The Archer

The Kiss

Carrot-Teddies!

The Museum of Sex and Health

Oh NOW I have your attention!

Made me really happy to see this in SK

*GASP*

It's a FLOWER

Clever, right?

All in all, a good time with some adventure thrown in. Wish I could have stayed longer, there would have definitely been more to do to fill up my time. Oh well, what I did do was a pretty good taste of Jeju as far as I'm concerned. =) Also wish I'd brought my DSLR and/or remember the battery charger for Canon compact. BUT THANK GOD I had my iPod Touch. It took all the wonderful pictures above.