Zip line and Maze Land
Here is a brief summary if a wonderful trip I took with Jeju Tourism. They took us zip lining and to Maze Land. This was nothing less than an amazing day. First of all, they paid for everything. Lunch, admission, transportation. Second of all, I made some new friends. This whole adventure from start to finish was so much fun. Most of the other people on the trip were Chinese students studying at a university here on the island. They couldn't really speak English but when we were up on the zip line coarse you don't need a translator to know how people are nervous or scared to jump off the safety of the ledge and go fly on a little rope, high up in the air. This translates into every language perfectly. The zip line place was as the home of a dog park (random) and The Cave Cafe. Below you see a picture of the cafe. It was such a unique find. First, you walk under this tent and it leads you to a cave. Then you have to keep walking into the cave for a few minutes and right when you feel like "this is really weird, maybe we should just go back." BOOM! There it is, this small cave hallway leads to this massive Cave Cafe. Incredible. The thing is, this cave is an actual cave, it wasn't man-made, and they turned it into an awesome place to hangout. Genius if you ask me. After the discovery of the cave, they treated us to a large Korean lunch. The problem with the food here is that if I am willing to eat it, it is always way to spicy. Thus, I am not able to eat all that much even if I like it. The final part of the day was spent at Maze Land. Here there are 3 large mazes (1 stone, 2 hedge), the largest being stone. The mazes were in different shapes that resemble symbols of Jeju Island. Even with a map, that stone maze was a bit tricky. At the exit of the maze you get to ring a bell to brag to all of the other people who are still trying to find their way through it. For some reason there was another bell, a really large, stationary one. Now, this gets a bit evil. But when you walk up to this bell it rings really loudly. It has a motion sensor and it startles everyone with it's unexpected ring. So, since we were the first ones in our big group to finish the maze, we encouraged people to go and check-out the big bell and then watch them jump when it rang. I am not going to lie, I took video of this and I even have it scaring a grandma. I can't say I am proud of this, I am just saying it was pretty funny:)
Being flexible
K-Pop Concert
Well, now that most people know about K-pop, thanks to the viral spread of Gangnam Style. I heard about a K-pop concert that was happening on Jeju-do. Now, here is the issue. It was on a Tuesday night and it's an hour away from my city. This meant that I had to run (literally run) home in a skirt from school 1.5miles to my apartment, and then get to the bus stop before the next bus came. It was crazy stuff, and I was sore the rest of the week because I was running so hard. Silliness. Anyways, I made it to Jeju city and met with a friend there. We jump in a taxi and ask him to take us to Topdong, where the concert was. We get of\ut of the cab and have no idea what is going on or what we are doing. Now, most concerts in Korea are free, it's all a matter of getting in. We arrived at 6:15 and the concert was going to start at 6:30. Hmm, difficult situation. We see a mob of people and guess that is probably where we need to be. This mob contained of mostly middle/high school girls in their school uniforms screaming and yelling at the security guards to let them into the show. The security guards were also shouting, and we didn't know what. So thought we would take our chances and yelling out questions in English because we figured that all of the students knew English (at least a little) and would translate what was happening for us. It turns out the girls right in front of us we great at translating:) The guards had everyone sit down. So Jade and I were crouching down but we remained taller than everyone else. (Now, Jade has really blonde hair, and when you are among a sea of Korean's with black hair you can't help but notice her.)As one of the guards was yelling at the sitting crowd, he notices Jade and I, and then he smiles and waves. We just about die of laughter! One second he is screaming in some little girls face and the next he had is friendly face on. We were hoping that this was our ticket into the so, but no luck. We didn't make it in and they weren't letting anymore people in. It was an outdoor concert and we could kind of see the stage from the side of the stage. Mostly we could just hear it and see the lights on the stage. We hung out for awhile with all of the other hard core fans that didn't make it in. We ate some food from some street vendors and went to sit down on a bench. Now, this part got real interesting. We sat down and instantly people kept comming up to us trying to speak English and before we knew it there was a crowd of kids around us commenting on our appearance. Then one kid said an extremely disrespectful comment (this included a swear) and Jade set him straight. That was pretty funny. I think he knew it was bad, but maybe he didn't know how bad. He probably picked it up from some rap or something. Anyways, we felt a bit like celebrities. This was the first time that I have seen foreigner getting that much attention. It was intense.
Funny Korea Stuff
1. Strangers touch you without warning (so far just older ladies, don't worry men don't do this...I think/hope.). The other day I was wearing a necklace and an older lady came and poking me in the chest saying "Beautiful, beautiful! How much?! How much?!" I didn't know what was happening or how to respond. Very strange, yet funny.
2. Seeing a pig heads (Yep, that's right. Just the heads) at the market is almost no big deal. It's becoming normal.
3. Clean air, sewer, fish and trash are the lovely smells that will randomly overpower your senses while walking down any given street.
4.My co-teacher finally understanding that I DON'T LIKE SEAFOOD has been helpful. It took a long time but now she tells me if things have fish in them. I can always smell it regardless if she tells me, but often times I can't figure out which mystery food it is in.
5. waygook = foreigner I say/hear this all the time. I normally say "waygook moment." It has basically become my saying of my life here.
Sorry for the weird formatting. I tried to fix it but it wouldn't let me:(
