Since I’ve
traveled all the way here, of course, I have to travel around now that I have
the chance. My first trip here outside of Seoul was a trip to Jeju Island.
Jeju Island
(제주도)
We decided
with my friend to travel to Jeju for a long weekend because we both had it on
our places-to-visit lists. Sadly, it was raining for the entire weekend so we
couldn’t enjoy beach and pretty sea sights as we had originally planned.
However, we tried our best to enjoy ourselves to the fullest.
We departed Seoul on Friday (30 Sept.) so
the Friday night was spent mainly wandering and exploring around the Jeju city
and the surroundings of our hotel. And of course, we had to try the infamous
Jeju “black pork” (흑돼지). It is local delicacy, and I must
admit that it was delicious.
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| black pork barbecue |
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| Walking on the sea side |
On Saturday
we visited Jeju Osulloc. Osulloc is the biggest national tea brand here in
South Korea, and it has three fields on Jeju Island. At Jeju Osulloc one can
get to know more about tea farming by visiting tea museum or the tea fields,
for example. Also we visited the Innisfree Jeju House café. (Innisfree is a
very popular South Korean cosmetic store franchise.) The café also included a
section selling Innisfree’s Jeju line products and some local specialties only available
in there like do-it-yourself soap kits. There two kinds of these kits: Ones
that you can do in the café and the ones that you can take home to do later. Of
course, we wanted to try decorating our own soaps! The day passed by
surprisingly fast wandering around in Osulloc.
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| Osulloc |
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| Making soaps |
On Sunday we headed to Hallasan, a
mountain in the middle of the island. (One of the most popular ways to spend
free time in South Korea is hiking since the Korean peninsula is mountainous
area.) Despite the bad weather we decided to try climbing up the mountain
because after all we had travelled all the way to Jeju. I had a lot of trouble
because we chose the intermediate route for climbing, and the rain did not make
it any easier. I am not sure whether the problem was in the lack of exercise or
the fact that I am not used to difference in air pressure. I’m still proud of
our achievement. The route to the top is
about 9 kilometers and we managed to climb 7 kilometers. I would say quite good
job from a girl who is used to living in Southern Finland that is mostly flat
land. While we were climbing down the rain became heavier and we thought that
it was actually a good thing we did not make it to the top.
On Monday it was time to head back to
Seoul. Unfortunately Monday, the day to return, was the only day to be sunny
during our trip.
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| On the way up, Hallasan |
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| Final rest stop before reaching the top, we made to this point |
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| Leaving Jeju |
Jinju
Namgang Lantern Festival (진주 남강유등축제)
Jinju
Lantern Festival originates back in the late 16th century when a
military strategy was created to prevent the Japanese soldiers invading Jinju’s
Namgang river area. The event includes a lantern exhibition and many small
activities around the river area. You can read more about the event here.
With few friends we headed to Jinju on
October 16. As an experience it was worth of the trip. “Lanterns” were beautiful
and there were many funny themes. My personal favorite moment was when the
river was filled with small floating lanterns. But as with the Trick Eye
Museum, I feel like it is better to simply show you the photos. :)
Some
updates to my life here. Now that I am on vacation I will try to catch up with
the posts. ^^’
xxx
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