Trip on a Whim! Going to Jeju

So, it ended up that it was Chuseok break this week. Basically from last friday to sunday. So that means that us as RA's get time off. A whole week of it in fact. So I wasn't going to do anything and I was just going to rest and stay in my apartment. Well, as we all know....with me and my love for travel, that probably doesn't stick. And it didn't. It basically all started Sunday when I got the invite to go to Jeju with a group of new teachers and some teachers who have been here for a bit. All in all, a group of 14 total. Normally I would be turned off by a group that size, but this time around I wasn't and sadly by Sunday I was already itching to get out of my apartment.

The problem arose though, how am I going to get a ticket to go with this group to Jeju island in Korea. Most tickets are probably sold out or too expensive for my liking. So I looked online and saw that there was a ferry from a town in the south called Mokpo.

So basically on monday I got on a taxi from the school to the train station. I then grabed a train from Daejeon to Mokpo and started my adventure. The KTX high speed train took about 2 hours to get to Mokpo. When I arrived in Mokpo, I hopped in another taxi and had them take me to the ferry terminal (which I sain in Korean), what I didn't know was that there were two. Luckily, when we got to the first ferry terminal I asked "jeju"...and he said "aniyo" which means no and then he kindly directed me to the other one. Let's call this God Provision #1. You'll see lots of these along the trip. So I get to the terminal and grab my reserved ticket for the ferry. I board the ferry and notice the size of it. It was huge...it was a car ferry with maybe 4 levels. So I enter and notice that there are no "seats" as we would normally imagine, basically everyone just shares some carpeted floor space that before you enter you have to take off your shoes. So I notice this and not being so keen to just staying in a room for 4 hours, I decide to go up to the top level where you can be in the open air and see the scenery. So the boat leaves and the scenery was amazing. There were islands everywhere. It was a cloudy day and it still looked beautiful. This was a Korea I hadn't seen yet and I loved it. If this was a sign of what Jeju was going to look like, I was ready. So the 4 hour boat ride went fine....I ate a ramien and watched the islands pass by. When it got too dark I just went back in. The first 3 hours were fine because the water was sheltered by the islands. The last hour was little shaky as we were in open sea, nothing but us and the sea. Quite a thought when it ran through my head.

So I got off the ferry and then I called Nikole, and her friend Tim as they were going to direct me to where the group was located. The all had arrived already by plane and had gotten settled in. I had not. So basically they tell me to get in a taxi and find a plaza. So I tell the first taxi driver this plaza and he points me that I can walk to it from the ferry terminal. So I start to walk and realize, it's not going to happen because I don't know where anything is and it's almost 8:30pm and dark out. So I then flag another taxi down and tell him and he knows where to take me. So then I get to this place and have to get on a bus and be sure to get off at Sunset Beach Hotel....where I will then meet the rest of the group. Easy, except I end up getting off at the wrong spot. So I then call the group again (with about one bar of power on my phone left) and find out I was at the wrong place and need to get another taxi and tell him I'm only willing to pay 10,000won (about $10) to get to CheonJiyeon waterfalls. So I do this and get to the falls. Well, to make this long story short, I finally found the group up enjoying a really sweet waterfalls at night. After that we went back to the harbor and then to Tim's apartment to crash. Basically it was pretty sweet because we got to stay at Tim's apartment and the girls stayed at a friend of his apartment the whole time. Tim is a hogwon teacher that one of the group knew from college.

So that was just the beginning. Day 1.