문화연수: 제주도 Jeju Island Day 2

The next day, we woke up at 7-ish in the morning, got ready to set off on another day of walking, exploring and sightseeing. We dragged our sleep-deprived heads onto the bus where we took a little nap (around 20 minutes) where we arrived at the restaurant for our breakfast. The funny thing in Korea, unlike Singapore, is that they eat rice at any occasion, even breakfast.

If I was in Singapore, I'd be having fried black noodles, prata, toast, eggs and coffee, or any other "light" food as you'd call it, rather than something so heavy like steaming hot white rice, beef and tofu soup, and kimchi. The beef inside the soup was really tender and delicious, but NOT ENOUGH! However, the place here didn't have the "order more if you need" portion like the previous day. (However if you wanted more rice, you could) 

After breakfast, we headed down to a horse show (?). In the past, Koreans used to ride horses as well to hunt, for transport etc. However, now with the transformation of the culture and life in Korea, only the people in the forefather country of Korea do it: Mongolia. The people riding the horses and doing the show are Mongolians and they do it really well. However, sadly, this place is one of last remaining places of such nature. Once this one closes down, another one of Jeju's (Korea's) cultures will have had it's last breath.

Not only were the horses good looking, the riders had really good features too. Not to mention stout and study bodies that all men dream of, but are hindered from it because of fast food and delicious goodies available at every convenience.

The show was roughly 50 minutes long, with the riders doing tricks with horses, on top of horses, beside horses and any other position you can think of. They even skipped ropes on them, juggled on them, and did back flips. Other than those amazing acrobatic shows, there was a story-line to it also, however it was in Korean and my Korean isn't that good yet.. so :D

However, from my small ability, it was a story of 2 armies, one being the ones that live in the city (or the one that holds power) and the rogues that live in the countryside. (Maybe they wanted to overthrow the reign) So anyway, amidst all the tricks and acts, there was also a full story that included a war at the end where 2 sides of horses clashed and fought.

One thing that was pretty amazing to me, that I've never seen before, is they could make a horse "fall down and play dead". It was really cute, because you can see the horse bending its hind legs and then finally dropping to the side, yet still protecting the rider from getting squished underneath.

After the show ended, we were allowed to buy carrot sticks for 1,000W each to feed the horses, pat them and take photos with the actors. The horses were indeed handsome, and looked like they were well taken care of. I wonder how life would be if I was born under a breeder of horses.

After the horse show, we got onto the bus again and moved on to another location where we had to climb another mountain. However, I didn't mind climbing all that mountain, because I just realized that for 8 whole months, I had not seen the sea, and climbing these mountains meant that I could be once again amazed by the vast ocean, the crashing waves against the rocks and cliffs below. Not to mention, the view was breathtaking and the ocean air was so refreshing.

On the way up, we also saw horses that people used to give "rides" to, to tourists or the like for 5,000W per round. However, when nobody rode it, the horses were left in the hot sun while the owners went to rest in the shades of their little shack. (Which I felt really bad for the horse since it was really hot)

Took the chance to make use of the new toy, taking photos and learning the ways of editing and stuff. It's actually really fun, making your photos look pretty, because it in turn makes you feel good about it. The main reason why I like using prime lens is because of the effect that it has, and the way it can make portrait shots look really good.

Along the way there was shops selling chocolates, seafood and even a little restaurant selling fresh seafood. Usually if you're in Jeju, if you're there for a holiday and are following the tourist buses, make sure you buy your souvenirs or food that you want to buy along the way, because at the end of the trip they will bring you to a certain shop selling all kinds of snacks and souvenirs that are marked up like crazy.

The shop we saw at this mountain sold boxes of chocolates at 3 boxes for 10,000W but over at that shop, it was 1 box for 15,000W... I can't imagine the amount of sales they earn, and not to mention the commission that these tour guides get from unsuspecting people. Fortunately, since all of us were merely students, nobody spent too much.

 

After an hour of walking under the sweltering heat, we finally moved on to the next location: Alive Trick Museum. Well, as Singapore has it now, Jeju is one of the places that has TONS. The very first time I came to Jeju, I went to museum after museum and out of all that museums, the most frequent ones were the trick eye museums.

Just so you know what trick eye is, it's an image created to look like it's a 3D image whereby if you were to put yourself in a certain position, it would look like the image was interacting with you. Thus, whenever you take photos, it looks like you're part of the photo. As examples, see below.

Museums in Jeju are paid per entry, so every museum's just around 4,000~7,000 depending on the museum itself. If you're a person who likes to take photos of stuff in museums and finding out more about the mysteries of life, those are the places for you. Museums kind of bore me out after the first 20 minutes.

After that, we headed to another place where the cliffs are unique. This particular place, the waves are really strong at certain times of the year, and because of the way the waves hit the cliffs, a unique shape was formed.

The rock formations here are really unique, and other parts of Jeju don't have it, let alone other beautiful beaches of Korea.

After that, we headed to another famous tourist spot: waterfall. Nature makes such spectacle of us when she creates magnificent things that no other man-made structure can compare to. Though the waterfall here may not be that grand, it's one of the more famous ones here in Jeju. Seeing it once 3years ago, and another time now, it hasn't changed much at all.

We had a lot of fun taking photos, posing and basically shouting around while jumping on rocks. I can say that I relived my childhood of jumping around. It got even funnier when one of our friends took a step back when he lost his balance on what he probably thought was a rock, but a submerged one. He came out with a few inches of his shoe, sock, foot and jeans wet. 

After which, we were all puckered out from the walking, climbing, and photo-taking. We headed to a seafood restaurant in Jeju. One of the many things in Jeju, they are never short of fresh seafood restaurants. Being an island itself, seafood there is somewhat cheaper than their other meats unlike Seoul. It's a little bit funny how, even though Singapore is an island too, the seafood is ridiculously expensive.

After dinner, we all headed back to our lodging again for the night, as we prepare for the final day, we were supposed to pack up our stuff, make sure we do not leave anything behind when we left the next morning. Our coordinators wanted to go to noraebang together so they invited all the students along. I wanted to go actually, but I made plans with a friend that I have not met in a long time: the person who brought us around when I came here 3 years ago that turned into our friend.

He came to pick us up, and then brought us to a cafe where he treated us to cakes and coffee. It's his friend's place, so when I reached there, I saw how such a quaint and cozy looking cafe it was, and how much I wanted to open something like this. The people looked professional, and they wrote sleek looking aprons. They were fun, friendly and very accommodating. 

Apart from that, the cakes were spectacular and the coffee was very tasteful and strong.