Jeju Island - Fried Chicken, Hallim Park, Osulloc Tea Museum, E-Mart

Tuesday, July 4th

Today we traveled to the island of Jeju where will be staying for three nights before heading back to the states.  Jeju is a volcanic island and is where Max was born.  Jeju is often referred to as Korea's Hawaii.  and traditionally has been the spot for honeymooners.  To get to Jeju we flew out of Gimpo airport in Seoul.  It is about a one hour flight.  Upon arriving to Jeju we were met by our new tour guide, Ms. Jane and our unnamed bus driver.

Our first stop was for lunch at a Korean fried chicken place.  Korea is well known for its fried chicken.  It was first introduced by the US Military during the Korean War.  Fried chicken and beer is a favorite combination for many.  Ms. Jane told us when the Jeju United soccer team plays it is very popular to order fried chicken and eat it while watching the game.  Orders must be placed well in advance of the soccer game to ensure they don't miss out.  The restaurant served two kinds of fried chicken regular and one with a spicy sauce.  Both were very good.  They prepared gluten free chicken for Dede and Max that was also very good.

The second stop of the day was at Hallim Park Botanical Gardens.  The park contains lava caves, bonsai tree gardens, rock gardens and a bird park.  The park was awesome, but the day was super hot and humid.  The group as a whole was pretty tired and Ms. Jane had to keep pushing us along to get through the park in our allotted time.  I will say the lava caves were nice and cool and we hated to leave them.

Our next stop was at the Osulloc Tea Museum which which had a cafe, gift shop and tea fields.  Another good stop and we were able to enjoy some A/C!  It turns out Jeju Island has one of the best environments in Korea to cultivate tea due to its volcanic ash soil which provides good moisture retention and soil aeration.  The other well known crop of Jeju is tangerines.  More on tangerines in upcoming blogs.

The last stop of a very long day was at the E-Mart to pick up some food for supper.  The E-Mart is Korea's version of Wal-Mart/Target.  We struggled for a bit to find some gluten free food, but in the end settled on salads, watermelon and sushi.  It ended up making for a perfect meal after a long hot day.  One word of caution....Unlike MN Korea allows the sale of liquor in their grocery stores.  I almost made a very grave mistake.  We were in much need of water...I grabbed a big two liter bottle of a what I thought was water.  After going back to grab a second bottle, Dede pointed out what I actually grabbed was a two liter bottle of Soju (rice wine)!  Yikes!  I should have used Google Translate to confirm what I was buying since the water and soju are packaged in the same bottles.  .  The funny thing is there was an even bigger bottle of Soju in what had to be a four liter bottle.  Good thing I didn't grab that one.

We finally made it to the hotel after dark.  The grounds look like they will be beautiful, but we have to wait for the sun to come up to fully check them out.

Kurt

Welcome back Max.

Lunch.  Yum!

Some basic rules while visiting Jeju! 😆

Note: there are fines if you don't follow the rules.

50,000W ($40) for urinating in public.

Lava cave

Natural statue of a mother holding a baby (so they say)

Bonsai tree...some of these trees were more than 200 years old

Folk village part of the park

Ms. Jane, our tour guide, re-enacting a childhood memory from when she visited her Grandparents house. The "outhouse" was the pig pen or in the pig pen.  When going #2 she remembers looking down and seeing pigs looking up at her bum and waiting for some droppings (she's re-enacting the pig).  

Later she learned to bring a stick with her.

This is probably a good time to let you know Jeju Island is also well known for a special breed of black pigs.

Bird section of the park.  Peacocks were roaming the grounds and were not afraid of us.

Hi

Dol hareubangs are found throughout Jeju.  They were originally placed outside of gates for protection against demons traveling between realities.  Now they have become more of a tourist thing, but I still like the dudes.

On our way home

Friday, July 7th, 2023 

Just a quick note to let everyone know we are on our way home.   We left our Jeju Island hotel this morning at 9:20 a.m.  The bus ride to the Jeju airport took about an hour.  Our flight left at 1pm and took about an hour (similar to a flight from MSP to Chicago).  Our trustee guide and bus driver were waiting for us at the Gimpo airport in Seoul with the luggage we left with them.   They then took us from the Gimpo airport to the Incheon airport.  We got checked in and through customs at about 4pm and are now waiting for our 7:40pm flight.   In total our travel day will be around 23 hours.  Yikes!  Hope we can sleep.

We owe you three days of blogs and pictures from our time on Jeju Island.  The days have been full with little time to get caught up on the blog.  Max and I along with many others on the trip have had colds (one positive case of COVID!).  Most of us experienced a sore throat and were tired.  Max had a fever for a day/night and stomach issues.  We are feeling pretty good now though.

All for now.  Just about time to board.

Kurt

Free Day in Seoul and Farewell Dinner

Monday, July 3, 2023

Today was our last day in Seoul and some of the staff and families will be leaving for home tomorrow.

We had a free day!  We spent the day roaming around Seoul.  We first went to Namdaemun Market which is a traditional Korean market.  This area is lined with small shops on the street and shops inside the buildings.  The buildings remind us a little bit of US department stores except the buildings contain individual businesses.  The teens on the trip were all determined to buy a pair of nice sunglasses.  Each adoptee also had the option to purchase a pendant with their Korean names carved into it (much like the ones Dede wears).  Max found a nice chain to hold his pendant.

Our farewell dinner was held at a traditional Korean restaurant.  The food came out in many courses.  We couldn't keep up!  Everything was delicious, from the pumpkin porridge that came out as the appetizer to the rice/bean cakes that was our dessert.  We loved it all and it was all safe for Max and Dede to eat too!

Here are the photos with a few captions along the way.

- Kurt and Dede

Namdaemun Market

The Seoul Nike store is a popular place.  People line up for hours before the store opens to reserve a time to customize their Nike Seoul gear.  We just shopped off of the rack.  

We found a traditional restaurant that specializes in our favorite... bibimbop.

As we walked between shops, we made a side trip to find Starkey's Seoul office.

We visited the HUGE Kyobo book store.  On our first trip, we bought a book/toy that sang a few children's songs in Korean.  This time, Max bought a 4x4 Rubix cube that is keeping him busy.

The staff gave each adoptee an award.  Max won the King Sejong Award for his exemplary use of the Korean language while on the trip!

Of course, Max was the only adoptee to give an acceptance speech for his award.

Peter, a police officer from St. Paul, was the staff member assigned to this crazy group of teen boys.  He named them his Five Amigos and they kept him busy.  The boys really looked up to him and he led their Daewa (conversation) group time while the parents met separately.  Peter did not travel with us to Jeju, so the boys were pretty emotional when they had to say goodbye to Peter.

To end the night, some of the older teens took the boys to one of the many shops that sell skincare here and gave them a lesson on how to take care of their skin the Korean way.  Max learned that he should use an oil cleanser first, then a foaming cleanser, and then a good moisturizer.  :)

Gwangju to Seoul

Sunday, July 1, 2023

Sorry for the delay in providing some blog updates.  The last few days have been quite busy.

Today we traveled from Gwangju to Seoul on the KTX bullet train.  The trains are a really comfortable method of travel.  We actually could be taking the tour bus since Mr. Park, our bus driver, actually drives the bus with our luggage from Gwangju to Seoul.  However, the train is faster and it allows us to get a few more hours of sightseeing in while Mr. Park makes the drive.  While we wait for Mr. Park the tour arranges for a second bus to take us around.

Once we arrived in Seoul we visited Seoul Tower which is on the top of the Namsu mountain.  To get to the tower we took a short cable car ride, then a short hike, and then an elevator ride to to the observation deck.  The tower is the second highest point in Seoul and provides awesome views of the city.  

After Seoul Tower we checked into our hotel around 3pm and then had a quick turn around since our tour group arranged for a make up baseball game.  The baseball game was excellent.  We could only get seats in the outfield, but the seats were awesome.  Koreans really get into baseball.  The stands are filled with both home and away fans.  Each fan base has a section specifically for them and when their team is up to bat their fans perform different cheers.  It seemed like they have a specific cheer for each player, but it was hard to tell for sure.  It was interesting to see the different food they eat at the baseball games.  There was a younger group of guys in front of us.  They started with some kind of pizza, but also had some pickled radishes.   In the pictures below you'll see a woman with beer and a ring on the top of the beer that contained some kind of snack (not really sure what the snacks were).  We were thinking this would be a good idea for the state fair.

All for now.  Tomorrow is a free day in Seoul.  We plan on doing some roaming around the city and likely some shopping.

-Kurt  

Bullet Train

Seoul Tower

Views of the city from Seoul Tower.  

You get a real appreciation for how dense the city is from the tower.

Robotic cotton candy machine.

View from the urinal!

Baseball game!
LG Seoul Twins vs Kia Gwangju Tigers

Beer and snacks!

Cute little Twins fans next to us!

Not sure what they are eating this time!

Cheerleaders!