Dear Friends and Family,

Breaking from my usual chronological travel tales, please fast forward your imaginations through the DMZ, Seoul, Lunar New Years, Bangkok, etc. and return with the exhausted me to Daegu on March 2, 2007, the first day of our new school year.

Coffee in hand, I crossed the amazingly bustling faculty room, calling out greetings to everyone who noted my entrance and arrived at my desk, which had been taken over by a new teacher. Momentarily confused, I soon discovered that my desk location had moved and so I dropped my coffee to my new desk and scrambled to move my stuff. While shuttling between old and new, I learned also that my British counterpart and my favorite giggling companion had moved to offices on 4^th floor. Before discombobulated, I was becoming downright displeased… although I had gained congenial company around my new desk. Sighing, I set about organizing my new drawers when my guiding teacher walked over to say hi, inquire into Bangkok adventures, and ask if I had heard from the city. The wrinkle in my brow, already present from the desk chaos, deepened.

“Uh, no. Should I have?” I responded.

“I am sorry but you are going to be very busy this year. The city is going to have you teach teachers too.” I closed my eyes, summoned the scant pleasantness in my system and responded, “Oh. Good!” I didn’t precisely know what this meant – beyond a lot more work – but instead of pursuing this subject, (I think that) I thanked him all the while vividly picturing my warm, soft bed with its dark covers and fervently imaging myself buried to the scalp in them. I returned to this vision a lot on my first day back.

By afternoon, I had counted my work schedule for this semester.

• Conversation classes: 12 hours per week (Different classes for 1^st and 2^nd graders).
• Co-teaching Common English: 6 hours per week (Happily, with congenial, highly competent co-teacher).
• Teaching Teachers: 4 hours per week (Don’t get me started on the joys of this).
• Teaching city gifted students in the evening: 3 hours per week (Wonderful, hard work).

I couldn’t help but wonder how I was going to balance working and quality of life and writing. And how I was going to maintain the creativity and energy that I believe make my teaching worthwhile? By that afternoon, I had a horrid headache and by 4:35, I had shed only my shoes before submerging myself to the scalp.

Happily, I keep reminding myself that I could’ve never handled this when I first started (no way, no how) – but I can now. And I’ve been easing into my new schedule. Classes are going ok while my concepts of preparation and time management are undergoing extensive alteration. Lemons into lemonade: I can do it!

But what has vanished amongst my struggles to keep my head above water is writing. [funny voice] “Bye, bye!” But the delay has been driving me batty because I have so much living to write to you all about! I suppose that I must resign myself, as you all probably did a long time ago, to the fact that my blog will perpetually be on what was once known as “Laura Time.” Please accept my last apology for this; I hope that you will continue to read this as I plan to continue writing it. I’m certain that I’ll figure out how to manage the work and happily, in Korea, even ordering ice cream can result in a good story.

And now on to my most remarkable story since my arrival in Korea: our visit to the Demilitarized Zone.

Begging your pardon and your patience,

Laura

PS: Today’s picture: patient Buddha, behind glass, at the Jogyesa Temple in Seoul. hh

Dear Family and Friends,

Fondue. I must tell you about the fondue.

But to pick up from where I left off, the Jeju maze was heaps of fun but not exactly prudent; consequently making our flight from Jeju-do to Seoul was, uh, fast-paced. But make it we did and upon landing, I successfully navigated our next maze of a subway to our hotel. We then consumed a mediocre dinner, investigated the location of the USO, visited a PCBang, and went to bed. Yes, yes. Boring, boring. I agree.

But there was our fondue. You see, advertisements for a rainbow of ice cream flavors dipped in melted chocolate have been, for sometime, beckoning me. And while I wouldn’t presume to know how you feel about ice cream… chocolate… fondue… I will readily confess that I adore them all. So Emily and I found ourselves, on our first evening of our vacation in Seoul, answering the call of the American-Swiss-Koreans by stepping into a Baskin and Robbins.

What was the first response from the gentleman behind the counter when we asked for fondue? A blank stare. Our smiles quickly dissolved into polite pain as we attempted, unsuccessfully, to clarify what we wanted. There were no helpful signs; the counterman was stuck in his Korean and we in our English. Finally, we gave in and were investigating available cone flavors when I chanced to look up at what appeared to be a pink pig potpourri burner on display and on its left was a fuchsia and silver box labeled “TAKE OUT FONDUE - Baskin and Robbins.” I whooped in joy, which attracted the bustling counter-lady, and suddenly fondue was on the menu. Emily and I were very pleased, even when we were invited to take a seat for what apparently was going to be a bit of a wait.

Our kind lady made a phone call or two, created a great deal of rustling behind the back swinging doors, consulted a “recipe” book, and slowly but cheerfully began assembling our take out. The painstaking attention to detail reminded of a visit that a friend paid to Baskin and Robbins so while we waited, I recounted to Emily:

Leaves were falling from the trees and one evening my friend Julie surrendered to the temptation of pumpkin ice cream from Baskin and Robbins. Deciding to make that deliciousness last a few days, Julie pointed to a larger carton and ordered pumpkin ice cream. The lady consulted a book before politely but firmly refusing to grant Julie that quantity of pumpkin ice cream but in meager compensation, the lady instead offered Julie a similar sized carton for 3 flavors. Julie agreed and ordered the pumpkin ice cream. The lady precisely compacted the ice cream into a third of the container and then expectantly looked at Julie for her next flavor request. Once more, Julie pointed to the pumpkin ice cream and a battle of wills commenced. The ice cream lady won; Julie selected green tea ice cream. Again, the process was repeated with the third flavor; Julie hopefully ordered pumpkin ice cream and the lady refused. Julie tried again. The lady refused. Finally, Julie ordered a third flavor. After closing the ice cream container, the lady again consulted her book and carefully read Julie the question, “How long will it take for you to get home?” Puzzled Julie answered and the lady leaned over her book for a few seconds before bustling to the back, grabbing a piece of dry ice and with the help of a scale whittling that piece of dry ice to an exact weight before placing it with the ice cream in a carryout bag. Julie paid, departed, and at the time of the telling, had not yet eaten the ice cream.

The giggles of Emily and I were politely interrupted by our friendly ice cream lady who asked if we preferred a white pig fondue pot or a pink one. Uh, pink, of course. And our lady lost none of her cheer while she was forced to root around a hidden closet for some time searching for a pink pig. Finally, somewhere in the order of twenty minutes after our order, a cardboard box, dry ice and another box had been assembled. We effusively thanked our wonderful ice cream lady and eagerly began to our hotel. We were about a block from the store when our ice cream lady dashed up from behind us to give us the instructions on how to prepare the fondue, which she had apparently had forgotten to include them in our box. We were touched. She was truly wonderful – and we could barely tell her so.

The fondue itself was not as wonderful as its maker. Opening the box revealed a tray of colored ice cream, deep frozen into star + flower + diamond shapes, a second tray with another row of ice cream + dry brownie in two flavors + chocolate chips for melting, and fondue forks. We were forced to run down the street to a convenience store to melt the chocolate chips in a microwave – but we agreed that our Korean fondue of chocolate chips heated over a pink ceramic pig was unforgettable.

Bon Appetite! --Laura

Dear Friends and Family,

Awaking early that final morning in Jeju-do, we were keenly aware that our time had almost slipped by. However, some time remained and we hit the road early, first to unsuccessfully seek a coffee shop and then on our way to fulfill my birthday wish to hike Jeju’s famous Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak).

Of course it was Simon Winchester, whom I keep quoting ad nauseam, that piqued my interest regarding a unique society of women divers off the east shores of Jeju Island known as the Haenyeo. In addition to interviewing the divers in the late 20^th century, Winchester included a description by diplomat William Franklins Sands from the beginning of the 20^th century who wrote that,

Man, in this lost corner of the world, was an inferior being; the woman was everything. She was the real house-bond. She owned all the property; her children bore her family name, and she never took a permanent husband. Men were allowed to come over form the mainland once a year, but they were not encouraged to stay long, and when they returned took with them all the boys who had reached thirteen years…

It was more like a matriarchy, a real Amazon community, for the women were always ready to assert their power and uphold it by force.

The women were fine swimmers and divers. Young and old would swim out through the breakers, leave a basket buoyed by gourds floating on the surface and dive fathoms down for abalone shell or a bunch of edible seaweed. They would cut it out with a short sickle (the same weapon they used on the men when annoyed), attach an empty gourd to it, drop the stone with which they had weighted the gourd and let it float to the surface to be picked up when they were ready to come up themselves. They could swim and float about for hours, dive as simply as a duck, and work or move about from place to place under water as easily and as long as so many sea fowl. While resting on the surfaced they would keep up a monotonous whistling in different keys to warn chance men in the fishing boats to keep their distance.

Fascinating, yes?? But it is said that as modern society advances, the allure of a life spent diving pales in comparison to an easier dwelling in big Korean cities and that the Haenyeo divers are fast dwindling. Reportedly the remaining Haenyeo dive more for tourist money than seaweed and yet, I badly wanted a glimpse of these remarkable women. Lonely Planet suggested a two-for-one at Sunrise Peak: a good hike + a view of the divers. I was determined and my friends were happy to oblige.

In full view of the village of Seongsan, rising from the sea is not so much a peak as a humungous rock with vertical sides that resulted from of a long-ago hydromagmatic eruption. Leaving the car behind, we climbed to its top via perfectly maintained steep stone steps and viewed the center, a sunken crater filled with browned grasses (the volcanic rock is too porous to contain water) with the sea glinting beyond. The view was splendid and well-worth the trip but there were no Haenyeo bobbing up and down in the distance. As we descended, I couldn’t resist a longing look towards the ferry that carries tourists to their home on the island of Udo, but conscious of time I was contented with the walk, the congenial company, and the gorgeous day.

Time to our flight was short but we did not, as we should have, resist the urge to make one final stop. Originally hoping for the world’s largest lava tube, instead we had a rollicking good time fulfilling a childhood dream: working our way through a full-sized evergreen garden maze. We giggled at our bad maze-solving theories and wrong turns and in the end, it was Emily’s navigation that won us each a ring of the bell on a platform of the maze before speeding, speeding off to our flight to Seoul.

***************

Now, a month later, with each Jejuvian tangerine I find myself thinking, “this is the best tangerine I’ve ever had” – even when that tangerine is my 2^nd or 4^th or 27^h. I daresay that the products of and the Island of Jeju itself has that effect on people. For my part, I could always enjoy another tangerine, I badly want to climb the majestic Mt. Halla, see the Haenyeo, be drawn to the other Jeju love destinations, visit the Hamel Museum, visit the Tangerine Museum, and oh, there was this nice temple that we passed on the way to the airport… not to mention that it would be notable to visit the world’s largest lava tube and I could always enjoy a splash in the “pada” and… well, let's just say that I find myself eager to return to Jeju-do. Someday.

Laura

Dear Family and Friends,

If you were so inclined, you too, could obtain a pragmatic masters degree is in Tourism Development from Cheju National University - whose Romanized spelling should be “Jeju.” But their slogan “Next Eruption, Your Mind” is unrivaled. According to their website, CNU “provides both theory and practice of tourism planning and development in order to systematically promote the tourism industry, the national strategic field in the 21th century” and seems to equip students with a combination of economics, urban planning, psychology, and marketing with such classes such as “Tourism Psychology,” “Tourism Products & Goods Development,” “Destination Marketing,” and “Physical Planning in Tourism & Recreation Development.” The students in this field obviously have (a) stuck close to their alma mater, (b) always kept their top audience in mind, and (c) excelled – and the results of their study and life’s work can be observed in Jeju’s nicely planned, plethora of activities for honeymooners and non-love struck tourists alike. To seal their success, the eyes of the world briefly alit on Jeju’s well-planned beauties in 2000, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group dropped by. And of course, to this day, a myriad of tourist entertainments continue to be enjoyed.

There was little doubt in my mind, while I was touring Jeju in 2007, that the A+ students of CNU’s Physical Planning & Recreation Development were key in the development of the Teddy Bear Museum, the myriad of posh hotels, the lush golf course, the Hooters Shopping mall (interestingly, sans a Hooters but included a Cinnabon), and the Yeomiji Botanical Garden. And I must say that the Yeomiji Botanical Garden is the perfect honeymoon destination, as there is nothing better to do on a honeymoon than walk hand in hand through lush gardens, stopping every once in a while to take carefully positioned pictures of a beautiful new bride, her hair blowing in the sea breeze. Happily, although as previously mentioned, we three single girls were not honeymooning, we were still able to partake in the photographic moments and the gardens.

We actually first glimpsed the Yeomiji greenhouse through the trees from the main road, an intriguing glass dome filled with people. Intriguing, yes. But not interesting enough to inspire us to stop near the glass dome until we were post-teddy bears and ready to shift from tickling our funny bones to feeding our eyes. We parked in a row of 10 white cars (cars in Korea can be purchased in any color you like – well, so long as you like white, black or if truly, truly bold, silver) while our eyes barely roving over the unusual greenhouse. Admission paid, we decided to save the greenhouse for last and instead investigated the largest arboretum in Asia, with its slumbering landscaped gardens ala Japan, Italy, France, and Korea. The individual gardens themselves were large, reportedly containing some 1700 semi-tropical plants and despite its winter coma, the park was lovely. We walked, snapping frames that caught our eye and unsympathetically reading garden signs whose translations had widely miss their mark. Sadly, in retrospect, I didn’t record any examples – but the signs were bad enough that we sought them out especially to read them aloud – emphasizing the puzzling or just plain wrong English. When our walk around the greenhouse was complete, we crossed through sliding glass doors into a humid world of 2,000 or so plants. And we did a cursory inspection while we waited for an elevator to take us to the top of the 124.64 foot observation tower.

The view was marvelous, really. The sea was made blinding by the descending sun on one side while Mt. Halla-san, brown with power poles marching along it like a stitched up scar dominated the other side. We raced around from window to window, clicking our cameras, and calling to each other. I’d say we enjoyed the view but it was the thought of buying a snack – Peanut Buttered Roast Squid – that made us giddy. We eventually descended from on high and rushed through the other parts of the greenhouse and departed. On our way out, we cocked our heads at a tourist train that was supposed to be running between the greenhouse and gardens – but despite some children clambering around it, that train wasn’t going anywhere.

It took some tramping through hedges to figure out that the bridge that we next sought was not a part of the garden but we had glimpsed enough to be intrigued so we dug out pocket change and our feet followed our eyes to an enormous red bridge decorated with frolicking cherubs and angels, playing instruments in golden sunlight. On one side the top of the bridge’s arch afforded a pleasant view of the Cheonjeyeon Waterfall, that would be worth writing home about if there had been more water falling from it, and on the other side were rows of palm trees leading to a blinding sea. We made the most of the views and also stopped at a decorative fountain dubbed the “Fountain of Five Blessings.” Per a sign’s instructions, each of us selected a symbolic blessed animal and tossed coins into the money bag in the center of the fountain. Julie selected the tortoise for longevity, Emily, the duck for love, while I tossed coins over the dragon’s head seeking honor. Admittedly, our aim wasn’t great and we couldn’t decide on just one blessing so we kind-a, sort-of shot coins in front of several of the blessed animals. But what the hey? Admission to a waterfall park: 2,500 Korean Won. Closing your eyes and wishing upon your future? Priceless.

It had grown too late in the day to fulfill my destination choice – a hike – so we decided to return to a museum that had earlier caught our interest.

Not that we knew it right then, but those afore-mentioned tourism planners of Jeju knew their audience: honeymooners with little vacation time and a strong interest the usual honeymoon activities of sex + tourism. And they planned well. On Jeju, two can tour the Jeju Art Park and enjoy its theme of “the meeting of nature, art & people” (or mostly, meeting people & people). But even better than that tame art crap is the Jeju Love Land (reputed to be the only outdoor sculpture park in Korea with the theme of sex), the World Eros Museum (which apparently educates re: sex cultures in different environments), and the Museum of Sex and Health. On the way to the Art Park, we had discovered the Museum of Sex and Health, and we were all very curious.

Because of the Korean emphasis on health and “well-being” and despite the foreshadowing Love Grove and teddy weeny, the Museum of Sex and Health still managed to take us by surprise. We were rendered spluttering before we even left the parking area by various statues, in positions that would not really permit healthy breathing. We determinedly kept our jaws clamped shut as we stopped at the admissions desk and started through the museum.

The viewing started on a reasonable note: an all-Korean language timeline of lovers decorated with pictures of romantic scenes from movies followed by educational anatomical pictures of a man and a woman. “Ok, this is what I expected.” I assessed to myself just before placing my face in wall cutout in order to voyeuristically view several statues cheerily in the midst of the act. Despite the parking lot statues, these statues inspired raised eyebrows on my part, a reaction that was reflected back at me from the mirror behind the statues – and I would later find out - could also be viewed by visitors who could view see my face from a secret full-length picture window on the other side of the wall. I doubled over with embarrassment and laughter when we discovered this. Anyway, the next gallery sensibly reminded us to make use of our senses: sight, smell, and my personal favorite, sound. The importance of sound was emphasized both in a strange demonstration involving a wire and a cutout woman that generated loud moans as well as telephone booths where one could pick up the phone and listen to what had to be Korean dirty talk. The next gallery contained uhm, practical but explicit instruction regarding positions and… uh tools… and the final, largest galleries were an astonishing array of what could definitely be classified as sexual art. The Museum was topped off with a fantastic 2^nd floor coffee shop with faux diamonds for banister heads and comfortably furnished for those with week knees with comfortably stuffed chairs and a myriad of sex books. The atmosphere of the coffee shop was surprisingly comfortable – and the green tea milkshakes weren’t bad either.

Plainly speaking, the Museum of Sex and Health was amazing. But not the best viewing activity for any single woman with few love prospects in her near future. All three of us were shaken and dazed upon re-emerging into the darkened real world.

On the return to our hotel, we stopped at the Jeju World Cup Stadium. Back in 2002, South Korea and Japan did something remarkable for two countries with a shared history of vicious wars: they teamed up to host the first FIFA World Cup (soccer) tournament held outside of “West.” South Korea and Japan each provided 10 stadia (the majority of which were built for the event); the opening ceremony paraded through the newly built Seoul Stadium while the final game was played at the International Stadium Yokohama, Japan. I cannot speak for Japan’s regard for soccer, but Korea is soccer mad. I’ve heard that during World Cup championships, Koreans spend weeks only wearing their red team shirts – and that the day after Korea lost to Turkey in the Daegu World Cup Stadium, soccer madness disappeared almost as if it had never been. Apparently, this pattern repeated itself last year when Korea’s soccer team failed to advance into the elimination rounds.

Anyway, I am not necessarily keen on World Cup soccer – but I fell in love with the Jeju World Cup Stadium at first sight. We first passed it on the tour bus, a stadium practically in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by pavement, an E-mart and then farms. I’ve since read that this stadium’s design was meant to “harmonize Jeju island's natural environment and its sea surroundings” – and it was bloody successful. Its profile is eye-catching: with a flaring roof crowned by Poison-crown spires, that upon closer inspection, are actually shaped like ship masts with crow’s nests. Its main entrance is closely guarded by a procession of Jeju’s famous statues, the Dolhareubang (stone grandfathers), whose presence is believed to repel evil. Adjectives escape me – I liked the stadium and we stopped in the dark to peer through the stadium’s gates and watch a father and sons were kicking a ball under the watchful eye of the Dolhareubang.

We failed in our wish to diversify our dinner consumption to beef bulgogi and fell into bed early, our heads still spinning from the day’s activities.

Next eruption, your mind? Hardly. But my compliments to the tourist developers of Jeju.

Sweet dreams one and all. --Laura

Another pretty darn Korean sentiment.

Dear Family and Friends,

Under the influence of time, experience, and a wry sense of humor, friends and I have begun to rely on the comment: “how very Korean” to respond to factual observations regarding our surroundings. But we also use this comment to describe any phenomenon that occurs in Korea and is out of the realm of our understanding. And there continues to be A LOT that falls outside of my realm of understanding! So I - and we use - this comment a lot. Definitely more than we should.

You see, this comment could almost be a metaphor for a contradiction that I live with now and cannot yet settle to my satisfaction. For so long, I resisted this comment because utilizing it means that I have arrived at a snap judgment: I am surrendering to the notion that I will never understand the whys or what fors of my observation. Snap judgments are very bad in my situation because it is rare that Korean cultural phenomena are exactly what first meets my western eyes. It is so very difficult to live amongst a culture that is so different from one’s own and sustain openness and impartiality - yet why live amongst another culture unless one is open to learn? But how far must impartiality be adhered to? Isn’t it fair to eventually arrive at some judgments? In the end, I know my “how very Korean” judgments to be very bad – and ardently resist them - and yet my experience in Korea has taught me that there is much that I am not likely to ever understand.

I bring this shameful habit up now because the day following my birthday in Jeju was… well, very Korean. And even now, weeks later, I haven’t concluded if this is an impartial factual observation or a “I’ll never understand” judgment.

Either way, our Sunday morning on Jeju did not start on the right note. In a decidedly non-Korean way, the hotel restaurant waitress was rude to us at breakfast, not allowing us to sit near the window in the empty restaurant and she was either too tired or too crotchety to understand that when she told us that we couldn’t have toast, we wanted to substitute rice. Breakfast ended in sour looks from waitress and patrons alike and I was presented with a $33 bill – high in the States, practically highway robbery in Korea. But we had places to go and snacks stashed so we laughed our annoyance away as we piled into the car and drove west to satisfy our cerebral cortex with an examination of sculptures at the Jeju Art Park.

The weather was nippy but we weren’t displeased to find ourselves in a large park with impressive natural scenery that would’ve been stunning had we been viewing it in the full profusion of spring or summer. We paid a pittance for admission and wandered the grounds, interested but unenthused. At first, we found the western-styled sculptures unremarkable, well, unremarkable until we stumbled upon a grove trees with sculptures nestled inside labeled on the map as the “Love Grove.” We laughed at the name but our jaws dropped at the explicit sculptures of couples making love. Frankly, I suspect that leftover Puritan sensibilities in American society would deem these statues as unlikely in a public park. But not only were two of the statues wrought with remarkable beauty but they were astounding because Korean society is generally conservative - the only display of public affection that you see in Korea is hand-holding. Statues frozen in rapt ecstasy do not fit into my understanding of Korea.

We moved on, now a mite stunned, and the day warmed. As we ambled, we found sculptures to admire, sculptures to joke about, sculptures rusting with neglect, and many more unclothed statues, uh… surprisingly positioned. Our tour of the park culminated with us mounting a hill and entering a rectangular glass viewing tower which spread the park below us with the sea in the distance and Mt. Halla-san, for the first time since our arrival, evident to our side. Having momentarily satisfied our cerebral, we decided to take a break at the Jeju Teddy Bear Museum.

Resuming my earlier theme of shamelessly generalizing about Korean culture, I must now assert to you all that Koreans are a determined bunch and that usually, when given a task, their want is to accomplish the task plus raise the result beyond mere accomplishment. I am not yet sufficiently acquainted with the whys and what fors of this mentality – but I suspect that it is the root of many of the phenomenon that cause “how very Korean” to slip from my tongue.

“If it is not too far out of the way…” was how my friend Emily phrased her destination choice of Teddy Bear Museum but Julie and I were in full agreement having both summoned our understanding of the Korean preference for accomplishing tasks with vigor plus the amazingly high Korean tolerance for all things kutuh (Konglish for cute). At Emily’s statement, Julie and I simultaneously grinned. We knew that at the very least, the Teddy Bear Museum would be remarkable. And it was.

Teddy bears illustrated the history of the 20^th century in full case-encased tableaus: teddy bears in silk swirled to music on the deck of a teddy bear Titanic with an iceberg painted dead ahead, teddy bear soldiers landed on a beach of Normandy and commenced shooting other teddies (not a good moment for teddy bears, actually), teddy bears attended the opening of Disneyland, and teddy bears perched on the top of an already crumbling teddy bear Berlin Wall. The skirts of a teddy bear Marilyn Monroe fluttered away from a vent, an imposing teddy bear Michael Jordan cast a shadow on his basketball hoop, and teddy bears Prince Charles & Princess Diana had frozen into their own wedding. Not far from cases of original Smoky the Bears and much loved Paddington Bears stood the most expensive teddy bear in the world a Louis Vuitton Bear clad in a printed monogram raincoat and accompanied by matching luggage, who had been purchased at a charity auction in Monaco for a cool $190,000.

But teddy bears aren’t just about history – the museum demonstrated their wide range of talents by fitting them into the Sistine Chapel and by marrying them in a traditional Korean Confucian wedding. Teddy bears modeled haute couture down a long runway while backstage teddy models powered their noses and one model boasted a studded bellybutton. On behalf of civilization as we know it, Julie, Emily & I discovered that the Louvre has been pulling several hoaxes for years – Leonardo really painted a bear in his famous painting titled, “The Mona Lisa” and Rodin’s famous sculpture, “The Kiss”? Yup, you guessed it: two teddy bears, locked in passion. And we didn’t fail to note the male teddy’s weeny – our day of arrestingly proper anatomical statues continued. We completed our visit at a teddy bear wedding village, where the whole population celebrated while music rang out and lights in homes flashed.

On teddy bear overload, we stumbled about the museum vicinity searching for lunch and ended up with kimbap and ramyun outside a convenience store with a fierce breeze forcing us to anchor our wrappers with every bite. (Kimbap = ubiquitous Korean street food similar to sushi rolls; Ramyun = Korea’s version of instant ramen). But we compensated for our pain by availing ourselves in the delights of a Cinnabon (the only one I’ve seen in Asia) and a Seattle’s Best Coffee.

Lunch over, our energy restored by copious amounts of sugar, we rounded the corner and found ourselves at Jeju’s Yeomjiji Botanical Gardens…

(more to come)

Pardon me for saying it, but these botanical garden decorations?

(factual) "Very Korean." --Laura

Dear Friends and Family,

Following the noribang, heads slightly pounding, standing amongst a tour in front of our first famous Jeju tourist destination, a large rock, it was hard to imagine that we girls were out for a day of fun. Our alarms started us into and through mechanical absolutions and we were awake enough to carry through our plan to stow our bags with the overabundant front desk staff & return our key. We – really, I, who have become picky about such details - rejected the hotel's offer of a breakfast buffet at $13 per person, conveyed to us via phone by the only staffer who spoke any English, and we were half a block away when the sweet hotel manager came pelting down the alley to give us a determined smile and all but drag us back for a now free breakfast buffet. This seemed to good to be true but I was quietly pleased to yield to her persuasion so as to not exert the energy finding breakfast in a town whose hospitality was out of season, in a country whose coffee shops inexplicably do not open 'til 10 am. The buffet was Korean side dishes + scrambled eggs + instant coffee… and it wasn't until my eyes came into focus over swirling coffee that I remembered that it was February 10th, my 31st birthday. As I had earlier celebrated my birthday with eight close friends over barbequed duck, on the actual morning of, all I could summon was the strength to sip my coffee and a wan celebratory smile.

The tourist bus, unable to pick us up at the hotel as agreed upon caused considerable consternation until a kind hotel staffer walked us to where the bus had decided that we should be picked up. A silver full-sized tourist bus smartly pulled up to the curb, we boarded and found ourselves amongst sleepy Japanese businessmen and smiley Koreans as we were whisked to the west part of Jeju-do.

The Island of Jeju is shaped in a tipped oval and from most places on the island, Jeju's now-dormant Mount Halla-san can be glimpsed through the clouds. We quickly arrived at our first destination and found ourselves squinting up at a volcanic formation, ceaselessly splashed by waves, called Dragon's Head Rock. I, for one, stood for some time searching the rock’s rough edges for any resemblance to a dragon and could not find that nor a placard to explain the legend of the rock. (Later I found a brief account regarding a servant of Sea Dragon king impinging on territory of mountain gods and getting turned to a dragon-shaped rock). And yet I could clearly recall Winchester’s description of this place in the 1980s when hoards of Korean honeymooners and their taxi drivers armed with cameras would position well-heeled, borderline distressed young brides high into the rocks with their new husbands while elders supervised photo ops from the platform above. How a rock resembling a dragon’s head could bring good fortune to new couples I cannot say, but I can say that not much seems to have changed – well, there are fewer brides in heels – but that morning no one seemed interested scrutinizing the rock for its dragon-like profile. In fact, even I soon got discouraged by trying to find meaning in the big rock and joined the others in their attempts to take the perfect photograph.

Next stop: Happy Town. The bus wound through a landscape stripped by winter while we speculated what in the dickens Happy Town could be. Any place called Happy Town had to be a tourist rip-off, of that we were certain. As the bus parked itself with twenty other tourist buses in a dirt parking area, we looked at the large building, much in need of paint, looked at each other and said “hmm… hmmm…” and minutes later unenthusiastically selected seats in a half-filled auditorium.

The lights dimmed and a lady and a little girl mounted a rope suspended from the ceiling… and an amazing demonstration of acrobatics and courage began. The lady and the little girl flew through the air in slow circles clinging to each other and assorted items - there was one point when the little girl hung from a hoop by the nape of her neck. Next came a lady who twirled countless hula-hoops around her body, 2 couples who exhibited strength and grace flying through the air on lengths of fabric circling from the ceiling, there were little girl contortionists who balanced Chinese lanterns as they piled themselves into human pyramids, and the show finished on breath-suspending note: seven men riding motorcycles in a mesh globe that grew smaller with the entrance of each performer. We loved the show! And concluded that the place was called Happy Town because the audience could only be happy that the performers had lived through their stunts!

Naturally, the observation of death-defying feats creates an appetite so we were bussed to a garden of bonsais for a “traditional” Korean buffet and to enjoy a great deal of “natural” Bonsai beauty. The buffet may well have been traditional but the food was easily recognizable. And while I was interested to learn that Bonsai miniaturization of trees, which I associate with the Japanese, actually originated in China, the emphasis on natural during our visit seemed counter-intuitive. Frankly, my favorite part of the garden was a pond stocked with fat coi carp fish that were only exceeded in size by the stepping stones to a fish food dispenser on the opposite of the pond. As our shadows fell upon the water, the fish furiously teemed against each other to the point that I feared that pellets would only inspire the coi into frenzied leaps for my limbs so I ignored the dispenser in favor of rejoining the group for our next visit to a tangerine orchard.

Under the shade of a rickety lecture building, I believe that fascinating tangerine trivia was imparted but it was all done in Korean so we remained ignorant – but happy anyway because a woman took pity and gave us an armful of tangerines in sorry compensation for our ignorance. We hoarded our fruit while prowling in the trails of roosters pecking fallen fruit, peered through the windows of the neighboring love motel, and kissed volcanic rock statues. Cleverly, I seized the opportunity to visit a toilet and managed to discover that the only toilet on the grounds was for the male bus drivers… I discovered this through scientific inquiry, which was not appreciated by my main subject, who shook his fists at me even as I rapidly backed away and shut the door so he could finish his business. I giggled breathlessly while my friends laughed unsympathetically and that man was still glaring at me when we departed for our next big rock.

I suppose it stands to reason that an island catering to tourists made entirely of rock would also contain rocks as tourist attractions… and our second rock of the day was a giant stone pillar rising from the Korean South Sea. Again, the cameras around me launched into furious clicks while I smiled at the cats insisting on scraps near a food stand and read that in legend, the giant rock to my left was once disguised to appear like a giant military general to scare off would-be Mongolian conquerors… and that this ruse worked so well that the terrified enemy soldiers all killed themselves. Circling the rock, my own camera in hand, I set my imagination to work: painting a face on the rock, adding a horse-hair wig, fitting the pillar into a soldier’s hanbok and wondering how many would it take to sew a hanbok for a 67 foot tall pillar? Did they create the illusion of the giant stone general moving? What kind of weapon did the rock wield? Would Tom Cruise star in a movie “based on the true events” of Oedolgae Rock’s story?

Gazing at the stone pillar in the midst of swirling turquoise water, bordered by cliffs dotted with pine trees, palm trees and orchards of tangerine fields in the distance and I was first struck by a sense of déjà vu – impossible under the circumstances - and next by the realization that to my eyes, the coastline of Jeju resembles that of California. Indeed, later with a few clicks in Google, I found that in latitude, Jeju City measures 33 degrees North – approximately the same latitude as Palm Springs, California. Ok, that explained the thriving palm trees. But left me with a more difficult question: as the Korean peninsula is a mere 4 degrees further north, why the non-palm tree tolerant, punishing winters in Seoul… in Deagu? Google didn’t immediately leap to my aid and someday I shall have to ask but in the meantime, I’m left to suppose that latitude alone does not determine climate.

(And at this point, my Korean teaching peers, concerned that I am typing to you all with a frown on my face, have assured me that my conclusion that Jeju is like California indicates that I’m “sheer genius” and have sufficiently teased me into a smile).

My friends and I had a bit of a rebellion at our next stop, the harbor of the southern Jeju city of Seogwipo – the tour wanted a lot money but couldn’t tell us what for – so the Koreans on the tour boarded a boat while the Japanese businessmen lit cigarettes on the shore and we explored Korean fishing boats plus a shop loaded with priceless treasures for reasonable prices (and the bored vendor was even willing to bargain!). We bought little and rejoined the group for a walk to gawk at a nearby waterfall, which would’ve been gorgeous if it had been the rainy season. All of that… all of that! ended promptly at 5 pm and we drove north through a mountain highway that made me so motion sick that if we had driven for 5 more minutes, I would’ve needed the plastic bag in my lap. The Japanese businessmen had to use and replace their plastic bags. That was horrible but it had been a great tour overall and we said good-bye to our tour at the airport, rented a car, picked up our bags and with my friend Julie at the wheel, returned to Seogwipo.

The clock had just passed nine when we settled ourselves into a hotel room and walked into a restaurant to celebrate the remainder of my birthday over raw fish and soju with the added bonus of entertaining and being entertained by the family at the table next to us. When they found out it was my birthday, the father poured us Hite beer and there were toasts and soju and the night passed in a pleasing blend of excellent food, good alcohol, great company and a host of Korean sentiments that I only understood to be of the best kind.

So when people inquire into how I celebrated my 31^st birthday, I reply that I spent the day doing what I love (traveling) and that I celebrated with wonderful friends from around the globe - all that was wanting was a great piece of chocolate and hugs from my most beloved. I missed you all… and yet, I must say, it was a full day on Jeju-do.

Cheers! --Laura

(Ahh! They're going to get me!)