The buses were late but not by too much. There was going to be one extra person on one of the buses but as it was an overnight ride, a few people didn't mind laying out on the floor to sleep. But my bus ended up having quite a few extra people on it because the other bus got into an accident on the way and we had to pick up all the extra people. Which was fine and thankfully no one got seriously hurt. One girl got glass in her eye but they managed to flush it out. And another girl got a few minor scratches on her arm/hand. I think for the most part they were just freaked out and scared because the bus swerved to miss someone who was going to hit the side of the bus which caused the bus to hit someone else. The bus almost flipped over and then one of the mirrors went through the windshield. One side of windows spider cracked with one window actually breaking and shattering over the girls in that seat which caused the minor injuries. I don't blame them for being freaked out as I would definitely have been.
Anna and I were one of the only few who had even known about the accident because we were up front by the trip leader and heard the phone call. We knew it had been bad because the bus had to be replaced but we hadn't known how bad until we had asked the people who had been on the bus. It seems the police had also been trying to get them to go back on the bus full of glass to drive to the nearest pit stop but everyone refused and who can blame them. I wouldn't want to sit in glass and risk glass flying around as they drove two kilometers to the nearest rest stop. After the replacement bus and driver got there, they had to rush and barely made it in time for the ferry, which is good because the ferry wouldn't have waited for them.
So you'd think after the Sewol ferry incident that the ferry companies would be more cautious about travelling, well not out ferry. It was overcrowded with people and at least ten of our group of 92 did not have seats and were just floating around, hoping that there would be an empty seat. This trip was not organized very well and the leaders either didn't know what was going on or just didn't care at that point. Who knows... but after a night like the ones the people on the other bus had, I can't really blame some of them for getting angry. This ferry ride took a long time, five hours I think. For part of it, I lucked out and got a hard couch to myself as most people stretched out on the floor, so I stretched out on the couch and we all took a nap as most of us only slept in bits and pieces on the bus. We went outside for a while but I had to be careful as I was a bit dizzy from being sick and after blacking out a month before, I wasn't going to be taking chances. But still the ocean view was pretty. And then we were at Jeju.
So Anna and I skipped Loveland (basically a museum full of erotic art) to go ride horses. Skofe got us a discount if we wanted to double time. So basically we got to ride twice the amount of time for like $5-$10 extra dollars, though it wasn't that long sadly. They were nice enough to allow the people who knew how to ride to go around without someone holding the lead of their rope and didn't spend most of our time teaching us about the horses so no wastes time and we got to go around the field twice. I had someone holding my lead as though I have ridden a horse by myself once, it was a long time ago and I had only done it one time in my life and didn't really know much about it. It was really nice how they would run with us on the horses, even though they had just met us, because if that had been America, they would have been too worried about someone getting hurt and suing to take the risk. I bounced a lot in my seat which made my inner thighs sore for the rest of the trip, but that's mostly cause I was never taught how to properly sit on a horse. It was a lot of fun and at the end the Korean guy let go of my lead and had the horse gallop home which was really fun and I didn't fall off, though knowing me I was holding onto the saddle pretty tightly. It would be fun to actually learn how to ride horses someday. My sister knows how but I never got around to learning how to.
On the way back from the horses we drove up Magnetic Road. And when I say drove up, I actually mean that the bus driver put the bus in neutral and allowed the bus to coast up (seriously, I mean up not down) the road until the magnetic part of the road stopped and we drove normally again. When we had been going down the road before to get to the horses, he had actually had to push on the gas to go down the hill. I found that interesting as it is only one of supposedly four places in the world that has a magnetic road that does that.
At the hotel, Anna and I lucked out and got a small four person room to ourselves as the people who were had agreed to room with had decided to room with someone else. Anna was disappointed as she wanted the room with the bed but I didn't care about that. And honestly, I haven't slept so well in ages so definitely no complaints. Having no cat or boyfriend around does make it much easier to sleep (sorry Greg and Bella). And it worked out really well as on the last night we ended up offering to let Alyssa, who fractured her foot dancing the night before, to join us as her room was all the way on the third floor and ours was on the first, which was much easier for her to get to instead of having to hobble all the way up the stairs.
After we got settled for a while, we went to a black pork barbecue which is suppose to be famous in Jeju. On the way there we saw a beautiful sunset at the beach. Yes, we got a hotel by the beach. ^.^ The beach was called Hamdeok Beach. Kara, the girl across from Anna and I, was nice enough to cook everything. Thanks Kara. Personally, I think I like the regular pork better, but maybe I just like the marinades. Also, the black pork had way too much fat on it and I felt like we were cutting off more fat than pork at times. But it was still good. Afterwards, we walked home and there were a lot of lights on the ground and around the statues that Anna and I just had to take pictures of. I really liked the colorful fish lights.
Sadly, we also found out that the girl we had met just before the trip who was also coming to Jeju had lost her dog. It was a cute dog too and I don't think she has found it yet. I hope she finds it soon as the dog was a restaurant rescue and she is afraid of people. But if people wanted to eat me, I'd be afraid too, so can't blame the poor thing. Anyway, the dog got out of the house of the person who was watching her as the owner was on the same trip as us in Jeju and, last I heard, she hasn't been found yet. At this point we were pretty tired so we played card games and went to bed. Also, we lucked out and the T.V. had English channels.
So we did a lot of walking and started with walking around Oedolgae (Lonely) Rock. Before we started our walk, Skofe took us to a place wear we could buy cheap chocolate and she would give us free samples. I bought some to give as a gift to work but to be honest I still haven't even tried the few pieces that I saved for myself. But then again, I was never a huge fan of flavored chocolate but Jeju chocolate is suppose to be some of the best chocolate in Korea.
So going around Oedolgae (Lonely) Rock took a while. At one point, there were a bunch of boulders connected to come boulders in the sea. One or two guys started going across and in the end a bunch of people tried though most people were too afraid to try. I was surprised that I talked myself into trying as I was quite terrified as I climbed up and down boulders to get to the large boulder pile a little ways out. Thinking back, the actually climbing was really easy. The only part that made it difficult was the fact that it terrified me because of my anxiety. Me and another girl with anxiety helped each other through and I'm glad I did it. It gave me a sense of accomplishment because my anxiety used to be so bad that I wouldn't have even considered doing something like that before and here I had actually done it. It may not have been a big deal to the others who climbed it, but to me it took a lot of effort.
Because I decided to try climbing out to the boulders I ended up not having enough time to explore the Natural Ocean Pool. I managed to take a few pictures but we were short on time so we couldn't actually go out and explore it. We had to rush along, quickly snapping pictures, along the Olle Coast Trail to catch the bus as we were one of the last groups to return. Then we went to Jusangjeolli (주상전리) which our tour guides called Superman Rocks. They are basically square columns of volcanic rock that spit out of the ocean.
Next we went to the Cheonjeyon (천제연) Water Falls. This was a group of three different waterfalls that are nearby. One is huge but it only acts like a waterfall during heavy rains such as during typhoon season. The other two were beautiful. We almost missed the one as the path cut to the side but we managed to get there. Though getting there nearly killed me as there were so many stairs. Actually, I should say getting back to the bus after the last one nearly killed me as going up the stairs was brutal and was making me dizzy. It was about this point that I realized that I might be over doing things a bit. Not to mention I was under doctor's orders to take it easy to avoid blacking out again.
We made a brief stop at Jungmun (중문) Beach. It was pretty but too cold to do anything. The most amusing thing was when our tour guide, Owen, and another team leader decided to do a push-up competition. The other guy won because Owen couldn't do the push-ups right and kept sticking his ass up in the air though he did do way more push-ups than the other guy.
Next was walking around the Dragon (용머리해안) Coast Walking Trail which was cool. Supposedly it looks like a dragon when viewed from above. The story is that a Japanese ship came to cut off the dormant dragon's head and tail so that it couldn't harm anyone. There were actually long cuts into the rock so I wonder how those actually occurred. We were lucky that we were able to go around because there is only a certain time during the day that allows you to get across safely because of high tide. We had only around 36 minutes to go completely around the dragon because the tide was already coming in. It was interesting noticing that the water levels were getting higher and we had to keep an eye on the ladies who were getting sea animals because we knew we had to hurry if they started to leave. But we made it across and it was really cool to see.
I stayed on the bus instead of doing San Bang San (산방산) Temple because I overdid it and couldn't physically do anymore. I was sad to miss out but it was raining heavily at this point and I was tired and already sick so I just gave up. We went to Jeju City to eat dinner at an Indian restaurant and barely had time to eat before rushing to catch the bus which has made me crave Indian food recently. Thankfully Greg and I found a nice Indian restaurant nearby and I have been eating there a lot recently. But we made it back to the hotel in time and didn't have to pay a cab thankfully.
So that night we decided to hang out with Brittney and we did some fireworks, card games, and a little bit of drinking. It was kind of funny because they said I wasn't allowed near the fireworks because I was the clumsy one. Neither of them were able to use the lighter and so I HAD to be the one to light the fireworks. So they changed it to the only thing dangerous I was allowed to be around were the fireworks. That made me laugh. And then we ran out of fireworks and I was like I don't want to move but I'll give you money if you want to buy more so we did a few more fireworks. A Korean guy had to help me at one point because one of the fireworks would not light for me. We watched some Koreans light up fireworks just as they watched us. You could never really do that much in America because of all the laws and such. I know it's illegal in Pennsylvania at least. Anyway, we played card games for a while. I won the first time and them promptly lost all the other times. It was really funny to watch Anna and Britney getting really competitive as I just didn't care whether I won or lost.
Though the second tour sounded fun, I'm really glad we didn't do the tour Monday as it was a nice, relaxing day which was just what I needed. I could sleep in, relax, and not worry about rushing around. We tried a burger place which had this huge, sweet burger that was okay. The taste was a little weird for me but I could eat it and it wasn't junk food. Then we took a walk along the coast where we ran into Alyssa who had fractured her foot and joined us as our roommate for the final night. I helped her cousin, Adam, bring down her stuff and we played more cards and drank more as we watched a rerun of the first Harry Potter movie which Adam, Brittney, and Alyssa. It was surprising how many people we ended up having in our room as I am not normally the social one.
After that, it was packing and getting ready to go home. Thankfully the return trip was much less eventful than the trip to Jeju. Two people lost their ARCs and passports but were thankfully allowed to get on the ferry to get home. I'm glad to not be them as they deal with all the paperwork and government stuff to get those items restored or get issued new ones. I was a little motion sick on the way back, probably cause I was out of medicine and still feeling like crap. The bus I was on didn't do two of the stops so we got home quicker and at a reasonable time which was nice because Greg decided to surprise me and bring brownies with him. Yay! I thought that was a good way to end my four day vacation.
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