Summer Vacation - Saving the best for last

We are back. Back to school. Back from summer vacation. Back from Jeju Island, off the south coast of Korea. I've been back to teaching for a week now, unable to find time to update the blog, but also unable to really get back into the swing of teaching just yet. I think it's a combination of having had a really great vacation, and the bewildering realisation that my students have actually forgotten the majority of what we covered last semester...

But let's dwell on the fun bits for now. Jeju was good. Not as good as Korean people make it out to be, but still very nice. When the weather was good, it was as pretty as a few places we have seen in southeast asia so far. Palm trees, long stretches of sandy beach (some with black sand, some with white) and very green rolling countryside further inland. Up close however, the water quality was cloudy and even polluted in the more popular beach areas, which made snorkeling pretty useless unfortunately. The scuba diving was pretty interesting, with more soft corals than we have ever seen before, along with lion fish and the usual random assortment of small tropical fish. Oh, we should mention here that we purchased a new camera that is waterproof to 10 metres, so that's why we have started posting underwater photography. exciting eh?

We spent a week swimming, diving, and traveling around the large-ish island seeing some of the sights along the way. Of note was the Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak also known as sunrise peak - it's a big crater that pokes about 600 metres above sea level, and anyone can climb to the top quite easily to get a great view back over the island, or of the crater itself. Actually, some of the best snorkeling we did on the island was at the foot of the mountain, where it's cliffs meet the sea. Very majestic backdrop for our little afternoon swim. Oh, worth mentioning that while the view is meant to be amazing at dawn, there was no way in hell I was going to be fooled into getting up that early, and it was just as well, since both mornings we were there were foggy as hell. When we climbed the thing later in the day the weather was perfect however, and I felt so damn clever the whole time.

But it wasn't all swimming and diving - there was eating too. Jeju has a few local specialty dishes which we took the time to try over the week. The most famous is the 'Black Pig Pork' which is just pork from a black pig. <-- just in case you were in any doubt. And you know what? it tasted like pork. Damn fine pork, don't worry about that, but still just pork.




Then there is the pheasant, which can be prepared a number of ways, so Kate and I indulged in a pheasant banquet one very expensive evening, and tried everything from pheasant dumplings to lumps of raw pheasant flesh, all of which were very nice. Overall the flavour was something like a very heavy taste of chicken, which kind of lingered in your mouth for a while, and that point of view was consistent over the course of the courses, and we left feeling satisfied that we had tried and enjoyed something new.
Finally, and on a different day, we tried abalone porridge, and it was like eating rubbery little oysters drowned in overcooked rice, only with half the punch that oysters bring to the table. Nice dish if there was nothing else on the menu, but I wont be tracking it down anytime soon.
The other thing we got ourselves into on our last day in Jeju was a trip to the races. I have never been to a racetrack before, and putting a few single digit bets on some horses was actually a lot of fun. There is a special breed of horse in Jeju which looks basically like a pony, and it was amusing to watch all those tiny little animals scurry around the track, with an even smaller korean person perched on top of them.

And that was the end of the summer vacation. But that doesn't mean there isn't more fun to be squeezed out of this little country. Last weekend Kate, myself and a few of our mates from Pohang all headed down south to the big city of Busan where we went scuba diving with sharks at the local aquarium. No, these sharks were not as small as the last ones we dived with. These were serious, fully grown, nasty looking hulks with rows and rows of VERY sharp teeth (we actually found some teeth on the bottom and took them home as souvenirs).

The sharks were not shy about coming up and having a good, long stare at us. Just testing to see if we would freak out, climb madly from the enormous tank, and develop hydrophobia then and there. Well, if I did, at least that would be the reason I need to get me out of ever showering again. Luckily however, we took advantage of the opportunity of getting face to face with sharks to take some pictures of what I hope is a once in a lifetime experience.

There were grey nurse sharks, zebra sharks, reef sharks, sting rays, eagle rays and even baby hammerheads in a cordoned off area where the other sharks couldn't eat them. The tank was huge, but there were a LOT of things swimming around in it. Every time we turned around there was a different toothy predator having a poke around at our equipment.

To be honest, the videos we took do the experience a lot more justice, but the photos will have to do for now until I get the time to upload all these videos we have made recently. The plan is to do a 'videos only' post in the near future.

But right now I need to go re-teach the kids at school the stuff they should already know from last semester.

Till next time!

//Brendan