Monday, June 18, 2012

Jeju Island - Part 2

Next up, we head out to pick some oranges. The oranges are super famous here.  They are very unique because they mixed a manderin orange with an asian pear, giving it a super sweet taste.  They sorta taste like a manderin orange, but they are bigger and have some citrus taste to them as well. 

Orange you glad to see oranges??
The oranges don't really look like what I just picked here.  These guys aren't ripe yet, but the dude let me pick them for the picture.  They are actually more orange and they have a bump near the stem, like this:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYu4T-vW5XiZve23y-UE-dU8CpOkaWR3mO68ldx87E1bP1LY9hfR1GLspXzNMOh7fg38PbBZVAboaaX1IOpAjfjfhAXcy8SZ8O9V68oPTOCBDNcXZqteK3lJHwy1x_DNmsvhoiw5GQ6oo/s400/oranges+in+JEju.jpg















They are also very expensive, and found out it's sort of a tourist trap.  We bought a box of 5 for $25.  They were the best oranges ever, but they were not really $5 good.  We found out we can order them online for way cheaper, so when those come in, I'll give you the results.

Anyways, our next stop was this little folk village.  We didn't stay too long here, because we had many things on the agenda. This was kind of a rural area and it displayed a simpler lifestyle.  The statue you see on the left is a symbol of Jeju.  He has a big nose and if you want to bear a son, you are supposed to rub his nose.


Here's a part of the courtyard area.  The farmers/common folk had the grass huts, while the nobles had houses with those fancy curved asian tiles you see everywhere.

The sides of the house are made of volcanic rock, like my house in Regina.
This area was sort of the kitchen/food storage.  Some of the kimchi containers are stored under the dirt to stay cool.  Kimchi is pickled/fermented vegetables (mostly cabbage) and it was created so they could eat during the winter or when there was a food shortage.

These pots were empty :(
Next up, we hit up the Trick Art Museum.  Here is a lovely photo of my girls in front of the entrance:


This museum is full of "trick art"... made so you can take pictures as if they are real/alive.  It sort of has a 3D effect.  Better to show than to tell... here are a bunch of pictures of this craziness:

Hai there!!!
Tearing it off.
Perhaps this is child abuse?
 
Sohee taming a tiger.
Starry starry night, but better.
 I know it looks kind of lame, but the museum was really fun and it was cool to setup all the shots.  I have tons of these photo's, but I didn't want to bombard the blog with them.

Next up, we stopped for supper at a black pig restaurant.  Jeju is also famous for black pork.  So of course we have to check it out.  They even have an entire street dedicated towards black pork restaraunts:


 The BBQ restaurant we went to was quite famous and many famous Korean celebrities have eaten there.  By the way... the pig itself is black, not sure how that makes it special, but it was delicious nonetheless.  Proof:

I also loved those huge mushrooms.
The next day we pack up and leave our condo.  It was sad to leave as this was our last day on the island.  The condo itself was really nice:

Sohee packing our stuff into our microscopic car.
And our view:

Palm trees with an ocean view.  Just like my house in Regina.
So we head out and drive out to the other side of the island (about an hour drive) and go to the beach.  But we decide to eat first.  We haven't eaten any seafood yet and we are reminded to try some by these ladies, the mermaids ladies of Jeju.  This time, it isn't a show, they are actually fishing:


So we stop at a seafood restaurant.  The first dish we got was a white fish (not sure the english name), it was a little salty, but the meat itself was really good.  


The other dish was a spicy clam soup.  It was really good, but there was a catch.  Watch the video:





Yup. The food was alive.  You have to kill it in the boiling hot soup.  It was kind of sad... but at the same time, delicious:


Next up we hit up the beach.  It is a beautifully hot day, so it was perfect.  The sand was white, the ocean was blue, green hilly mountain islands on the horizon, and there was black volcanic reef scattered about.  It was really amazing.  Wish we could have spent more time here, but we had very many things to see, and this was the perfect way to end the trip to Jeju:

Hannah taking a dip.  Best way to learn is to just throw them in, right?
Hannah eating sand.
Then we rush back to the airport because we have a car to drop off and a plane to catch.  Lastly, we take a photo of the island from the air.  Gonna miss this place.

Had to jump really high to take this picture.
That's it for Jeju.  Stay tuned for more super adventures.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice! Where is the pic of you rubbing the Jeju statue's nose for a son? :P

-Tamara

jaret said...

Haha... we have a picture of that. but we have a daughter and I'm happy with her.