Potato in Seoul - Jeju Island: Day 2

After a successful first evening in Jeju, we went to bed ready to welcome our first full day on the island. The weather, however, wasn't as happy as we were.

DAY 2

Our first full day in Jeju, we went to a beach that Gedas had found. Gedas was our travel guide that week. He was the one who did all the research of places to go and things to do. He would get up early every morning, ready for whatever he had planned for the day, laying out his big map and looking over it like a treasured possession every evening before bed. The rest of us were more content just going around doing whatever was easy to get to and just relaxing.

The weather when we woke up that day, though, was not extremely pleasant. We knew we were going during rainy season, but you can always hope that the weather will go against the norm and not be what you expect. However, it was exactly as predicted: rainy. There was a light drizzle almost all day that was a bit disheartening. The sky was cloudy and gray and the temperature wasn't very warm. So, we decided to take a bus ride that took you all the way around the city, mostly outside of it so you could see the sea and other pretty places.

After we made it about halfway, we stopped and got off the bus, which runs about every 30-45 minutes, to explore just a little bit. The ride was actually longer than we expected, though not in a bad way at all. We were able to catch glimpses of places we thought would be cool to go to later on (that we never did), and it was nice to pass the time by seeing all that Jeju had to offer.

We ended up going over to a small cafe called The Finland in an attempt to find breakfast. Breakfast in Korea isn't nearly the ordeal that it is at home in the US, so we weren't even sure if they would have anything. They didn't. But the place was still enjoyable. Andy fell asleep on one of the tables for about 30 minutes, while Jenni and I caught up and swapped stories of all the things we somehow hadn't already told each other about through our continuous texting conversations while I was studying in Seoul and she was working back in the US.

After we left the cafe (aka after Andy woke up), we caught the bus back to Jeju City. When we got to the bus terminal, we ran into Gedas who had gotten to the terminal just a few minutes before we had. He had finally arrived after the overnight ferry ride to the island. We took him back to the hostel so he could drop off his stuff, then we were immediately planning what was next. Gedas had already made a mental list of all the places he wanted to go during our short week in Jeju. The first was Hamdeok Beach. So, despite the gloomy weather, we caught a bus to Hamdeok Beach (함덕해변), about a 30-minute bus ride away.

Despite the weather, Hamdeok Beach ended up being a great place to go. I'm sure it's that much more beautiful on a sunny day, but it was still beautiful even in the rain. Actually, the fact that it was raining probably worked in our favor since the beach, that is usually very busy, was almost deserted. There were maybe ten people there in the entire spread of beach. It was marvelous.

None of us were really dressed to swim, or even really to hang out on a beach, but we made quite the day of it. The water was quite chilly, but the temperature was a bit warmer thanks to the humidity of the day. The rain didn't keep us from going into the water to at least wade. You can't go to a beach and not touch the water. That would just be too sad.

The beach had a number of tents with large pieces of wood on plastic crates as tables that we made good use of. We ended up making conversation with two Korean guys who joined us to hang out and throw a frisbee (which I may or may not have thrown down over the rocks a number of times). We played our music as loud as we could off of the portable speaker someone had brought, and we laughed, drank some good drinks, and just had a great time. It was really a splendid afternoon. The rain even stopped a little while after we got to Hamdeok, which was a nice touch.

The one thing we didn't bring with us that we probably should have is food. What's a vacation in any part of South Korea without overeating and more convenient store runs than you can count. About halfway through our time at Hamdeok, some of our group took the ten minute walk to a convenient store to get us all something to drink and eat.

The area around the beach was really pretty as well. There was a pretty lengthy paved path that led along the edges of the beach on one side with a bridge and many great photo spots. The couples that were on the beach or walking along the path took advantage of the photo spots to take innumerable selfies while trying to hold onto their sun hats and keep their hair from flying into their eyes during the photo.

The two Korean guys that we met were there on a short holiday. One of the two is currently doing his military service, and he had a short week off from his service so he went to Jeju for two days. His friend, Marley (English name), we found out, was actually leaving the same day we were just a few hours later. The hostel they were staying at, they had only booked through the time that the two were going to be on the island together. After that day at the beach, Marley was going to be looking for somewhere else to stay. We ended up recommending the hostel we were at to him. We exchanged contact information and gave him the address of the hostel. It felt like some scene from a college-movie, actually.

Random note: This is my favorite photo from our time on Jeju Island. I'm not 100% sure why, but I just like it a lot

After it started to get dark, the six of us decided to go find somewhere to eat. There weren't a ton of places open at that time since there wasn't too much foot traffic in that area. We ended up opting for a pizza & chicken place getting more wings than we could eat in one sitting (surprise, I know). It started raining pretty hard while we were eating, but the rain let up again by the time we went to leave. Which really means that we sat in that restaurant until the rain let up, much to the dismay of the restaurant staff who looked more than eager to go home.

When the rain finally let up, we left the restaurant and walked back to the bus stop to wait for our bus back into Jeju City. When Marley and his friend got to their stop, we promised to meet up with Marley again the next day and said farewell to Marley's friend. The rest of the bus ride was quiet. We were tired and more than a little soggy between the ocean water, the rain, and the humidity. Gedas did share near the end of our bus ride the details of our next day's outing that he had been thinking of while trying to convince us to wake up by 6:30AM to go hike. Andy, Jenni, and I weren't all that thrilled at the idea of waking up that early, but we went along with Gedas' idea.

After we got back to our hostel, we all changed and managed to pick up some remnants of energy. We decided to get makgeoli (막걸리) from the convenient store and hung out in the common room for a bit before, finally truly exhausted, heading off to bed, day two complete.