Here are some highlights:
Best hotel room:
Best beast of burden:
Most mysterious mass exodus:
Deadliest sidewalk:
Best meal:
Best meal runner up:
Biggest flying fish:
Weirdest bathroom:
Best sunset:
Best singing ice cream guy:

Thanks to everyone who followed our journey from this blog. It’s been a blast putting this together, reading comments, and knowing you’re out there. We love you.

We’re putting Seattle to Seoul in the deep freeze for now, to be thawed in June 2009.

At that point, we might have to change the name.

What happens in June 2009? Well, it’s not etched in stone yet, but… here’s a hint:

Take care,
Steve & Steph

This hotel room tour video has a special guest star.

After shooting this video, we jumped on an express bus that took us to Incheon Airport, just outside Seoul. There, we caught our flight home to Seattle.

Luckily, Yoonmin agreed to pick us up in his new car!

He took us to the “63 Building,” and even though it was late, we found a wine bar open on the 59th floor. Yoonmin negotiated with the parking attendant and the wine bar staff — something Steph and I could never manage. Heck, we probably wouldn’t have found the building, let alone found a place to park.

We zipped up the elevator and found a seat by the window. The lights were low. We sipped our drinks and gazed out at the hazy Seoul night.

I’m putting a big stack of shots here, because these are some of our favorite images of our summer in Korea:

Here are a couple more shots from the Elephant Theater earlier that day, too (because, you know… elephants. I must like elephants).

(I couldn’t resist.)

Yeah, so Jeju’s a volcanic island, already. Lots of lava rock (from which the harubang were carved)… and plenty of lava tubes and caves. And don’t we all love caves?

After hours of sweaty bus tour (this is August, and Jeju Island is almost as hot as Seoul), it was nice to hang out underground where it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler.

The cave was packed with people, and was fairly “done up” — new floor, plenty of shoring, artificial ponds, and artwork on the walls. It was amazing and beautiful… but odd.

In American caves, there’s this tension between showing off the natural splendor and preserving it — letting as many people down there as you can, while keeping them from screwing it up.

Do Not Touch.

There was no sense of that in this cave. It’s the same sort of feeling I get when I look at Mount Rushmore. I dig Mount Rushmore. It’s an incredible national treasure… but it’s from a bygone era, produced by an extinct bit of American culture… because today, we would never carve human faces into a mountainside in a million years.

Weird. Anyhow, there be caves here:

The only western analogy I could come up with would be a traditional Native American village, in New Mexico maybe, where the locals show tourists around and tell stories.

One of the amazing things about Jeju Island are the Harubang — that means “stone grandfathers” — that are all over the island. These were carved from lava rock several centuries ago, and remind me of the statues on Easter Island.

There are only a few dozen of the original statues left. Two of them were in this village.

Like Easter Island statues, the Jeju harubang all have a particular look. Big eyes without pupils, an unlikely-looking derby-style hat, and hands on the abdomen, one over the other.

The harubang have become a symbol of pride for Jeju Islanders, and copies and images of the statues are everywhere — outside shops and restaurants, on packaging… you can even buy little harubang keychains and cell phone charms.

(By the way, has the cell-phone-charm craze reached America yet? If not, it will.)

Oddly, there are two more iconic characters of Jeju Island, besides the happy “stone grandfather.”

Another are the Jeju horses. They probably aren’t that different, biologically, from your everyday horse, but according to Jeju legend (started, perhaps, by those guys carving those statues), horses from this island have six eyes.

One on each leg, you see, along with the regular two. Don’t bother to look for them… they just sense infrared and help the horse navigate rough terrain at night.

It’s almost believable, for being utter balderdash.

Our village guide seemed to believe it… although it was difficult to judge, since we couldn’t understand a word he said (he spoke Korean with a thick Jeju accent, and the mom who was translating for us couldn’t understand him very well).

The third icon and symbol of Jeju pride are the haenyeo, or haenyo. These are the “mermaids” or woman divers of the island.

Okay, so freediving off the coast for abalone and sea cucumbers and other tasty bits isn’t that shocking for temperate or tropical coastal and island cultures. They hold their breaths for two minutes, yada yada. Like farming, sort of, but under water.

What’s odd is this: A couple of centuries ago, the men stopped diving, and the women took over. I never learned why this happened (if there had been any bloody English, I might have).

These women are imbued with this extraordinary lifestyle. They start at age seven, and since it transforms their bodies — they are amazingly tough and in great physical condition — they continue diving into old age.  

And now the melancholy part. The modern young women of Jeju are not following in their mothers’ footsteps (would you?). Like other Koreans, they are going to university and pursuing modern careers. So the haenyeo are dying out.

Anyhow, after the Haenyeo Museum, the bus rolled on and our cool tour bus driver played a movie based on the life of a Haenyeo, “My Mother the Mermaid” to keep us entertained.  (Of course, the movie is in Korean, but subtitled in English).  Cave video next, I promise.

(If Seattle to Seoul isn’t exciting enough for you, check out the typhoon that hit Jeju 11 months previously.)

Koreans take time off from their busy lives in Seoul or wherever and travel to exotic Jeju to get a taste of the extraordinary. Riding elephants as if they were in Thailand, for example.

Or perhaps experiencing something really out there.

Like pretending they’re… American cowboys?!?

That’s right, if Thailand wasn’t wild enough, on wonderful Jeju Island you can get close to the Wild West.

It was hilarious.

They decked us out in riding boots, vests, and cowboy hats (thought I kept my own trusty Tilley). We all climbed on our horsies and were led around the track.

Ironic, really. I lived for ten years in Arizona. I even visited Tombstone, site of the famous shootout at O.K. Corral. Um… it wasn’t really like this.

After that, we stopped for lunch. I have no idea where we were, but we kicked off our shoes (as per custom), sat on the floor, and stirred the pork and onions sizzling at our table.

Man, it was good. Pork wraps? I don’t know what to call it, but I know I’m going to try to make it in my own kitchen and invite everybody over.

(P.S. Since returning to America, we’ve tried a homemade bulgogi beef pizza, which was astounding.)

Here’s how you eat it: you palm a lettuce leaf, chopstick on some pork and rice, then a slice of garlic, then some deadly-hot curry paste (careful, there). Close your fist. Stuff the whole thing in your mouth. Repeat (and you will repeat, until you are stuffed). Fantastic!

I took this photo of one, just so I would remember exactly what was in it and what it was like:

Up next: Statues like Easter Island… and a deep, dark cave video.

We didn’t see that coming.

Wasn’t Jeju exotic and strange enough? How does Thailand fit into this picture? I have no idea about any historic connection between Korea and Thailand, and this place made me itch for a map of Asia to try to figure it out.

While we contemplated this mystery, we rode a cute little Indian elephant.

There was a big elephant show, with elephants doing tricks and stuff. We skipped that. While everyone else was in the theater, Steph and I hung out in the back and watched the elephants in the green room, or the trailer… or the barn, whatever you call it. We watched the elephants backstage.

It seemed a lot more authentic. And fun. Watch for the wrangler calling the elephant, and the elephant tossing back a cool one. It’s priceless.

Our place in Jeju City, on Jeju Island (in Korean, Jeju-si in Jeju-do), was our fourth hotel room all summer (the other three were: one in Seoul [Gangnam], another in Seoul [Samsung], and one in Tokyo). And every one is different and wacky in some way.

And since our last hotel room tour was so popular (that was the beautiful and roomy M Chereville in Gangnam), we decided to shoot a tour of our room on Jeju Island.

Here’s a little more of that view from our window:

[We now return to posts about the Jeju Island bus tour. I think the elephants will be next.]