Catching up: Jeju Island

Welcome to Jeju Island!

Here to greet you is one of the island's many dol hareubangs, or stone grandfathers. If you think it looks like a penis, you're not wrong. These guys are phallic as all get out (though they are alternatively said to look like mushrooms), and offer protection and fertility to the towns on the island. They're placed at the entrances to villages, and if you rub one's nose upon entering a place, you should be blessed with a son.

Known to locals as the Hawaii of Korea, Jeju is a volcanic island just south of the peninsula in what wikipedia tells me is the Strait of Korea. It's got a warmer climate than the rest of Korea and is a very popular tourist destination for people in China and Japan as well as Korea. Because of its warm climate, Jeju is teeming with beautiful plant life:



And monstrously large grasshoppers!!


Not really. He was just a regular sized grasshopper. But the warm Jeju sun had him so relaxed he let me get about six inches away from him to take this picture.

Jeju also has several lava tube caves, about which I know basically nothing. But the two I visited had quite a variety of geological features, including both stalagmites and stalactites, and some holes in the ceiling that look like dragons. None of those things are pictured here.




Jeju also features this, which is called something that translates to sunrise peak:


There is a massive crater at the top:


Which we were able to see, thanks to the path of stairs that has been set up for the climbing pleasure of the island's many visitors. My uncle wanted to move on to the next site after climbing a third of the way up, but ever the intrepid adventurers, we insisted on getting to the top. And we were rewarded with some amazing views. Not bad, eh?

There are tons of beautiful places on the island to visit, but we only had a few days, so many will have to wait for the next trip. Luckily we were able to squeeze in one last excursion to a green tea farm and museum, where we looked at hundreds of teacups from around the world and tried some delightful ice cream.

Yes.