The floor used to be lava...

"Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes."

- Andrea Giblson

    About two months ago we impulsively bought plane tickets during lunch time to visit Jeju Island for a weekend.  It was again a whirlwind trip with us leaving on Friday and returning Sunday.  Jeju is an island off the Southern Coast of Korea.  In 2010, Jeju was the most visited place in the world with over 15 million tourists! It was also recently named one of the new 7 wonders of Nature in the world.  

Jeju is nicknamed "the Hawaii of Korea" because both islands are volcanic islands.  Unlike Hawaii, the island isn't tropical and the lava stopped flowing about 5,000 years ago.  So even though the volcanoes are no longer active the island was left with amazing features left from the volcanoes and awesome rocks.  These statues are all over the islands.  They are called Dol Hareubang, which translates to stone grandfather.  They are seen as protectors of the island.

 The peak in the background is the dormant volcano, Mt. Hallasan.  You can do an eight hour hike to the summit to see the volcanic crater but that does not sound like fun to me. 

Since there were five of us we decided to just get a driver for the two days we were in Jeju.  It was so nice to just relax and have someone else figure out the navigating for us.

The draw of Jeju is the beautiful features left behind by the lava.  One of our first stops was Jusangeolli Cliffs. The water was stunning shades of blue but the real draw is the columnar jointing (I had to google this as I had no idea what they were called.)  These columns form as the lava cools and contracts.  There were signs everywhere trying to explain how these things were formed but I have to admit I don't really understand much geology. 

 How cool are these?

Our next stop was to a waterfall that I can't remember the name of.  The waterfall was pretty but the upper pool was magical.  Lindsey was mad that she couldn't swim and pretend to be Ariel, The Little Mermaid.

 Megan has a GoPro so was able to take really cool photos under the water.

Close to the waterfall was this very, very, very high bridge.

 Our next stop was the beach! It was so cool to have the lava rock popping up between the golden sand.  The black next to the blue of the water was stunning!

Again the rocks are so cool!

So cool but also very pointy.  This is what best friends are for, holding your hand so you don't kill yourself on the rocks.

We already know that Korea is a weird place, so the next place we went to was a park called Loveland.  Its a whole park dedicated to some risque statues.  Its a very weird place.  But hey I don't have a real boyfriend, so how about a gold statue one?

Our second day we started the day climbing to the top of Seongsang Ilchulbong.  This is a tuff cone, once again cannot tell you what that is but something to do with volcanoes.  It was hard to capture it in a photo but when you are standing on top you can definitely see the crater.

This is obviously not my photo but shows the whole crater.

Our driver then told us we were going to a beach.  Now this is definitely not what I would call a beach but again the rocks were stunning.

The coolest part of the whole trip was visiting Manjang Caves.  These caves are lava tubes.  Again with my very limited knowledge of geology what I gathered from the signs is that basically these were underground lava rivers. 

The coolest part to me was seeing the scraping on the walls.  This scraping is made when the lava flow was at different levels.

You always here about lava and volcanoes and its something you are aware of but I've never actually been anywhere before that showed the power of lava.  The whole time we were walking through the caves, we just kept commenting on how weird it is to think of rock as an almost living thing that can move.

This is a lava column that formed when an upper tube broke through and dripped lava to the floor below.

 It looks like dough! Just like I could go and smoosh it!

Just in case you couldn't get how massive these caves are! 

The rock on the right is called lava toes, which is a great name.

We were able to end our time in Jeju, hanging out on another beach.  

Mitch was also here but unfortunately someone has to be our photographer.  

We returned to Seoul Sunday night around 11 PM exhausted and sunburnt.  My friend Beth told me that is the show of a good vacation.  

This past week we had a field trip to  woodworking place where the kids made necklaces.  In the van on the way there my kids serenaded me with "What does the Fox Say?" I can't help but laugh every time they sing this. 

Last night, Korea played again Mexico in the World Cup.  We went to Seoul to watch the game on a big screen.  It was so much fun to join so many people to cheer.  Unfortunately Korea lost 1-2 but this was the crowds reaction when they scored!

Who doesn't need a giant light up bow flag?














Summer vacation is now about a month out, as well as Lindsey leaving.  So the next month will be goodbye events and somehow also trying to save money for vacation.  That also means that I will be leaving Korea in just 4 months!