Tourist weekend!!

This is a bear sculpture, the teddy bear collection at a fashion show down the runway, michael jordan teddy bear, a teddy bear couple getting married, Gandhi teddy bear, and a HUGE teddy bear that Keith and I took a picture with (I'm holding a miniature version that Keith bought me at the gift shop:)

These amazing underwater photos was part of a special photography contest display that was held this week at the botanical garden. We were lucky to make it by accident. Also, you can see the inside botanical garden glass building with the theme rooms. One room was cactus from all over the world (you can see in the pic.) one was of various tropical plants and flowers, while another one was fruit from all different tropical islands/countries.

I love this picture of the inside of the botanical garden glass building...it was amazing how they put the place together! You can see the bananas hanging from the tree with something hanging from below it (not sure if it is a plant, flower??) Aww and you can see three little monkeys hanging out in the jungle;)

This is a bush shaved into a peacock in the outside botanical garden field. And then you can see the garden that looks like a maze...this is the French garden (looks similar to the gardens in Versaille from this summer)

Above is a massive fountain in the Italian gardens.

This is the Korean gardens, with small temple-like building and a pond with lilypads.

This is part of the Japanese gardens, with the fish below and many more of them (various colors) in the small pond.

Beautiful Mount Halla in the background, surrounded by palm trees in Seogwipo (south end of Jeju Island). This is the more touristy and beachy/tropical area of the island...popular for couples on their honeymoon and family vacations.

This picture with the swiveling tree above is at the entrance of the botanical garden. It reminds me of the whos from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas:)

The botanical garden indoor glass building with theme rooms of plants, flowers, fruits from all over the world.

The wishing pond with different animals that represent certain things. Whichever you need a blessing for, you should stand in front of that animal and try to toss the coin into the fortune bag. Unfortunately, Keith did not make or maybe need a blessing.

The waterfalls we visited near Jungman beach.

Beautiful clear water and amazing colors and rock formations.

The islanders hanging out with me in Seogwipo! I'm such a tourist! :)

If you look to the right of Keith, you can see a rainbow!

A random sweet-looking little waterfall/fountain on the way out of the Maze Park. It was a good thing we made it out of the maze just in time, as the park was closing, considering how dark it was getting.

Ringing the bell FINALLY after an hour of trying to end of the maze!!!

The maze park that we walked to down the street from the cave. Although this park seemed like it would be easy at first and maybe just for kids, it was very difficult! And it was hilarious when so many Koreans and Keith and I were all stuck in the maze trying to help eachother out with the little Korean that we know and the little English that they knew! The sign at the entrance said that only about 60% make it, while 35% make their way back out without reaching the bell, and 5% have to call for the safety squad. :)

Above is the Manjanggul Lava Tube/cave...the largest in the world!!

Below is a formation from lava that looks like a turtle, and the form of Jeju Island! Pretty cool!

This weekend was filled with lots of touristy sites on the island. After talking to my parents on skype finally Saturday morning, and once Keith got back around 1:00pm from his first Saturday class, we decided to take an adventure.

We took a quick 4 minute cab ride to the bus terminal where we found the correct bus to take us to the north east side of Jeju island. There we visited the well-known Manjanggul lava tube. It is one of the few caves on the island and actually has the largest known lava column (or tube tube) in the world! It is 7.6 m high and the lava column is formed when the lava (erupted from a volcano millions of years ago) flows from the ceiling to the floor. The lava then flows from an upper lava tube and spreads across the floor of the lower passage. Unfortunately, I have not been in a cave for a while and (lol) wore my flip flops and found the cave to be very cold, wet, dark, and rocky! haha I learned my lesson:) It was very interesting to see the different formations on the wall and to think about how old this cave is and how well-preserved it is after a real volcano created it long ago.

In one picture you can see a lava formation that looks like a turtle. It also is the shape of Jeju island! The other picture shows the Mangjanggul lava tube.

Afterwards, we grabbed our favorite grape icecream at the gift shop and found cute Jeju Islander towels...."real US sizes"! So of course we bought them for our apartment (we had been using little hand towels since big towels are pretty much impossible to find).

Next, we walked out of the cave park and about ten minutes down the street until we reached The Maze Park. Since we have immigration cards and work here, we are a big deal and got in free! wahoo We were like kids at this park....it was so challenging and we were so excited to reach the middle where we could ring the bell! When we began the maze, we had a map and thought it would be pretty easy to get through, especially since all of the Koreans who were walking through it, along with ourselves, were all telling one another, "Ye, ne" (yes) or "aniyo" (no) to whether the path we were taking was a dead-end or wrong way. However, the maze was so big and had so many ways to take that it actually took us an hour to reach the bridge where the bell was!!!! It was so funny!!! The sign on our way in said that only about 60% make it to the bell, while about 35% make it back out without reaching the bell, and about 5% get stuck and need to yell for the safety squad!! :)

On the map it talked about the man who created the park and how they were continuesly adding on and changing the trees/walls. (we saw the creator later in the back office in the gift shop...where we bought a maze game in the box that you use the marble to get through all numbers without falling through the hole...do you know this game?? I have one at home in Wheaton that I used to love playing as a kid). Well, we reached the bell with a few other Koreans finally after an hour, and it was right in time...just as it started getting darker and the park was about to close.

That night we headed home and started planning our big trips this winter....we're thinking Japan for one weekend for the Winter Snow Festival (look it up online, it looks amazing!). Then, since we have 12 days off of school in the winter, we want to use 6 days of the week, and with 4 days of the weekend, we will have 10 days in Thailand and Laos. Then we will do the same and use another 10 days in Vietnam and Cambodia. I made sure today with my school that I can take off the days we are hoping and now we are currently looking for the best prices to fly out there to make it affordable. We will probably go through a travel agency with the help of my co-teacher. It's very exciting to start to plan these huge trips to other countries!! I can't wait til winter break!

On Sunday, we left our apartment around noon and again took a quick cab ride to the bus terminal and found the right bus to take us down south to Seogwipo. This is known as the honeymoon area where many tourists will visit and stay in the nice hotels there. There are beautiful beaches, including Jungman beach, and many many tourist attractions. We decided to see some waterfalls, check out the biggest botanical garden in Asia, and stop into the Teddy Bear Museum. We saw the view of Jungman beach, but had a pretty packed day and decided to keep the beach and outdoor things for another weekend, maybe next for Keith's b-day.

There were three waterfalls that we saw first. We had a small hike to each one, and it was an absolute perfect day to see them...very warm, especially at this southern side of the island. After the waterfalls, we walked over this huge bridge to the Botanical Gardens. This place was amazing....it was huge! It had outdoor gardens of Japan, Korea, Italy, France and a kids' area. Then, in the center was a big glass building filled with many theme rooms of gardens. For example, they had a cactus garden, a fruit garden (with fruits from all around the world), a flower garden, etc. In the center of the building there was a stairwell that brought you to the top of the glass building, which overlooked Seogwipo city, Mount Halla, and the beautiful beach and ocean. What a view! We saw fish in the little pond in the Japanese gardens, and similar French maze gardens to the ones I saw in Versaille, near Paris, this past summer. We also saw bushes sculpted and shaved to represent animals, such as elephants, a bear, and a peacock. It was the biggest botanical garden I had ever seen and so worthwhile to visit!

After the botanical garden and grabbing lunch (hot stone bibimbop), we went to the teddy bear museum. This is one of the four teddy bear museums on the island. It was actually one of the busiest tourist places I have seen. Keith and I wondered why, after seeing the pretty building and the many teddy bears inside, why they would put so much money and time into such a museum. But hey, with the many tourists, I guess it pays off. The museum showed the history of the teddy bear, the many changes of the bear overtime, and showed many displays of teddy bears dressed up as famous people and in famous places around the world. It was so funny to see so many teddy bears all at once. They had all different sizes, and a random teddy bear in all of the display cases, and of course winnie the pooh and the care bears. There was an art gallery with teddy bears and a room that displayed the polar bears being endangered and possibly distinct in the future and ways for us to prevent this (this was a little depressing). There was a restaurant and huge gift shop in the museum, and then an outdoor bear park, where you could take pictures with different bears out in the forest. Then the visit ended with the biggest teddy bear I have ever seen! Before we left the museum, Keith got me a cute little one from the gift shop which I will call Jeju Si teddy:) Good times! We took an hour-ride bus back to Jeju-si (our city) and then continued with plans for our winter trips and to prepare for our week of teaching.