Mishi told us we ought to go on an adventure tour in South Korea. She told us about an island called Jeju-do, known as "Korea's Hawaii", a wonderful vacation destination where the weather was always warm and pleasant.
Not quite always, evidently.
But we had a good time with our little tour of Jeju. For three days, we traveled around with a whole bunch of other English speakers from around the world (generally English teachers, like Mishi) and had a bunch of wacky adventures. I mean, like, a LOT of wacky adventures. This trip was nonstop wacky adventures. I didn't know it was possible to cram so much wacky adventure into three days, or onto a relatively small island in the East China Sea.
DAY ONE: We visited the Trick Art Museum, a museum full of wall paintings designed for us to insert ourselves into the middle of them for funny photo-ops (pictures
here.) We went horseback riding, and we hiked Sunrise Mountain, a small peak on the east side of the island (pictures
here.) In the evening we had a nice Christmas dinner (though it was Korean food so not quite the Christmas dinner you might expect) along with a white elephant gift exchange and a bunch of karaoke (pictures
here.) Thanks Mishi for putting up all these pictures!
DAY TWO: We visited a Chinese circus, which featured a lot of people balancing carefully on top of other people, and also people driving motorcycles around inside a metal sphere. We visited a green tea farm and museum, which was kind of less than ideal because snow was falling on all the green tea plants, but whatever. We went on another short hike, and we walked through a botanical garden.
Josh carrying green tea, green tea lattes, green tea ice cream, green tea cake, and wearing a green shirt.
They do this every time they get to the top of a mountain. I don't know why.
Merry Christmas!
DAY THREE: We walked along the cliffs on the southern side of Jeju island and saw some cool rock formations. Check it out:
Lastly, we went to LoveLand, a very strange and amusing tourist site dedicated to human sexuality in all its forms. It consists mostly of a bunch of erotic outdoor sculptures. None of our pictures from here are G-rated, but if you do an image search for "Jeju LoveLand" you'll get the idea.
Here we are at our New Year's Eve gala dinner. This event was organized by our resort, Peace Laguna. They put on a show, with traditional Thai singing and dancing (and also some not-so-traditional singing... it was an interesting mix of Asian, European, and American pop music.)
They also gave us goofy party hats. Awesome.
After dinner, we went out on the town in Ao Nang - still wearing our goofy hats, of course. The streets were quite lively with tourists, speaking various languages in various states of drunkenness. Some enterprising locals had the brilliant idea of setting up stalls to sell "Thai pancakes". A Thai pancake is a thin crepe that's been filled with some kind of sweet thing - banana and Nutella, for example - then folded over on itself several times. They were as good as any late-night food in the US. We should import them.
Shortly before the bell tolled midnight, we ran into another vendor who was selling Thai sky lanterns. We bought a few lanterns and went out onto the beach, where we lit them and watched them drift up into the sky. Hopefully they'll bring us good luck in 2011.
There were gigantic limestone cliffs everywhere. This was the view from our balcony at our resort.
And this was the view from our boat when we went out snorkeling.
You know that one tank in the aquarium that's filled with brightly colored tropical fish, and you kinda wish you could reach out and touch them? That's what snorkeling here was like. Josh even got to touch a little fish once, when it bit him.
It only rained once. Naturally, this time was when we were out at sea on a kayak and had absolutely no way to prevent ourselves from getting completely soaked to the skin. I don't know if it's possible to tell from this picture just how drenched Mackenzie is.
Here we are at the Bangkok Grand Palace, the seat of power of the King of Thailand. The King apparently likes to show off his bling, because all the buildings are completely covered in gold, silver, fake jewels, and other sparkly things. Mackenzie loved it.
Next to the Royal Palace was Wat Pho, a gigantic Buddhist temple and the home of the world's largest reclining Buddha. (I like big Buddhas and I cannot lie.)
We took a water taxi across the Chao Phraya River in order to visit Wat Arun, another temple - visible in the background here.
We walked up the steps of Wat Arun. It was pretty steep.
We went to the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson was an American architect (also a Princeton Tiger - Class of 1928!) who moved to Thailand after World War II. He went into business, revitalizing the Thai silk industry, and then disappeared mysteriously in 1967. Even the Princeton Annual Giving campaign couldn't find him. He left behind a huge house that he'd built for himself, combining American and Thai architectural styles.
There are certain practices that would be incredibly illegal in the US but are perfectly normal in Bangkok. Such as an open-air restaurant & bar on the roof of a skyscraper. This place had only a chest-high railing separating us and our drinks from a 62-story drop. There was no net (we checked.) But the weather was great, and the view was magnificent. The bar was called "Moon Bar" and the adjoining restaurant was aptly named "Vertigo", which coincidentally is also what Mackenzie's T-shirt said. Here's a 360° panoramic video:
Josh carrying green tea, green tea lattes, green tea ice cream, green tea cake, and wearing a green shirt.
They do this every time they get to the top of a mountain. I don't know why.
Merry Christmas!
