The cost of an airline ticket to Jejudo Island- 164,317 won
Price of each taxi ride around the island- 10,000 won
Each shower at the local jimjilbang- 7,000 won
Parasailing- 40,000 won
Watching the sun rise with fourteen amazing people on a tropical island in the southeastern end of Korea- PRICELESS!
Welcome to Chusok vacation! Chusok is Korea's harvest celebration aka Korea's Thanksgiving. Each family travels to their father's hometown for dinner and presents. If you are not a member of a Korean family, or of Korean descent, where do you go?
That's right. You travel to Jejudo Island with fourteen other teachers from school. Here is a brief snapshot of my first vacation in Korea.......
DAY 1: Arrive at the bus terminal in anticipation our group will miss the bus because of the hype that there will BE NO TICKETS because everyone is traveling over Chusok. Bus trip goes by with smooth sailing and we arrive at the airport FIVE HOURS EARLY. Oops! That might be MY FAULT...I suggested the early arrival....don't say a WORD if you traveled with me to Denmark...a few of my co-workers won't let me forget it!
Arrive on the island, eat a lovely dinner, see a cool waterfall at night, go to sleep!
DAY 2: BEACH DAY!!!! Football and frisbee on the beach, evening cookout, parasail over the bay, sleep on the beach and watch the moonbeams dance across the water......
DAY 3: Travel day to Udo Island...go out for another fabulous dinner and sleep in a pension on the beach...watch the moonbeams dance across the water AGAIN!! :)
DAY 4: Watch the sunrise at 6:00 a.m., go running around the island, go scootering all over the place, look eagerly for wrinkly old female drivers in wetsuits (called haneyos) catching their breakfast, pose next to haneyo statues instead, travel back to Seogwipo, go out for an amazing Italian dinner, cap the evening off with some norebang till 2:30 in the morning
DAY 5: Go visit an amazing Buddhist temple, travel back to Daejeon via taxi, bus, airplane,bus, then taxi again; watch Grey's Anatomy for three hours to distract myself from post-vacation depression....
DAY 6,7,8,9, 10......Continue to watch Grey's Anatomy to nurse the post-vacation depression, buy food at Costco and realize I only have 150,000 won for the rest of the month (did I really spend that much money on FOOD during vacation?!), upload pictures onto facebook
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=23723&l=19527&id=531045618
begrudgingly get back into the teaching routine but then happiliy spend the night learning about the twenty one rules concerning comma usage to teach my students the next day, smile and happily begin planning my vacation to Japan and Bali (hopefully!) over Christmas
To reiterate.....
A day on Jejudo Island......priceless
1 comment:
You forgot the waterfalls. And the Dole ChaChis. Dont forget the ChaChis.
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