Jeju-do Part 1

Well, I was able to arrange a 4 day weekend, so I made a run down to Jeju-do, a volcanic island off the southern coast of Korea known as "the Hawaii of Korea".  I'm not sure how much like Hawaii it actually is, but the island is beautiful and it was a really great trip. 

The cost of round trip airfare from Cheonju, an airport about 45 minutes bus ride away, was only 104,000 KW (about $95) so I paid the airfare for one of my Korean friends in exchange for him going with me as translator/tour guide.  I'm so glad I did that, since he was able to find REALLY cheap motels for me (one was only 20,000 KW/$17) as well as help get around the island.  Unlike the rest of Korea, many of the roadsigns are only in Korean instead being bilingual.

We saw and did a LOT in the few days we were there, so I'm going to divide up the trip into several different posts here.

When we arrived on Friday night, we visited Loveland which is billed as Korea's only "sexual theme park" since my friend really wanted to go.  Apparently a group of sculptors had collaborated to create a large sculpture garden of "romantic" art pieces.  Knowing how conservative Korea is, and from the pictures I'd seen online,  I was expecting it to be a combination of works that were either a bit cheeky or pieces similar to Greek sculpture.  Well... let's just say that Loveland is one theme park that is definitely not for children.

Here's a few of the tame pieces:

 After we left Loveland, we were trying to find the motel for the night and accidentally stumbled onto another of the sites we wanted to see, Yongdu-am/Dragon Head Rock.

Since we couldn't get very good pictures at night, we went back in the morning to get some better ones.

 

Since our hotel was only about 2 minutes away, it was cool to see.  However, I wouldn't recommend someone making a special trip for it (no matter how many times you see it listed in all the tourist info).