Final Jeju post - Ancient provincial government grounds

As the title indicates, this was the local head of government compound.



See that last picture? See what's in the water? That's right! More lovely fishes!!!

And finally let us conclude the Jeju expose with an artsy shot of some stairs:

Jeju stone grandfathers

One of things Jeju is best known for is stone grandfathers. Here's some tall ones that were guarding a park:


And here's some mini ones from another historical site:

Jeju City

My last day in Jeju I took a walking tour and visited several historical sites. The first was a park commemorating where 3 demi-gods emerged from a hole in the earth. What I saw...

did not match the picture:


I do however still enjoy strangely worded English (click on image for larger version).

Jeju - Udo Island scenery

One of the things I enjoyed most about Udo was that it was very quiet and I could explore the black rocky seashore at my leisure. The rocks are volcanic in nature.


There were also horses!

In the distance you can see how the black rocks have been stacked to form a wall. These walls run all over the island:

Jeju sightseeing - Udo Island

Udo Island is a small island off the north-east part of Jeju. The small ferry takes about 10 minutes to reach it:

Exiting the harbour:
Udo Island from afar:
Once on the island I rented a scooter for about 10 bucks and drove around the island in just over an hour. It was very fun.

As you might have noticed the sky was very ominous and dramatic at that time:
And even the soil was looking black:
It actually started to rain just as I returned to my starting point. I hopped of my scooter, hopped on the ferry and then onto a bus back to Jeju City.

Jeju sightseeing - Seogwuipo

So the southern area where I stayed in the posh hotel is called Seogwuipo. One of the first places I visited was this charming waterfall:
After checking in I went to that Sound Museum, but first wandered down to the beach. As you can see, the southern part of the island is semi-tropical. Quite pretty.


Neato bridge. Quite a large one, and I think part of a botanical garden.
One of the most famous things about Jeju Island is that it is home to South Korea's tallest mountain, Mount Halla. The whole time I was in Jeju the weather was so cloudy and rainy I managed to view the peak for a grand total of about 30 minutes. Here it is. It looks small but that's cause it's far away.
Doesn't it totally look like that cloud is about to eat the Mt. Halla???

More Jeju

In my previous post I showed a $20 bacon and egg breakfast. This was from the sorta posh hotel I stayed at one night. I'd requested an ocean view room and this is what I paid for. Pretty cultivated right? Well that view is if I stuck my head over the balcony and looked to the right. The view that was actually in front of me was this:
Those are greenhouses. Not really very oceanic.

Sort of in the vicinity of the hotel were a variety of strange museums. I passed up the Teddy Bear Museum and the Sex Theme Park (I'm not making that up) and instead opted for the Sound Museum. There were some interesting things, including a couple of rooms filled with old phonograph sets. I'd never actually seen one up close before.

There was also a room that had instruments from around the world, which was cool, but the final room was this:
I have no idea what was going on the mind of whoever created this room, nor could I figure out what it had to do with sound. It was just sort of bizarre and vaguely creepy.