Jeju

I spent this past long weekend in Jeju, South Korea. It is a stunningly beautiful island province, dotted with dormant volcanoes and covered in greenery, a 2 hour flight from Tokyo and just 1 hour from Seoul. Great hiking, great beaches and ideal for a summer road trip. It was my fourth trip to South Korea, surprisingly making it the single country I've visited the most times (if you don't count places I've lived, and if Hong Kong doesn't count as China… ahem).

There has been some aggressive marketing of Jeju as the "Hawaii of Korea", and more recently as one of the "New7Wonders" of the world (based on some internet poll), resulting in a proliferation of tourist traps across the island (for example, the teddy bear museum). More respectably, Jeju island is on UNESCO's World Heritage List as "a natural property of outstanding beauty which bears testimony to the history of our planet".

They're now planning a naval base on Jeju, which is a real tragedy I think.

Between Jeju and a trip to Canada, I haven't been around Tokyo for much of November. Got off my Toronto-Tokyo flight, and the same night moved out of my old apartment and into a new one (from unit 407 to unit 408 in the same building). My place is still a mess, and I'm not working that hard to tidy it up.

Has anyone noticed how it has become socially acceptable to freely knock the Chinese? I think this is a recent phenomenon, or maybe I'm the last one to have noticed. Our taxi driver in Jeju was complaining how quickly they light up a cigarette after stepping into his taxi. Japanese nationalists hold regular protests against Chinese immigrants, and others like to complain that they speak too loudly. The Economist takes every opportunity it gets to be patronizing towards the Chinese government. I wouldn't use such an ugly word as racism -- but it seems like if you met someone at the pub, you could make small talk by complaining about the Chinese, in the same way that you could complain about the Americans, or George W. Bush. Maybe that's a true sign that a country has achieved superpower status. I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords.

For the past 3 years or so, the (infrequent) posts on this blog (hosted on blogspot) have been automatically uploaded to Facebook via their handy RSS feature. So there I was, finishing up this post on Jeju, when I notice a message from Facebook telling me that they are no longer supporting RSS uploads. Their suggested workaround? A primer on how to use the Notes app. Thank you, Facebook!

The iconic Harubang statue, seen all over Jeju.

Old government offices, downtown Jeju-si.

Bull sculpture, made from scorched tree bark.

Hiking up Hallasan, the tallest peak in Korea.

Witseoreum, altitude 1700m (if you Google it, ignore the auto-spellcheck).

Oh, how pretty.

Well-deserved post-hike tofu chige. It's as spicy as it looks.

So as it turns out, Tokyo, Toronto and Jeju are roughly collinear.

San-Gumburi volcanic crater.

You're meant to share a hearty laugh with these statues as you pass by.

Seongeup Folk Village, where the basic necessities of life include high-speed internet.

Hiked up here for sunrise on Sunday morning, but alas it was too cloudy. Nice view of the town, though.

All of them were disappointed, too.