Monday, August 31, 2009: Jeju Island

We had to go to Gimpo airport to take our flight to Jeju Island. This airport was rather old but well maintained and we had to exit the plane via steps and hop onto a bus to get to the gate.

Snacks before the flight.

Victor, our tour guide, picked us up at the airport and we had a short tour before checking into our hotel.

We started with the "Mysterious road" where the cars stop at the bottom of the hill and put the car in neutral and the car starts to roll uphill.

Then we went to Hallim Park. This park was great and really gorgeous.

Harubang statues which are supposed to guard the island.

This is the restaurant that we had lunch at inside the park and the food was really good.

We went through 2 caves in the park.

The second cave had 2 dragons or impressions in the cave in shapes of dragons and this scared Laura to the point of crying. After the caves, we went to the bonsai garden.

The ice cream cone made it all better.

If you rub the Harubang's nose, you may be blessed with a son.

After Hallim Park, we drove to this green tea grower's shop. The country side was gorgeous and full of small green tea bushes. The tea was very mild and good.

Then Victor took us to a place where you can see the Lava tubes. This is a picture of conch. Apparently, in the old days, the women dove and brought home the bacon or in this case, the conch.

Lava tubes which were naturally formed by hot lava hitting the cold sea.

We checked into the Hyatt Regency. We really liked this hotel.

This was our view from the balcony.

Sunday, August 30

On Sunday morning, we got ready early.

We went to my dad's old church. We went to the service and had to sit in the front, just behind the choir in the "foreign section" so that the whole congregation could see us. There were headphones and a translator who couldn't translate very well.

After church, we visited my grandfather's (mother's father) burial site.

My two uncles and my dad.

We got some McDonald's for lunch.

My Korean was so bad that I misordered and ended up getting like 8 Big Mac meals vs just Big Macs.

Laura got spicy chicken tenders. They were really spicy but she really liked them. They were better than the Big Macs.

Seoul National Cemetery.

We visited my Uncle Chang Ho (my dad's older brother).

Then we stopped at a fancy coffee place before meeting up with my mother's side of the family.

These stores are all over the city.

Jim got the Mr. Big candy bar because "if you're this big, they call you Mister".

My 89 year old grandmother and Laura.

My middle uncle with his wife and 2 sons.

My uncle and aunt

Our trip to S. Korea

Our flight began on Thursday, August 27, leaving Boston at 8:30am and arriving in Korea at about 6pm the next day (a total of about 19 hours of flying) after a connecting flight in San Francisco. We just checked into the hotel and crashed. We stayed at the Millenium Seoul Hilton Hotel where our cousin works and got the royal treatment.

On Saturday, we started our day early. This is Laura on her cot on Saturday morning.

We had breakfast every morning at the Executive lounge for free.
Hotel lobby.

After breakfast, we visited my aunt who is 89 years old. My dad's oldest sister.

Then after coffee and fruit, we went to visit my grandmother (my mother's side of the family) at her home. This is the condo lobby.
She was at the sauna so we took a quick trip to Star Super and bought snacks and sampled a bunch of stuff at the grocery store. Laura liked the dried fish.

We ate lunch at the cafeteria.
Then we came back to visit my Hal Muh Nee. Here are some hats that Ymo bought for her.

Then went back to the hotel.