Summer Vacation Part 3: "Nick's Visit and the 'Hawaii of Korea', or so we're told..."

The definite highlight of my summer was a visit from my boyfriend, Nick. From the moment he booked his ticket I was literally counting the days until his arrival. Which made it all the more devastating when at 6 a.m. on the day he was supposed to arrive I got a call on Skype from Nick telling me he'd missed his connecting flight in San Francisco and wouldn't be to Seoul until 24 hours later than originally planned. :(

Nick broke his ankle about a month before he was scheduled to come to Korea.  Luckily he had healed enough to use a walking cast and a cane for most of the trip, but he looked like an old ajossi and garnered far more stares than he already would have for being white, blond haired and blue eyed.  I waited at the arrival gate at Incheon airport for almost two hours (I sort of overshot my arrival time, I haven't been to the airport since I first arrived after all).  I knew when Nick was approaching because despite the fogged glass between the waiting area and customs I could see his big black cast and his hobbling walk from under the door.  It felt like a movie scene where I ran to him from across the airport, I was the happiest I'd been in months.

Despite dashing across Seoul to catch the last bus to Jeomchon, we were disappointed to hear that it was sold out. We decided to crash in Seoul for the night, and since we were both exhausted, planned to eat dinner and have "one drink" and call it an early night. After introducing Nick to the amazing-ness that is samgyeopsal (the pork meat barbecue) we wandered around Hongdae, the Hongkik University district. There we stumbled upon a strange little party in a park. There were about one hundred people dancing and wearing headphones.  A bartender had set up shop on a picnic table pouring cocktails in clear keg cups, and next to that a DJ was scratching records. But the park was relatively quiet. We soon learned that this was a Silent Disco. Everyone in the park could borrow the headphones and collectively listen to what the DJ was playing.  It was such a clever idea! We made some new friends at the Silent Disco and later migrated to a hookah bar. Somehow the hours slipped away from us and we ended up staying out until 5:30 in the morning! Our hotel room quickly became little more than a storage unit for our bags, as we were off to catch the 6 a.m. bus back to my town.

Sister Pia organized a special Saturday class so my students could meet Nick. Running on nothing but a quick power nap, Nick and I played games with the girls for a little over an hour.  I was happy he had a chance to meet my girls. They're such an important part of my experience in Korea and I was glad to share that with someone.

The next day we took the train down to Busan, which was my first visit to the city I had originally hoped to be placed in. The bars in Busan were amazing. Nick and I spent the night partying at Haeundae Beach. Nick challenged a group of Koreans to a game of darts, and surprisingly I made for an excellent partner and we didn't lose! This led to subsequent drinking on the beach with our new Korean friends, another extremely late night, and one of my worst Korean hangovers to date.

Hung over and not a happy camper...

But the majority of our vacation was spent on Jeju Island, "The Hawaii of Korea" according to my coteachers. I was looking forward to an excuse to sit on the beach, sip on a nice drink and swim in the ocean.

Jeju Island is a special little place (and I'm using special to indicate both wow! and "special"). Sitting in the sea south of the peninsula, it has been the favorite spot for Korean honeymooners for decades. I was reading in a guidebook that in the past, when marriages were still predominantly prearranged, Jeju had become the place for newlyweds to get to know one another and break some tension. Hotels became sort of like a sexual summer camp, offering many icebreaker activities, and most of the tourist destinations on the island are catered to being as "romantic" as possible. 

And I think Jeju Island has to have more tourist attractions per square mile than any other place on earth.  Even the "natural" beauty starts to have a Disneyland feel to it.  But, if you like nature, there are tons of beaches, several caves, a handful of waterfalls, and Korea's tallest mountain to hike (all, of course, with manicured trails and gift shops). If you like museums there's an African museum (bit out of place...), a museum of film, a folk museum, and even a teddy bear museum! If you like pure cheesiness, there are theme parks like Dino-land, Mini mini land, and Love Land.

Nick pushing the Mini-mini Tower of Pisa

Lost in the giant hedge maze

By far one of the highlights of the trip was Love Land. It's essentially a sexy sculpture park, filled with everything from tasteful renderings of the human form to full on granite pornography. Inside there is a museum cataloging whips, chains, dildos, vibrators and porn.  It would seem like a really raunchy way to spend an evening except for the fact that we're in Korea, so it just became one of the strangest we're not in Kansas anymore moments I've had since I've been here.

Apparently this isn't the only sexy sculpture park in Korea, though. A few weeks ago I heard about another one up in Gangwon-do. The story behind that sculpture park feels worth mentioning. A long time ago, there were two young, virgin lovers who lived in a small fishing village. They were going for a romantic boat ride together when the man realized he had forgotten something on shore. Logically, he dropped the woman off on a small rock in the ocean and returned to shore to retrieve the item, vowing to come back and get her. While he was away a big storm brewed up and the woman was swallowed by the ocean. For many years after that the fishermen in the village caught no fish. The oceans were dried up. One night, a group of Korean men were drinking soju in the park. One inebriated man decided it was time to relieve himself on the beach. The story goes that the vengeful woman in the ocean saw his penis, and was so happy (I mean, she did die a virgin) that she returned the fish to the sea.  So, the people built penis statues there to appease her. And they all lived happily ever after, the end.

Aahhhhhhhh, Korea.

The beaches of Jeju were quite beautiful. Actually, everything was pretty beautiful, but I really didn't notice until I got home and looked through my film because it was so unbearably hot and humid there! We couldn't walk for more than 15 seconds outside without breaking into a full-on, dripping down your face sweat. It was disgusting, and we found ourselves too dehydrated and exhausted to spend more than about 3 hours outside. During the hottest point in the day we often hibernated in our hotel room, cherishing our air conditioner, watching crazy Korean t.v. and drinking a glass of wine or scotch.

Me desperately trying to cool myself with this pitiful fan

Luckily that was the perfect type of vacation for the two of us. I mean, most of our relationship was built in the early months on our mutual love of B horror movies and Family Guy, so it was nice to just enjoy each others company and do nothing.  I was really sad to see Nick go, and even cried while I was seeing him off at the airport. But I felt like his visit helped break this year up a bit, and now it's all down hill from here!