Grand Hotel Jeju Jeju City

... on Mt. Halla-san. Anyway, after the break we made our way to the top...the last 1 km being through bitterly cold wind and mist (it was prolly about 45 degrees F up there; you are about 2000 meters up I think), and when we got to the top after enduring the staircase from hell, we were rewarded with....NOTHING!! Not a damn thing! You couldn't see ****! And we even checked the weather reports to make sure we would have a good climb. I swear there is absolutely no accountability in ...

... after about 10 minutes and when we finally arrived at our stop the sun was out. We stopped for lunch and changed into shorts and t-shirts before we set out to climb the 'peak'. Sunrise peak is a beautiful crater on the edge of the coast. Apparently when the sun rises it comes up directly behind it so on a clear day you get an amazing sunrise. Of course we were there long after the sun was up, but the view of the small town at the base and the island ...

... had tonsillitis. He prescribed 5 days of antibiotics and gave me an IV as well. I lay on a bed and slept while the IV dripped into my body. 15 minutes later my throat felt much better. All in it cost me 16,000 WON for the Dr. and medication.

Back at the hostel I went back to sleep and drifted into dream land. In my dream I was climbing some scaffolding and was shocked as something grabbed my leg. I awoke and found Matty pinching my toe. A short while later Sarah and I were ...

Today got up and decided that it was time to find some other means of transportation so we found our red beauty. THE SCOOTER. We said bye to the front desk lady and headed to the scooter shop couple blocks away. We called to see where exactly where it was but the guy kept telling us to get in a taxi. We got in one then figured out is was a short walk more but it was ...

... They were too shy to talk to me at first so I had to ease them into the games and then they did and it was adorable. The boys were boys and got really tired of the class for the last ten minutes but that will happen. I need to be able to speak a little Korean so that we can start playing games. I don't know if I'll get bored of this teaching stuff, I mean if I do the math I have a lot of days left to teach and I don't know how to handle that.

... syllables to the word to write it correctly. Hmm...not sure if you follow that. Like, for McDonalds. There's no real way to write the /lds/ sound combination. They have the sounds, but written it doesn't make sense, so they add the extra syllable "Mik ka don ald sa." Makes more sense written in Hongeul. BUT!! The spoken language follows suit, and therefore is butchered.

Blah blah blah...sorry. I'm not sure that's a correct conclusion, but that's one of ...

... few places where renting a car is almost essential) with lots of touristy things to do. In all honesty though, it's a great place to vacation. The tallest of South Korea's mountains, volcanic Halla-san, is the central, ever present monument located at the center of the island. Furthermore, the beaches and the ocean are gorgeous. Outside of Korea, it is a virtual hidden paradise and was named so by Newsweek. Helen and I only visited for three days, but I ...

... of Pusan. It was possible to take a direct flight from Japan, but the time for departure was in the afternoon and inconvenient for us. Anyway, as soon as we arrived in Jeju, we picked up a few brochures at the TI office in the airport, which was very useful during the travel, and headed for Manjangul Cave, one of the world heritage sites. Actually, we didn't have a guidebook and so we almost passed by the bus terminal where we took a bus for Manjangul Cave. Manjangul ...

... We all gathered at the Rocky Mountain Tavern (Canadian bar in Seoul) and partied like the pure bread Canadians we are. In early July we celebrated yours truly's birthday. I turned the big 27 on July 10th. It was bitter sweet as I love birthdays, but the idea of approaching the huge 3-0 is fast approaching reality! Someday I guess i'll have to figure it all out, sooner then later! In mid July we went to Daechon beach on the South East Coast of Korea for what ...

... and by morning I was doing the same. This all despite the fact that we were supposed to be flying out of Busan's Gimhae airport, about an hour's drive away! Actually, having given it a bit more thought, I'm pretty sure it was the ice cream we got at a dodgy little "convenience" (more like an ancient mom-'n-pop) store after dinner. The dinner itself - a classic Korean barbecue - didn't seem like something that would run a freight train through our intestines, but ...