Jeju Island

April 12th
Jeju Island, Korea

Today was my second visit to Jeju Island, off the coast of South Korea. This time, however, we tendered at the island and were located way at the south end, so a completely different area than my first visit. The plan for the day, and for every Korea here on out, was to hang out with my Korean speaking friends who seem to know a thing or two about the country. I got off with a group of six, two of whom spoke Korean, and we went off to find some good food. Unfortunately, the port was fairly barren. There was, however, a restaurant very near to where the tenders dropped us off, so that was where we went. This was a usual Korea restaurant, one where you sit on the floor, and one where you cook some of the food on something like a grill sunken into the center of these long rectangular tables. I let me friends do all the talking, and ended up with some absolutely great food. We had two different types of pork that we cooked up at the table, along with some great side dishes to go a long with them. The procedure was to first take a lettuce leaf, put some pork on it, then top that with whatever was on the table, and roll it up into a mini taco and eat. It was really delicious and exactly what I was looking for in traditional Korean food. We also had a great cold soup, of which I have no idea how to even start to explain aside from the fact it was cold and had thin noodles.
When the group finished up at this place, the next thing to do was find a grocery store where two of the people could restock their food supplies. On the ship, there is something called the “slop chest”, a place that opens every so often where you can buy junk food, snacks, toiletries, and whatever else might be essential to cruise life. Two people in the group ran the slop chest and needed to increase the inventory, so we all went to a store where they bought the necessary items, including about 40 cans of Pringles. We were lucky enough to get a ride to the store from someone at the restaurant who made the offer to one of my Korean-speaking friends, so we accepted and he drove us there, very nice of him. Then, we had a completely different guy drive us back to the ship, again for no other reason than to just be nice. We were all very appreciative and accepted the free ride for us and our countless bags of junk food. There wasn’t much more in the city, so we were glad to get back to the ship. I had a couple big band sets that night, which was the last night of the cruise. Usually, everyone is out on the last night, but for whatever reason, there was no one at our sets. And by no one, I mean no more than 4 people at the first set, and 1 guy who slept through the entire second set. I’m serious though, we had one guy in the audience for the entire second set, and he had fallen asleep some time during the first set, and never woke up. He was still sleeping after I’d packed my stuff up and left, and yes, he was still breathing. But how nayone can sleep through a big band set, I’ll never know, but he was a pro.
That about does it for the day though, so I was pleased. It’s nice knowing people that can explain the culture and communicate with the people, this surely won’t be the only time I find such people to leave the ship with. Thanks for reading and have a great one!