The morning after I was on-boarded in Medidata’s Seoul office with my New York manager, I met up with Alma and Chris (long-time family friends) and boarded a plane for Jeju, an island south of the mainland known as the Korean Hawaii. Jeju is tropical, volcanic, and famous for its oranges and peanuts. The world’s busiest air route is actually between Seoul and Jeju, which you can see if you look at an air traffic map. 

Seogwipo and U-do

On our first day, I met up with my friend Dawon, whom I met when I studied abroad at Yonsei University last year. We visited U-do, another island off the coast of Jeju, visited a tourist-y cafe, and ate oranges and peanut ice cream. Later in the night we joined Alma and Chris for noodles and makgeolli, a traditional Korean alcohol that’s light and yeasty. 

Hallasan Hike

We woke up early to catch a ride from Alma and Chris’ B&B host, Beanie (sp?), to the base of Hallasan, the mountain in the center of Jeju Island. We hiked to the peak, at 2000m above sea level, in about five hours, stopping to eat oranges and snacks and drink juice on the way. We took one detour to check out a smaller crater and watch clouds rolling over the side of the mountain. The last third of the hike was grueling- for about an hour and half the trail was just stone steps to the peak. The crater at the top was massive and beautiful, and I wonder if we could’ve seen mainland Korea if  we had climbed the opposite side. The hike down was another four hours, and at the end I felt like I had broken both of my legs. Because the three of us were exhausted, we spent the evening on the floor of my airbnb, where Chris taught me how to play blackjack and poker and showed us some magic tricks. 🙂 

Jeju City

Today was very laid back- the three of us were exhausted from our hike, and only went out at night in Jeju City, on the northern side of the island. After some beer and fries, we went to the casino at our hotel. Only foreigners are allowed at the casinos in Korea, so virtually everyone else there was Chinese. After losing about $10 playing slots, I went to bed, and the next morning Chris and Alma flew to Taiwan, and I returned to Seoul!

PS. When I visited my grandmother Muddy in Indiana a couple of weeks ago, we had a really hard time finding Krispy Kreme donuts. Behold the first thing I saw at Incheon International Airport when I landed in Seoul: 

Dracula is also touring the country, which has to be a sign, right?