Happy Lunar New Year!

We have just returned from our long awaited vacation on Jeju Island for the Lunar New Year vacation. We travelled with 4 of our friends: Whit and Lindsay (friends from Black Mountain), Angie (Canadian friend), and Chris (British friend, and recent futon attachment for 5 Saturdays or so in a row). If you look at a map of Korea, Jeju Island is the big Island just south of Korean mainland. We took a 2 and a half hour bus ride to the southern tip of Korea, then hopped on a 3 hour ferry to the island. Jeju is an Island made up of beautiful beaches, old volcanoes, and orange trees. In the summer it is vacation central for Koreans, but as we found, in the winter tourists are almost scarce.

For our first full day on Jeju, we hired a driver to take us around the island. He turned out to be quite a character, and he could speak English (always a huge bonus). We were able to tour almost the whole island in a day. We climbed to the top of two non-active volcanoes, one next to the ocean, and one on the center of the island. We froliched in orange trees, and ate as many as we could fit into our bellies for about $2. We walked in one of a series of lava tubes (caves) found throughout the island. That day was also Lunar New Year's Day, so almost everything on the island was closed. We ended up eating lunch in the back of a supermarket, standing around a food preparation counter with our cups of ramen noodles.

The next couple of days were spent mostly playing on the beach. The temerature, though much colder than prefered was quite pleasent when the sun was out. One night we had a barbeque and campfire on the rocky beach behind our resort. There were several times during our trip, surrounded by friends and the farmiliarity of nature, that we were able to forget for a while that we were on the other side of the world from our home. It was a very nice feeling! We can't wait to go back when the weather is warmer! Ethan wore his swimsuit under his clothes for the entire first day, but alas, it was even too cold for my polar-bear husband to swim.

Happy Lunar New Year!!!! If your New Year's revolutions, haven't exactly come into reality yet, here's your opportunity to make them again!