Just Right for Exploring

It's the weekend and Jon suggests we drive and find a nice place to have coffee. We settle on a Starbucks that looks out on a white sandy beach to an island off coast.  A man enters and motions towards the chair next to us. We indicate that it is free and he settles down with a children bucket, the kind used to make sand castles.  He is totally absorbed in its contents and I can't help but be curious as to what he has caught, and why he has decided to bring it in for coffee. 

As we head out along the beach path, we notice most visitors choosing to explore the tide pools, rather than lie in the sand.  This is an active beach. Workers are taking down sun shades and pulling up stakes. The life guard is blowing his whistle, keeping everyone
safe.  The loud speaker and posted signs warn of strong wind and currents. This is the last day of the season and the summer holidays are drawing to a close.  But we are drawn to the water, watching the waves crash over the black rock and create clear pools on the white sand. The sky is brilliant blue one minute and then stormy the next. The wind blows the fine sand everywhere and also turns the giant wind turbines located just off shore. It is a major producer of energy on Jeju but also blows down trees and bends the bamboo nearly double.  Just as the black volcanic rock is used to build walls around the farms, so it used to farm the sea.  We can see some of Jeju's traditional stone tidal traps where fish are caught with bare hands. The shore line is quite shallow here, but today only a heron wades in the lagoon like waters.  Apart from the gigantic washed up jellyfish, dangers include reported sinkholes that act like sand traps and pull swimmer down.  I don't need a translation app to tell me that 수영 금지 means 'No Swimming'. But in my opinion this beach is worth a visit even if you are not swimming.

Jon and I have not been on Jeju long enough to have our favorite spots, there is still so much we haven't seen and we are still working our way up the west coast.  We try to keep to the blue line painted on the side of the road.  This denotes the Olle trails which are marked for hikers to see the island.  And whenever we see something spectacular or unusual, we stop. Sometimes there is no obvious parking, but usually we see other cars parked in the weedy verge.  Jeju is just the right size to have plenty of new places to explore without being too big to be overwhelming to the newcomer. 

In this case we passed a town we had been to before,
but this time we ignored the navigation app's directions to go home and came upon some new stores, a full service gas station to fill up our tank for the first time, and something calling itself an UNESCO Global Geopark.  Although there was no parking, and the visitor's center had long since been closed, we found some posted information as to the formation of Suweolbong peak. According to geologist a very old volcano sunk creating a ring of islands and a shallow lagoon. From the look out post on the top you can just see the ring made up of small islands and a wall of cliffs along the shore. According to legend a brother and sister climbed the cliffs to pick a medicinal herb that only grows there for their
sick mother.

Suwol slipped and fell to her death while her brother shed tears that formed the waterfalls.  I have only explored the southwest of the island, but I am finding this to be a common story of tragic death and shed tears around these parts. 

Fortunately it is both easy to buy or rent a car on Jeju, and difficult to get lost. The main mountain, Hallasan,  will always tower above in the clouds, and its slopes all end at the sea.  There are few straight highways, but you can always enjoy a ride with no fixed destination down country lanes flanked by black stone walls and farmers fields, or wind your way up the coast stopping to wonder... while braving the wind off the sea and sand.