Back to the Beach

After staying the night in Jeju-si for the premiere of Star Trek, I had an afternoon luncheon with all the other GnB teachers from around the island.

I woke up a bit early, having slept on a bed designed for a small korean child, and decided to walk about the town a bit. It was such a beautiful day out, so after grabbing a sandwich from Paris Baguette and a coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, I walked down to the harbour with Naomi.

We spotted this ridiculously cute dog in a pet shop window; I couldn't help but take some video of his efforts to escape.



Naomi had other plans, so she ran off to 이호해수욕장 (Iho beach) to play some volleyball. Down along the harbour front were numerous tents setup; I'm not exactly sure what for, but it looked like just a mix of random companies/products/schools doing promotional stints.



Walking along the water, I spotted some haenyo out and about, which threw me off a bit because of their proximity to the city center. Above me were planes on their landing approach to Jeju; it was a constant string of one after another.



My luncheon was at 1:00 pm at a banquet hall inside the Ramada hotel. At around 12:40, I walked on in to take an early tour of the hotel's main floor.



I wasn't too surprised to find a casino, since many of the major hotels in Jungmun have them as well.



Once I met up with my co-teacher and director, we signed in and walked into the hall which was on the 8th floor.



Compared to the Ballantine's buffet, it was pretty good. The selection was not bad, they had actual cheese, which was comprised of brie, cheddar, and mozzarella; salmon, chicken, pork, pasta, chop-chey, gim-sim, mandu, and even sushi were available. I was particularly impressed with the desert table which featured some exquisite bread pudding.

After the lunch was a speech, which was going to be all in Korean, so I ducked out early with some other teachers. We took greater advantage of the day by heading to Hamdeok beach 함덕.



I went for a swim for the first time since the penguin swim back in January; it was marvelous. The waves weren't very big, but it felt great just to be out there.

I also played this really interesting and fun game invented by some foreigners, called "dink". It's a rough form of bocce, where players have two big rocks and attempt to get it as close to the small rock as possible. It's a gentlemen's game, so oldest goes first, unless you have points. You get one point for the closest rock, two if the two closest are yours.

I didn't fare too well, but it's a fun game to pass time on the beach and in the sun.