Day 2 - Seogwipo City

Tuesday's forecast looked promising so we woke early to take full advantage. After a quick, oatmeal breakfast we set out to see Seogwipo. Most of Seogwipo's treasure are within a 15 minute walk of my place, but we had a lot of sights to see so we hopped on the bicycles. We first visited Oedolgae, a spire of rock that juts out of the surrounding waters.

My dad caught his first glimpse of the ocean as we followed a small road down between Sammaebong Oreum and Seogwipo's craggy coastline. Oedolgae itself is a quite a sight, but the area around it is equally beautiful. Cliffs, that drop straight into the ocean, are dotted with dugouts from the Pacific War and shallow waters give the water a surreal, aqua-marine color.

After a stroll around Oedolgae we met up Matt and Joy for an early lunch. The couple have become two of my closest friends on the island and I couldn't wait for my dad to meet them. We chatted over bowls of 만두국 in a small restaurant near my school. I had mentioned to my director that I might want this day off, so I went ahead and let him know I would be wandering Seogwipo with my father - the weather was just too perfect to be inside. Next we were off to see Jeongbang waterfall - Seogwipo's only waterfall which feeds directly into the ocean. We were lucky to enjoy the falls with relatively few tourists around.

We watched as the force of the water blew mist over the rock and out over the ocean before walking a bit further to Jeongbang's little brother, Sojeongban. Sojeongban is one of my favorite spots in Seogwipo. While an Olle trail runs adjacent to the small waterfall, it receives few visitors. My favorite building, an old restaurant converted into the Olle headquarters, sits atop a cliff which overlooks the falls, and in the side of the cliff is a cave - what more could you ask for?

We explored the area for a bit before getting back on the bikes and heading towards Cheonjiyeon waterfall, our third and final waterfall of the day. Here my dad got a full dose of Jeju-Do tourism - it seemed that every girl's high school in the nation had taken the morning off for a field trip to Cheonjiyeon. We managed to claw our way to a good view of the falls, but not without being asked to be in several pictures along the way. Why not? Cheonjiyeon means something along the lines of heaven and earth, and it is a truly spectacular falls surrounded by hundreds of species of plants and animals some of which only naturally occur at the site.
While I've become quite adept at ignoring tourists, it was fun to be accosted with requests to take photos with my father and random, Korean school girls. We finally managed to free ourselves from the tide of tourists and picked up a couple of maps before biking a short distance to Saeseom Island.

We walked around the small island, but spent far more time admiring the bridge and discussing the neighboring harbor. We also took one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip.

We had finished our sightseeing for the day and after a quick spaghetti dinner we headed to Hoonie's place for a weekly Korean lesson. Hoonie is one of my favorite people here in Korea. He is always happy, always helpful, and always smiling. We had a great lesson and then my father joined me for Kuk Sool Won (국술원) before we headed home after our long day of wandering.