Journey to Jeju Island

First my apologies for not blogging for a couple of days – we only have the internet in the lobby, and we have been on the go from early to very late at night... (thanks for your text Kim reminding me to pull my finger out!).

Sunday – this morning we spent roaming around Sinchon (the suburb of Seoul where we are staying). Some of the dad’s stayed at the hotel and played with the kids, while some of the mums went off to explore the local shops. The huge Hyundai Department Store is very close, as is a number of other department stores and shops. At noon we met up again, checked out of our hotel, and went out for lunch. At 2pm we met Sunny (our Korean guide) and she loaded us and our luggage on to the bus for the ½ hour trip out to Gimpo Domestic airport. At 4pm we boarded our Korean Air A300-600 plane bound for Jeju Island. After a short 1 hour flight, we landed in sub tropical Jeju, off the south coast of Korea.

Rachel, our INKAS guide for Jeju Island greeted us as we came off the plane.

As we walked outside of the airport, we came across this beautifully dressed young lady, bowing to all the traffic, and politely directing the people across the pedestrian crossing. We were all mesmerised by her graceful and respectful movements.

It didn’t take long before we started seeing what we had been looking forward to seeing – cherry blossoms. They are everywhere – beautiful pink clouds of blossom gracing the sidewalks and hillsides. Rachael mentioned that the blossoms are only this good for about one week per year, so we timed our visit beautifully.

The bus ride from the airport was almost an hour to our home for the next three nights on Jeju – Hanwha Resort. Lily insisted on sitting up the back of the bus with the kids, and was almost asleep by the time we got there, so Deb and Luke kindly offered to read to her to keep her awake.

As soon as we arrived we caught up with our friends from Ballarat (the Reddicks) and Bendigo (the Turpies) and Mrs Lee & Johnny from Melbourne. It was great to see them all again. The kids were all very excited to see one another, and much hilarity followed as they ran up and down the resort corridors ‘catching up’. Then it was dinner in the restaurant, and off to bed with some weary children. The rooms are great – 2 bedrooms – one with a bed, and the other with two futons/mats for the kids. The pillows are very strange – small and filled with what feels like rice – ah Korea, a new experience every day!