Jeju Island, South Korea

I had plenty of time to explore South Korea and decided to hop on a quick (and cheap) flight to Jeju Island which is an island just south of the mainland. I thankfully arranged to stay at a hostel which provided a free airport pickup because the island is huge! It also seems that they aren't used to too many non Korean speakers because I couldn't seem to communicate with anyone outside my hostel. 

The island is absolutely beautiful. It's rocky and mountainous. Unfortunately the weather wasn't good enough for the 11 hour hike up Mount Halla but it was good enough to explore a bit. Check it out: 

 I have no idea who this lady is - she just jumped infront of the shot:

I had a great time in Jeju and if it were a little warmer I could have stayed for much longer. Jeju was also the spot of yet another small world story. While I was in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) about three months ago I randomly met 2 guys (traveling separately) from New Hampshire. One of them, Glenn, was on a short vacation but teaching English in South Korea on Jeju Island. I actually left Kuala Lumpur without exchanging information with Glenn and just figured our paths wouldn't cross again. Then, two months later I was sitting in an internet cafe in Thailand with my friend Adam when I saw a notification from facebook. I had written on a hostel wall (the hostel wanted the guests to write on the wall, no worries) and was unfortunately tagged because of a grammatical error. I started laughing hysterically - enough to grab Adam's attention. Eventually he made me tell him the story of why I was laughing so hard. I showed him the picture of my grammatical error and of Glenn's writing next to mine, clearly fixing the mistake. Adam then said, "Glenn? Glenn from New Hampshire? I know that dude. I met him in Seoul like 5 months ago!" Turns out, yes, it was the same Glenn. And, yes, they had met when Adam started his trip in South Korea. Adam was friends with Glenn on facebook so I immediately friended him myself. Fast forward a couple months and I caught up with Glenn in Jeju Island, South Korea. Even though I was over an hour late to meet Glenn because I got terribly lost he was still kind enough to take me for a ride on his motorcyle around the island a bit and take me out to dinner. Glenn is one great guy and incredibly nice to deal with my inability to navigate Jeju Island. Gotta love those New Hampshire dudes. Anyway, it's one hell of small world story and I hope to run into him again some time soon. 

It's about that time to move on again! South Korea was amazing and now I know why all my friends have taught English here and called it home for a couple of years. It's been real, Asia. Now time for Europe.