Jeju Island!

This weekend, I turned the big 29!! I can't believe how close I am to 30! I decided the celebrate my first weekend as a 29 year old on the beautiful island of Jeju-do in South Korea! It's called the Honeymoon island, because thousands of Korean newlyweds come here to celebrate their new marriage!

Here's Aaron and I, (not on our honeymoon!) ready to board the plane! (Notice, I brought along my new neck pillow from Ella!

Those of you who know me know how much of a planner I was when I lived in the US! I have turned over a new leaf living in Asia! Aaron and I did our planning on the 45 minute flight to the island! haha!

Our first view of Jeju-do from the window!

We had read about Mr. Lee's bike shop and how you could rent a scooter there WITHOUT a Korean driver's license! I knew, right when we pulled up in the taxi that this red one had to be ours for the weekend!

It felt as if we were riding a vespa through the streets of Italy! Here we are in the headlight reflection!

We set out to go South, to the far end of the island - approximately 40 kilometers! The sun was going down to our right and causing all of the grass and trees to illuminate in hundreds of bright shades of green! It was stunning... This was the road we drove. Highway 1193 (Sorry for the blurriness!)

Within about 15 minutes of driving the scooter, we both began to feel the crisp coolness of the wind rushing into our faces as we winded through these roads! What we didn't expect was for the temperature to drop as fast as it did! I was wearing a short sleeve shirt, and Aaron was as well. First my toes began to feel frostbitten and I asked Aaron, "How cold do you think it is?" His response, "Close to 30!" YIKES huh?! We literally had to stop every 3 kilometers just to thaw out!

At one point, Aaron pulled over and tied one of his T-shirts around his face because it was so cold! I was doubled over laughing at this point! Partially at the way Aaron looked and partially because he had taken off his black socks and put them on my feet along with my rainbow flip flops!

On one of our "thawing out" stops, we walked the grounds of this gorgeous temple!

Then, it was time for dinner! Good ole' Samgyupsal at the only restaurant still open in the area!

After dinner, we went into the little market next door to the restaurant to pick out some food for breakfast! Aaron was calling me Bob the Builder because I had put on his button-up shirt because it was so cold and I had socks with sandals on... Oh, and I happened to still be wearing my helmet! He thought holding a bottle of Whiskey, for the picture, would top it off!

We found a ghetto motel (the only one in the ghost town area that we had found ourselves!) My room was connected to the kitchen... kinda strange! But for $10.00 a night, I can't complain! There's something about staying at "shanti's" like this that make vacations so much more interesting!

I found this gigantic comb in my room and had to take a picture!

In the morning, we jumped on the scooter and headed east towards a couple waterfalls we had read about! First stop was this grassy knoll and view of an island...

I was attempting to look like one of those girls at the car shows!

Then we stopped at the beautiful Cheonjiyeon Waterfall and walked along a path with gorgeous views, like this one!

The bridge near Cheonjiyeon Falls

Cheonjiyeon Falls...

The island is full of Dol Hareubang, which are statues of human figures with big noses, it's believed that rubbing the noses of these statues brings women fertility! Notice neither of us are touching the nose! haha! :)

More Jeju-do views...

Then we jumped on the scooter and headed over to Jeongbang Falls, the tallest waterfall on the island, and the only waterfall in all of Asia that falls directly into the ocean!

There were hundreds of beautiful grassy knolls with tiny yellow flowers!

My mom always taught me to never let my gas tank go below 1/4 tank! I obviously didn't take her advice on this trip, because we ran out of gas! We were riding on a barren rode with no one around, and amazingly, we happened to run out of gas right in front of this JOHN DEER maintenance shop! Aaron went in and talked with the guy, and low and behold, he put gas in our scooter as "service" which means FREE! Thank you Jesus!

I love this picture because I look so HUGE!

We decided that we needed to get back to the North end of the island before the sun went down, since our flight was in the morning, so we headed up route 1118 to Hamdeok Beach!

We found a delicious Mexican restaurant to have my birthday lunch at! mmm, Mexican food! I haven't had it since I was home in February!

We topped off the night by riding the scooter over to a beachside carnival and eating Mc Donalds cheeseburgers, which are surprisingly more delicious than I remember! After eating, we heard a lot of traditional music coming from the beach area, so we walked over to check it out! Turns out, we happened to be there just in time to watch the Buddha Birthday Parade!

We had a wonderful time in Jeju, enjoying the sights, eating yummy food, and scooting around the island! We both wish we could have stayed longer and checked out all it had to offer! Maybe another time! :) For now, we'll just enjoy the memories we made there!