In Which We Find Some Kickawesome Waves. And Then They Find Our Stuff.

So, I figured that it was about time I got up and posted about what we did this past weekend, because if I don't do it now, too many things will start to pile up (especially since we're going to Japan this Friday! (Boo-yah.)) and then the thought of blogging to catch up will be too daunting and so I'd either have to quit blogging altogether or else just not tell you about it. And I think that neither of those are real options. So, here we go. This past weekend Nancy and I headed down to Seogwipo again. It was a fun trip. The weather was in and out of cloudy and sunny, but was pretty uniformly ridiculously hot. Our main objective was Jungmun Beach, one of the most popular beaches on the island. It was pretty popular, but I'll get to that. When we got to the area of the beach, I realized that the third of the really famous waterfalls on Jeju-do was right nearby, so we decided to go and check it out. This waterfall is actually three waterfalls, but the topmost one only flows after rain. We went and looked at it anyway, and it was cool. Of course, this being Korea, Cheonjeyeon Falls (that's the name of all three of them) has had a big complex of stuff built around it, including a good luck fountain and a super cool bridge with a bunch of nymphs on the side. Here are some pictures of our visit to the falls:

Third Waterfall

I really like this picture of Nancy

Nancy with the bridge.

First waterfall. It's not flowing, but it still looks pretty cool.

Second waterfall

Nancy on the bridge

This whole area just screams canyon, but unfortunately
swimming here is very much against the law.

Nancy with the good luck fountain.

The idea was to stand in front of one of the heads and throw your coin
at the money bag in the middle for luck in that area. Nancy chose
the Mandarin Duck, for love. She missed.

I chose the boar, for wealth. I also missed. Great.

So, after we had squandered all of our hopes for luck in the future (we could have kept trying, but we only had 100 won coins, which is about a dime, and we didn't want to spend too much on a fountain) we decided it was ridiculously hot and we should head down to the beach.That proved to be a bit harder than we anticipated, because the place where we thought the beach was wasn't actually the beach's location, and we ended up having to take a whole bunch of stairs down the mountain to get there, but we finally arrived. It was a pretty large beach, but they allowed you to swim in only a small part of the water and the rest was for surfers I guess? We weren't sure. Maybe it was that small so the lifeguards could keep track of it better. Whatever the reason, it was enough space, I guess, and the waves were awesome! So much better than any of the other beaches we've been to. I don't know if it was the time of day or what, but these waves were sweet. There's just something amazing about standing in waist-deep water and seeing a wave that's like twice your height screaming in to try to drown you. We decided to splurge and rent a tube here for the first time, and it was only 8000 won (about eight dollars), so that really wasn't bad, and it was worth it. We went out to the buoys and held on to the rope and then when a big wave came in and broke right on us, we would let go and let the wave carry us in to shore. It was awesome. As the afternoon wore on, the tide came in, and what we didn't realize while we were out on the water was that it was actually coming in and soaking our towels. By the time Nancy went in to lay out, our towels were soaked and thoroughly coated in sand. My backpack got it a little bit, but my tablet (which I had brought so I could read on the bus) and the camera, as well as Nancy's cell phone, were fine. We just had to figure out a good way to get really wet and really, really sandy towels home without ruining my backpack. We figured it out, and overall, the afternoon at the beach was a great success! The only thing that detracted from it was the lady who was bathing her child naked at the showers they had to wash the sand off. Anyway, here are some pictures (not of the naked kid, that would be creepy).

I'm in this picture and the next one. I'm the big fat white guy.

A wave came in while I was taking the picture. The water was cold.

At any rate, it was a fun trip, and we also got to see the other side of the island on our bus ride. Plus, we drove past Jeju Dinosaur Land! Yeah, I'm pretty sure we must go there. Well, that's all I have for now. This is Captain Danger out.