In Which We Do Some Stuff

So, over the past week or so we've done a few things, and I haven't gotten around to posting. Part of the reason for that is that Brandon Sanderson's newest book, Steelheart, came out, and I had to read it (I thought it was pretty awesome, by the way) and part of that reason is that I've been lazy. But, the problem will only continue to get bigger if I keep waiting, because we'll do more stuff and then the idea of posting it will be daunting. So, here I am.

Anyway, the first thing was last Thursday, I think, when we went to finish the Olle trail we did most of before our trip to Seoul. We decided to run for the first 20 minutes for our daily run, which was pleasant. I love running in the morning, and it's nice to run in a new place. I also took a few pictures. They are as follows:

Ocean!

Some interesting...art? We weren't sure.

The wall of the Jeju Fort, parts of which have been standing since the 1400s! Awesome!

Inside of the Jeju fort.

We also found a kickawesome Daiso (the Korean version of the dollar store, kind of) over in that area that is huge and had a bunch of western candy! It was a fun little morning outing, and the more I see of olle trails, the more I want to do.

The second thing we did that is worth mentioning we did last Saturday. We took a trip out to Hallim Park, one of the main tourist attractions on the island. I've made the distinction before for places like national parks and things like that, saying that some (like Zion) are more "do" places, and others (like Yellowstone) are more "see" places. Hallim Park definitely fits into the second category. But, the nice thing was that we went at the end of September, after the end of peak tourist season, so we weren't having to fight armies of Chinese people to see everything. It was a pretty good place. They had a lot of different things to see, even a couple caves! Here are some pictures:

Really big snake

We thought this was a hummingbird at first, but then realized it was a moth. I just looked it up, turns out it's call a "hummingbird moth." Who knew?

These flowers matched Nancy's shirt.

Cave!

Weird statue in the cave.

Cool rock.

Nancy with a cool rock.

Bonsai Tree!

We wanted to just use our self-timer for this picture, but a lady insisted that she take it for us.

Ostrich!

Cool waterfall.

We threw food to these coy

Dinosaur topiaries!

So, that was pretty cool. Today we wanted to rent a car and drive around the island and see a bunch of cool stuff. However, that didn't end up working out because it turns out we need to plan ahead for that sort of thing. So, instead of that we took a bus out to Manjanggul Cave, which is really Manjang Cave, because I'm pretty sure that "gul" means cave in Korean. Anyway, this is one of the most touted things that the island has to draw people to it. You'd really think the bus would get you closer. We had to walk 2.4 kilometers from the bus stop to the cave. I didn't really mind, but it's the principle of the thing. Once we got to the cave, which is actually a huge lava tube, it was pretty cool, though. It is like 15 kilometers long all-told, but only 1 kilometer is open to the public. It's supposed to be one of the biggest lava tubes in the world. I was pretty impressed. I also got to fool around with my camera in night mode, so I had fun. Here are some pictures:

Cool fountain (not in the cave)

Cave! This was a night-shot.

This rock is called a lava raft. It's like the rocks you see in cartoons when there's lava and people have to jump from rock to rock.

Another night shot. I like this one.

Another night shot. The rock we're next to is supposed to look like Jeju. I can actually see that one.

The Manjanggul Lava Pillar. I'm pretty pleased with this picture. The pillar was pretty awesome, it's supposed to be the largest in the world.

Walkway.

 Right down the road from the Manjanggul Lava Tube sits the Jeju Maze Park. We had to go. I've wanted to go since I found out it existed. It was actually a bit smaller than I thought it would be, and it wasn't really possible to get lost. There weren't a lot of dead ends and hardly any forks, so once you got going you really just kept walking and you eventually got to the middle. It was fun anyway, though Nancy wasn't pleased with the number of spiders. I had kind of anticipated that. Here are some pictures:

You ring the bell when you win.

Anyway, so that made for a pretty pleasant day. I should probably mention that we had today off because it's a holiday today, like Korean Foundation Day. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm sure Nancy's dad will post a link for me later. At any rate, those are our recent happenings. This is Captain Danger out.