So Long Sarayangdo… Barely

Well you know its not a trip if I don’t lose or forget something and well lets just run down the list so far:

• Visa for admittance on to flight to Korea
• QR code for quick entry through COVID screening in Incheon
• Lost my beloved M-Hat
• Brought my long sleeved Michigan shirt rather than my short sleeved one
• Forgot my gatorade packets (would have been useful on the mountain trek)

And now

I lose my passport on the way to the ferry off Sarayangdo. So the day evening ended as I decided I was tired of 10 hours in a bus with transfers and the like and I would just fly to Jeju the next day for only about $50USD. The buses by comparison would have cost me about $25… so twice the money 5x the speed.. good trade off. So I leave at 7:30 from Dandihoe Pension with the crazy lady who thinks her micro compact is a formulae one car.

Oh and I forgot to mention the main road around the island is very VERY reminicent of the Road to Hana on Maui for those that have been. For those that haven’t, just picture twists and turns, clifs, one lane corners…. death defying.

Well crazy lady (who is the sweetest woman in the world!) gets me to the ferry dock, I get out and as she drives away I can’t find my passport. Last I remmeber seeing it was on my bed next to me as the last thing I would put on my body as it was needed to get on the ferry and it also had my return ticket in it. Well now I’m screwed royally. Why? Because again my fancy eSim I bought for Korea doesn’t allow outgoing (or incoming I found out the night before) calls. Whats the purpose? Anyway, it finally dawns on me I can switch back to my US SIM card easliy and only pay $10 for the day forr unlimited calls and data. Why hadn’t I thought of this before. Well, I try to call the Pension. No answer. So now I’m really really screwed. I walk into the ticket office where between three people behind the plexiglass they can figure out I don’t have my passport and that I left it at Dandihoe. So they call over there for me and they tell me that the owners will be right back with my passport, I tell them it was on my bed last I saw it.

Well I go outside to wait and about three minutes later the ticket lady comes out and says they found my passport, called back and said they were on their way with it. While Allison Foyt screeches to a halt in front of ticket office, leaps out of the car waving my passport and yelling at the ferryman, I quickly hoist my backpack on and run over to her. She tells me in broken english it was on the seat of the car, it must have fallen out of my pocket. The shorts I had on have very shallow pockets and I shouldn’t have been wearing them on a travel day. Well, I haven’t seen any hugs in Korea yet so I refrained from that but I did later translate a message telling them how much thier help and hospitality meant to me and my trip.

Oh I forgot to mention the whole time this is going on, the ticket office told the ferry not to leave until I was onboard. So the passengers waiting are all lined up on the rail watching this chaos .. I’m soo embarassed.

Well things get smooth from here out so I wont belabor the points. But I get to the bus terminal, which I know now, buy my intercity ticket, which I now know I need, and rumble on the bus all the way to Busan (pronounced Pusan just to confuse americans LOL) I transfer to the airport shuttle train and I’m back in my world now in an airport. A quick trip through security, GREAT people here, they didn’t even have me empty out all of my camera gear and batteries for SCUBA diving and I’m in the gate area. Now a 2.5 hour wait as I had factored in a lot of extra time for disaster which was almost like asking for a lost passport.

Time comes to board for the flight ot Jeju, I am flying Korean air which is part of SkyTeam alliance so I get to board early which is nice when I’m carrying on my backpack. At Busan Airport, truly known as Gimhae, you take a shuttle bus from the gate to your plane. As I’m on the shuttle waiting for the rest of the passengers, I hear in perfectly clear english “Look what the cat dragged in”. I look up to see Montana’s (from Seoul food tour fame) mom and her boyfriend and lastly Montana himself boarding. What a small small world. I knew they were coming to Jeju for the weekend, but the odds of them being on the exact flight I was on are quite low as there are a hoard of flights going there.

Well we board and I promptly crash in my seat and fall asleep to some music. I have to say, having status is nice. It is very comforting to have the flight attendants all come up and thank you for flying with them today. Such a little thing but it does put you at ease. Off the plane I catch up to Montana and his family and we make plans to hopefully have dinner Saturday night. It seems they are staying about 45 minutes east of me on the same southern coast.

So then its out of the airport and back on another bus.. but the rain has started and its not the heavy monsoon rain but a steady driving rain. The busses are easily found at Jeju airport if not all that timely. I finally get on the bus, and start the one hour ride across the center of the island. A very lush island with one big mountain at the center. I’m sorry the thought of going to explore a mountain right now still sits sour with me so we’re going to skip that on this trip.

I get to my bus transfer location and damnit if it doesn’t say I have a 25 minute wait for my correct bus. Well 25 minutes is more like 40. So finally on the transfer bus and its a local stopping at each and every dang stop along the way. And of course since I have my backpack on I cant sit in any of the seats so I tr and use my sea legs to steady myself, but with a 16kg pack on my back and 2kg day pack on my front and a driver who loves his brakes more than Jesus, trying to stand for the trip is exhausting. Especially since my legs are killing me after the hike the day before. Well I finally make my stop, right outside another CU (which I am coming to find comfortable becuase I know I can get water, coke zero and snacks at worst). Another 100m down the street and I can see my hotel, Hotel Scarboro (turns out that is the name of this little burg). I’m a little … ok a lot … disappointed at first sight. Its a medium sized building in the middle of a field and the water is easily 1/3 to 1/2 mile away. I chose this as it was billed as beachside. Well when in Rome.

So I trudge up the front path with my backpack on. I am an anomoly becuase as it turns out you need a car to relaly tour this island. Its BIG. While they bill it as the Hawaii of Korea, I beg to differ. Everything just seems about 75% complete. The hotel is beautfiul inside, but the cafe and the lounge both 75% done with what looks to be no hope of finishing. The pool is little more than an aboveground backyard pool we’d see in the states but I plan on taking advantage of it. At check in I am WARMLY greeted and am pleased to find the clerk speaks reasonable English. I have to say I don’t remember having such a challenge with language.. I must just be getting old and crochety.

Well up to my room and it is huge and gorgeous. And while the description said ocean views .. and it did.. it was overlooking a lot of miscellaneous buildings which took a lot away from the view. But I had my own hot tub in my room … how ’bout that Spanky!

Well my only question when I checked in was where I could get something to eat. They start showing me and they say Korean Sushi and I’m sold. I am on an island, I should be eating seafood. So off I go. I find the place and I know I’m in luch when there is a tour bus in the tiny parking lot. I walk in to a loud boistrious JOHN (pronounced CHON) which is cheers. These people are three sheets already.

Well I sit down and the owner/hostess brings overr the menu which is in Korean but does have pictures. I see Tuna so I point at that.. she gestures.. no no no.. too big for you. So I use my google translate and ask what she recommends for sushi. She points to what appears to be a sampler platter but then rattles off somethign I cannot figure out. It turns out what she was saying was that she was going to scale it down for the solo eater (NOT common in Korea) and only charge me 60,000kwn which is about $40. Perfect, I hadn’t really eaten yet so I was quite hungry. I order a bottle of Mageoli that we had up in Seoul and then the festivities started.

First one huge plate with heaps of tiny dishes on it some I could regognize some not. I begin to get my chop sticks and soy and wasabi together and my hostess stops by and says more coming. Wow. So I start in on what I have and it is delicious. Turns out the only thing I really knew what I was eating was the shrimp, the garlic and the edamamae. Then the next platter comes out and its the suchi. 5 or six round mounds with all variety of sushi sliced beautifuly upon them. Dig in again I do. somewhere in the middle of all this, a fliet of cooked fish showed up.. tasted like perch whatever it was. Then, as I finish up my sushi, she again takes that platter away and brings out a portable propane burner, then two minutes later a bown of fish step which begins boiling like mad. A red mishmash of pieces parts in a broth that reminded me Danny’s eyeball soup in California. But it smells good and 1) i’m paying for it so I’m eating it and 2) I don’t like to insult anyone. So I scoop up some fish broth into the bowl and while I’m letting it cool a bowl of rice is brought over. So I mix the rice with the soup and damn if it isn’t fantastic. Although eating soup around the tiny bones floating in the mix is a pain in the ass I do know that Koreans do not expect that everything on your table will be finished, so I am not worried about eating it all but I do have two bowls. At this point I’m picturing a scene from Monty Python the Meaning of Life.. “its only wafer thin…”

Well I pay my bill, roll my way up the hill to the CU and buy some snacks, some coke zero and then head back to my room where I hook up my tablet to the TV and watch several episodes of M*A*S*H and then the movie AnnA which I will have to finish this afternoon sometime as I fell asleep before it was over.

Oh, and I heard from Katleyn and she is doing great!

More tomorrow gentle reader.