I've probably covered them all individually through different posts, but as there are constant reminders to me almost every day it's often good to re-cap issues you might encounter:
Language
Probably one of the biggest issues; spoken or written, unless you pick up a phrase book or are in an extremely touristy area, chances are that you're going to relying on some excellent pronunciation, or hope that the people in the area speak a little bit of English to make things easier.
Culture and customs
Asia is very different to Europe so some things come across as a bit of a culture shock - even from country to country. People don't tend to wait patiently (there are often signs up reminding people that they have to queue) and there are often instances where your personal space isn't as 'personal' as it usually is.
Food
An easy one to tackle in some places, but not others. Often crosses with the language as if you can't read the script of whatever country you're in, it can be hard to order from places that either don't have menus or pictures on the wall.
Weather
Less of a problem and more something you just have to get used to. At the start of my journey the climate was extremely warm, even in early February, and many of my days were spent totally in the exposure of direct sunlight. Even when it's not incredibly sunny, the humidity can take it out of you.
Being taken advantage of
A common problem in countries where they see tourists as walking ATMs. It's the same in England I'm sure, although I seem to have experienced attempts to take advantage of my more often since coming to Asia. This is more related to shops, markets and taxis - I'm not generalising this with all of the previously mentioned places that I have come across, but if can often be beneficial to know how much something is worth, or having a willingness to barter.
Accomodation
Standards of hotels are different in different countries. Most hotel bathrooms that I have encountered in Asia have been wet-rooms, which can seem like an odd occurrence if you have never encountered one before.
I've found that on my travels groups of these factors tend to work alongside one another, and I don't think I've ever had all of them be an issue at the same time, but in the same way, I feel like one of them has always been a constant wherever I have been.
In Korea I think the food and language come across as the biggest issues for me, and perhaps if I hadn't been here before then some of the customs would take a significant amount of time to get used to.
It's important to adapt wherever you are though, and not assume that everything will be like it would be if you were on a European holiday. I've discussed before how the ability to be open-minded can be key to your success, and I feel like that advice has served me well on all my visits throughout this journey.
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In my last couple of destinations I haven't really made plans about what to do each day until the morning of, though I have obviously considered a few options and thought about the main things that I would like to see or do. I consider myself to be quite an organised person, and when I first started my journey, I'd plan out each and every day on the first night I arrived, but I found that quite a lot of time I was carrying activities over, so now I just try to see what I can do day-by-day and it's been working well so far.
On the bus yesterday I got a complimentary copy of a really good magazine about Jeju Island and its many activities. On the front it said 'free' although I think perhaps that their version of the word, and mine were a little different as it made its way into my bag!
As I watched basketball this morning on one of the many digital TV channels that I discovered that the hotel has, I planned to stay around the Seogwipo area today and see a couple of local sights. I think I mentioned yesterday that most of my activities will be outdoors based (good job the sun reappeared today) and even though it's an island, there are lots of things to do in Jeju with most of them requiring me to take a bus to the north or east.
I sorted the stuff I needed into my bag and headed outside into the sun. Whether it was just dark with the curtains closed in my room, or just my eyes being particularly sensitive, but it seemed really bright out. I walked back in the direction of the bus yesterday and it was quite a contrast to look out over the top of the harbour area today.....
....compared with yesterday....
The sun certainly made everything look a lot more impressive, and I was glad because it should pretty much be mandatory when you're on an tropical island that the sun shines all of the time.
My first destination was actually the furthest away from my hotel, and about thirty-five minutes walk away - according to my calculations based on absolutely nothing.
Having experienced Busan World Cup Stadium in the flesh when I arrived in Wednesday, I decided to pay the one in Jeju a visit seeing as it is relatively close to my hotel.
The stadium has a capacity of around 35,000 people, though the team who play their home fixtures there attract crowds of around 5,000, so very similar to Busan. Jeju United are one of the Korean league's newest teams and moved from Buncheon in 2006 to take their place just off the peninsular. They finished runners-up in 2010, and are currently flying high in 5th place in the table.
Unfortunately there are no midweek fixtures so I won't be able to go and watch them play whilst staying here, but I still wanted to go and see the stadium because yesterday we went past it on the bus and it looked pretty impressive.
It took quite a lot of walking to get there, although from a distance you can see the supports of the stadium in the distance so it wasn't very difficult to navigate to:
Once I got to the orange coloured stadium I was immediately impressed by the sail effect covering over the main stand:
From a distance it looked good, and it was slightly set back from the which gives it a unique feeling. All the gates were closed so I did a lap taking some pictures through the fence as I went round. Due to it's position you could see down onto the pitch, and at one point I thought I could see some people walking around the stands:
I wasn't aware that there were tours of the stadium as it looked very empty, but I decided to walk around to what I thought must be the main entrance, and sure enough free of charge you were invited in to come and walk around. Naturally I made the most of my opportunity, and it was a very cool feeling to get close to the pitch:
Doing a lap of the empty stadium allowed me to get a real sense of how this place must have been thirteen years ago when great teams like Germany and Brazil graced the pitch, and I'm a sucker for a stadium so even though I couldn't quite get down to ground level, it was quite an experience.
I'm not sure whether you were just supposed to walk around the whole thing, but I did anyway before setting off back on my way.
As I was walking to the stadium I had kept seeing brief sights of the sea, and I figured that there might be some kind of coastal path so I took a slightly different route to get back. It wasn't quite by the sea, and ran parallel to the road I'd walked upon on the way there before eventually the two joined up and I continued back up the steep hill back in the direction I'd just come from.
My next stop was actually along the coastline, which was partly behind my thinking for wanting to get a little bit closer to the cliff edge. There are many famous geological sights on Jeju with its volcanic history, but one of the most notable is called Oedolgae Rock which sits just out at shore and has a little park built near it (which I think I'd seen on the way) which allows you to get a good view.
Oedolgae is a twenty-meter or so pillar which is believed to have formed 1.5 million years ago by a volcanic eruption. It stands tall just way from the mainland and is known as the 'lonely rock' which has become a popular tourist attraction.
In order to get there I followed some signs which took me down a hill which twisted and swerved below towards what seemed to be a little park:
Eventually when I got there you had to walk down some more stairs to get towards sea level, and then there were several platforms where you could view the rock from. It was quite busy with a few tour buses of people having just arrived there, but the park itself was quite big, and there was plenty of space to stand and take photos:
It was one of those things that has a more incredible story to it (1.5m years old) rather than being impressive to look at, but the park itself was nice and from there you could carry on walking alongside the edge of the cliffs, probably back to where I intended to go earlier:
From here I carried on walking with two more destinations to reach, both of which were pretty close to my hotel. Yesterday when I was walking I kept seeing signs for Cheonjiyeon Waterfall, and I'd noticed on the map there was another one called Jeongbang Waterfall.
I decided to head for Cheonjiyeon first, and after following the path from Oedolgae Rock I came out at the top of the hill I'd walked up last night where I took some photos from.
I knew that if I followed the hill it would just lead me down to the bottom and back to the harbour, so I decided to carry straight on, and it was from there that I saw perhaps the most spectacular sight of the day:
As previously mentioned several times, Jeju is a volcanic island, and what you can see faintly in the distance there is Hallasan which is at the very middle of everything here.
This is the second time on the trip that I have seen the fascinating sight of a volcano, but from here it seems to be much closer and much more imposing than when I'd seen one from a distance in Indonesia.
In my quest to get a better picture of my newly found sight I actually stumbled upon Cheonjiyeon Waterfall which was a pretty good distraction:
I carried on walking through the little park area which I was in - it was filled with tons of exercise machines which you see in parks all over Korea, and there were actually quite a lot of people using them as the temperature started to drop.
Continuing on from where I was walking I was hoping to stumble across Jeongbang in the same way that I'd found Cheonjiyeon, but it was much easier than that as going past the bus stop where I'd arrived from the airport last night there were a number of signs to the waterfall.
I followed them carefully until I came across the large entrance which appeared to signify that the waterfall was nearby. Suddenly the signs stopped and I was being pointed in the direction of a ticket office which was surrounded by a couple of little market stalls. There was a makeshift sign on the ticket office which was in Korean so I had no chance of interpreting it, but I got to what looked like the entrance and the exit which were both padlocked shut. I heard someone explaining to another person looking for the waterfall that because of the weather over the last couple of days the waterfall had to be closed (I'm paraphrasing) so maybe tomorrow I will go and see if it's actually open as it seems to be pretty unique by falling directly into the ocean below.
What I did manage to to was take a picture of the top of the waterfall (the least interesting part) so at least my efforts walking all of that way weren't wasted:
From here it was starting to get a little late, and having not eaten since lunch I was planning on heading back into the main town centre to grab some dinner. I walked down by the harbour where there were people out on the rocks, and also a few people with fishing rods hoping to catch something:
As I carried on I suddenly realised I was on the opposite side of the water where I'd been yesterday and was low looking at the bridge from where I'd been standing looking at the land yesterday - funny how by pure luck I'd ended up finding my way back to a familiar spot.
It was lovely to be outside in the sunny climbs of Jeju today and I really appreciate the efforts of the weather to brighten up just a little. I have done lots of walking today without a real rest and I'm pretty sure that they will need a relaxing evening to recover.
Solid
Ashford and Simpson (1984)
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