Learning and Laughing

 We had one of those days recently where learning opportunities were abound! We headed out late morning with the intent of making it to the second largest town on Jeju Island, Seogwipo, to go to an EMart. EMart, HomePlus, and Lotte are these big one stop places to get anything from food and home goods to clothes and electronics. Using Naver, Korea's equivalent of Google Maps, I figured out our walking/bus route to get there - a little over an hour.

Greg and I headed out and took our first bus to where we needed to transfer. Our next bus was about 20 minutes out, so we decided to grab a snack. Greg noticed a shop that had these yummy red bean paste rolls. They are actually more like a donut filled with this slightly sweet paste and are tasty. Using Google Translate, we found these goodies on the menu board. 

We let the man helping us know the man we just wanted one, then he proceeded to fill up a brown paper bag with six different types of Korean donuts.  We stopped him and pointed again, asking for just one and he said, "Yes, one." It was then that I noticed the red bean paste donut was inside a blue box that listed six different doughnuts. I started laughing, realizing what we had ordered. So, we paid and took our bag of donuts. Yes, they were delicious! 

Our next bus arrived so we jumped on and 30 minutes later got off in front of EMart...which was closed! I started laughing and told Greg I had read that these big stores were closed twice a month, one of which was the fourth Saturday of the month. I looked at my calendar and realized July 1st was a Saturday, so it was indeed the 4th Saturday. I had thought it was the third one. Bummer!!

It was past lunchtime, so we walked down the street (after getting distracted by a Samsung store), to find a place to eat. Finding a restaurant that has vegetarian options isn't the easiest. Most restaurants have all these photos of many meat dishes or photos of hunks of raw meat. We happened upon a restaurant that looked like it was serving bibimbap, which I mentioned in my last post. Yes! 

We went in and used Google Translate to try to find an vegetarian option for me. We took a long time and must of looked lost because one of the cooks came out to help us. She understood that I wouldn't eat meat or seafood, but yes to eating eggs. There wasn't an option for this, so she had me choose one with chicken and went back in the kitchen to make it without the meat. 

When the food arrived at our table and we both started laughing. It was gimbap! This is Korea nori rolls that has cooked meats and veggies in them. We had mistaken the photos for bibimbap but it was gimbap. Lucky for us, we had been wanting to eat this. (The main character from a wonderful KDrama on Netflix - The Extraordinary Attorney Woo - is autistic and this is the only dish she will eat). We were then looking around for chopsticks and spoons, when the guy seated next to us opened a drawer at the end of his table where all utensils and napkins were stored. Korea definitely has some great space-saving techniques! Overall, it was a delightful experience. We've already encounter so many kind and patient people.

After eating we jumped back on the bus to hit up a much bigger Daiso (home goods store) we saw on the way over. I noticed a beach on my map that was a bus stop before the Daiso stop, so we jumped off and headed down through a highly touristy area. It had many shops and quirky touristy activities as well as some high-end hotels. 

Then we came to a path that was part of the Island's Olle Trail system, which is 30 or so different sections of trails that circum-navigate the island. The trail led down steeply through a forested area and then we popped out above a beautiful beach - Jungmun Beach.  There were surfers and swimmers enjoying the waves. We found long, steep stairs that led us onto the beach. We were bummed we didn't have our swimsuits, but we settled for taking off our shoes to enjoy walking in the sand and surf. It's hard to believe that these two mountain folks are going to spending a couple of years playing in the ocean!

Our 'mistake' of trying to go to EMart on a day it was closed turned into a wonderful excursion to our first Jeju Beach!

Greg and I did a lot of laughing at ourselves. I know we'll continue to stumble through things as we learn how to live in the Korean culture on Jeju. All part of learning!