Post #100 - Ullengdo and Dokdo (It seems I never posted this when I was back in Korea)

So after a 3 hour ferry ride, a 4 hour bus ride, a 20 minute subway ride, and a five minute walk, I'm home from my Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) trip to Ullengdo and Dokdo. I left Wednesday night at 11pm and just now came back, on Sunday at 10:30pm. We were supposed to come back on Saturday, yesterday, but since there was a typhoon or two over in Japan, apparently the waves were too choppy for the ferry to come, even though the weather was amaaazing all 4 days in Ullengdo. So on to the narration of the events. The 4 day trip started on Wednesday night at 11pm with a 5 hour bus ride to the Eastern coast of Korea to Chuam beach to watch the sunrise. We didn't get to see the sun come out of the water since it was pretty cloudy, but it was still a very nice area and I got my first glimpse of what I would see *so* much of over the next few days: squid. After Chuam beach we headed out to Mukho Harbor, where we boarded our ferry to Ullengdo at 8am.

And after a pretty smooth ride, with about 30-40% of the people onboard getting sick, and having barely survived sea sickeness myself, we arrived at Ullengdo..

Ullengdo was trully beautiful and amazing, as I will try and portray in some of the pictures I was able to take, but of course, as usual, pictures never do justice to being in these amazing places. It's just so hard to replicate the experience of being there. Anyways, soon after checking into our hotel, about half of the group, which wanted to go, went to Dokdo. This was quite the interesting ferry ride as it was *so* so choppy and so many people got sick from it. Even me. I was having a great old time for the first half, even standing up with others as we "surfed" the rocking of the boat, since it was jumping up and down and swaying crazily. But all of a sudden it wasn't quite so fun, so I sat down and tried to relax and count to whatever, and all of a sudden amongst the horrible smells and views surrounding me, I couldn't resist and was just sick as a dog for the next hour or so on the way to Dokdo. I've never been seasick, and never as sick as I was during that ferry ride, but we finally got to Dokdo...

So there I am, in the previous pictures, in Dokdo, the set of (very small) islands that Japan and Korea have been in dispute over for many years now. Apparently when Japan surrendered during World War II they didn't officially return the islands back to Korean sovereingty, and ever since Korea has claimed it as it's own, as well as Japan, and so on. Here's some more pictures of Dokdo, including the Dokdo mascot doggie.

So that was it for the first day at Ulleungdo and Dokdo. The next day we took a bus tour of the island, which was absolutely beautiful. It was really stunning to see the amazing rocks just burst out of the ocean (Ulleungdo being a volcanic island). But first, I had to hang out with the local doggie...

But yeah, the trip was amazing and we got to see lots of beautiful scenery and very inventive naming of diverse rocks throughout the course.

Like the Turtle Rock (yeah, I don't see it either)...

(ok, I can *kiinda* see it) And the Bear Rock (which I TOTALLY could/can see, see it?)

Here's one of the beautiful views around the island

And me milking it for the camera :pAnd another beautiful view And I know you can totally see Elephant Rock! With it's little "#2" rock right behind it!

One of our stops along the tour was a small temple with a nice Budha statue in some just amazing surroundings. A very beautiful and relaxing stop.

After the great bus tour, we had lunch and then had a great 4 or 5 hour hike through some beautiful scenery over the mountain peaks of the mountains, with some old style housing on the way, great views all over the place, and views of the crater towards the end. And here are the photos:

And here's some pictures of us getting near the top; just beautiful surroundings.

And at the top, with views of the amazing crater and vegetation around the island:

And here's a view on the way down of the (VERY small) town we were staying at while in Ulleungdo: And that was that day. The next day, we found out that we were stuck for another day in Ulleungdo, since there was a typhoon in Japan (Ulleungdo is right smack in the middle of Korea and Japan). The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, but apparently the water was too choppy for the ferry to come. So I went up the cable car to see the view, and on the way took some pictures of a femal Buddah and some totem (?) poles..

Here I am on the way up the cable car:

And then just had some absolutely amazing views on the tops which I just loved, and relaxed for an hour or two. Here are some pictures of the harbor where we came into on the ferry, as well as some signs and views of where Dokdo lies out in the Sea of Japan (or as the Koreans like to call it, the East Sea ^-^ ).

And here I am, with a view of the peak I had climbed the day before, yeah, the tallest peak there in the picture (yeah, the tallest one).

And then I went to another viewing point around the top of the cable car ride, and relaxed and just enjoyed the beautiful views. Good times ^-^.

A great trip all in all! I'm so glad I went. And now, it's 1:00am and should probably sleep a little bit before heading off to work in the morning. word.