Day 8 of Quiring-family visit
On Thursday, July 5, our second day on Jeju-do, Jonathan and I thought it would be nice to head to the south to see a few attractions on the opposite side of the island from Jeju-si. We again walked to the nearby bus stop and took the city bus to the intercity bus station. We bought our tickets and a few snacks and then boarded our bus to Seogwipo-si, the southern city on the island. The bus trip was gorgeous as we drove up toward Hallasan (Halla Mt.) in the middle of the island, catching glimpses of the tallest mountain in South Korea along the way. As we drove closer to the mountain, the weather became kind of rainforest-like with mist turning into light rain as the bus whipped around corners in the curvy road. I thoroughly enjoyed the hour-long trip. All too soon we drove into Seogwipo and were dropped off near a taxi stand. Since we were five people, we had to get two taxis to get to our final destination, Yeomiji Botanical Garden. (The two-taxis dilemma haunted us our entire time in Jeju and only a couple times were we able to all squish into one, usually as a result of lots of pleading and bartering.) The botanical garden was huge and quite well put together. We enjoyed wandering in the cultural-themed outside gardens as well as through the large glass-enclosed pyramid-type structure that housed many different climates and environments for various types of plants.
Japanese Garden
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| Qs watching the koi fish |
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| Ty trying out Ali's waterproof camera to catch the koi fish on video underwater |
The results of the video
Don't know how Ty kept his hand in the water when the fish were bumping into the camera...
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| Ali going in for a picture |
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| Q-clan on the bridge |
Indoor Gardens (tropical, desert & others)
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| Jonathan's pose of the day |
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| Elephant bushes |
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| Yeomiji Botanical Garden logo and name made out of tiny pink and orange cacti (Photo by Glenda Quiring) |
The Top of the Building
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We climbed the stairs, but couldn't get into the room at the top of the building because the door was stuck.
My mum helped push the door open, but not before snapping this picture (apparently I can't spell backwards...).
(Photo by Glenda Quiring) |
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| Glass rotunda in Jonathan's sunglasses |
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| View from the top of the glass building |
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| Resting and talking at the top of the building (Photo by Glenda Quiring) |
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| Looking down to the lobby |
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| Back at the bottom looking up to where we'd just come from |
More Indoor Tropical Gardens
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| Does anyone else see a strange-looking fish in this flower? |
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| Another shot of the weird fish-plant |
Poisonous/Carnivorous Plants Garden
Korean Garden
Italian Garden
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| Break time in the Italian Gardens (Photo by Glenda Quiring) |
After hours at the Yeomiji Botanical Gardens, having walked all over and taken many pictures, we had finally reached the last garden and were heading out to the parking lot when we saw a large bridge with white mythical-looking statues adorning the sides. "How do we get there?" I asked no one in particular and we searched around a bit to figure out how to get there. Most of our group was pretty tired from all the walking we'd done that day (and the day before), so when we finally found the entrance to the bridge only Jonathan and I paid the small admission fee to across and see what was beyond. We soon learned from sign boards that the trails on the other side led to three picturesque waterfalls (which I then realized I had read about in the guidebook), the
Cheonjeyeon Waterfalls.
Cheonjeyeon means Pond of the Emperor of Heaven and we also read on sign boards that the
Seonim Bridge that we'd walked over to get to the waterfall trails had seven nymphs carved into both sides to symbolize the Korean legend of the descent of seven beautiful nymphs from heaven at night. Despite the humid mugginess, the falls were pretty and I was glad we went. When Jonathan and I got back to the rest of our group, we hailed two more taxis to take us to an interesting-sounding restaurant we had found in our guidebook and had a great supper. We were all tired as we waited for a bus back to Jeju-si as dusk turned to dark, but finally the right bus stopped and we wearily climbed aboard. An hour and a half later we were back in our hotel, ready to rest up for a new day of exploring.
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| Seven nymphs on the Seonim Bridge |
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| Misty first fall of the three Cheonjeyeon Waterfalls |
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| One of the other falls |
