Saturday we checked out of our first hotel and went to a few places on the way to our next place, which was from airbnb; kind of like a "mother-in-law" apartment (I think that's what it's called when you have a separate complete room with bath on the same property). Our first stop was the Yeomiji botanical gardens (picture 1) and it was superb! We enjoyed walking around seeing all the different kinds of plants. Inside the big structure they have different zones like a desert, flowering plants, and a jungle complete with dinosaurs (picture 2)! Outside they have different styles, like Japanese Zen garden, Korean style royal garden, even Italian and French style gardens (picture 3).
We also walked around outside one of the nearby super fancy hotels, which had "glamping" tents that you could reserve, a private beach house, and a lookout, among other amenities.
Then we checked into our room to rest and relax - the place is called "beau-stone", like beautiful stone, but in Korean it's written and pronounced the same way as Boston. The place is really beautiful and the owners built it from different stones, including the volcanic rock that's common in the area. The owners house is on the right side of picture 4 and the rooms are on the left.
After relaxing a bit, we went to this huge dinner buffet where they had all kinds of food including local specialties like seafood and black pork. I had to try the international food that they offered - burger, quesadilla, and pizza (pictures 5 and 6). The burger and pizza were pretty good; the quesadilla was not. They also had a wide variety of drinks and desserts (picture 7), like fanta, coke, Jeju tangerine juice, plum drink, and sweet rice drink.
Later that night we went to the glass museum, where they light up all the exhibits when it gets dark (picture 8). There were these really hilarious bathrooms that have two way mirrors all around you so when you are using the bathroom during the day you can see everyone around you but nobody can see in (picture 9).
Sunday we woke up to an awesome breakfast provided by our hosts (picture 10) and then we went to a nearby beach (picture 11). The beach was so great! And surprisingly empty. Picture 11 doesn't show the actual beach but just south of it where there are lots of volcanic rocks and a great view. Two things made the beach so awesome (other than the fact that it wasn't busy): 1, the sand is really fine and feels great, and 2, there isn't really a drop off, it's almost like a pool. There's a small cove-like area that's roughly the same depth (knee height with the waves) and we walked out at least a few hundred yards into the water and it was still only about waist high.
We walked around the beach for a good long while and also walked around the small boardwalk type area surrounding the beach entrance.
Then for dinner we went to a small unassuming place that was supposedly pretty famous in Jeju. They have something like 3 locations already, with the one that was near us being the newest. It's inside an old tangerine warehouse, which was interesting in and of itself, and they serve organic and locally sourced food. We got a pizza salad, which was exactly like it sounds, but interestingly the salad had a good amount of fruit in it (pineapples and peaches), and an aglio e olio pasta dish. Both were delicious. I took all the salad off my portion of the pizza and ate it separately so that I could enjoy just the pizza and be reminded of home.
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