Hot Pepper Tales

More photos from Korea . . . This is a stash that will never run out. Above and below are photos from a white-coral beach on Udo Island, a tiny island off the coast of Jeju Island. Apparently white coral beaches are very rare, and this is the only one in Korea. The sand itself was pretty cool because it consisted of lots of tiny twisty little bits of coral. Not soft, but nice to look at. We rented an inner tube and tried not to think about the fact that we were the only women wearing bikinis. (Speaking of bikinis, Jean will hate me for posting the photo below. Sorry! But look at my silly sunglasses.)


This is a photo of Yongduam Rock, also on Jeju. Yongduam means dragon's head, and you can almost see it in this photo. We realized that most pro photographers took their pictures from the other side of the rock, at sunrise, and it looked much more menacing. I actually didn't notice the dragon-y profile until I looked at my photos later on. Either way, the sunsets was really pretty – we were overjoyed to see the sun whenever it came out.


Here's a less sunny photo – the beach by our house on Jeju. The house itself was hidden down a windy road, but we could drive easily to this beach (though we never saw it when the sun was out). One of the most unexpected things about Jeju was the fog and haziness, and you can see that here.


One of our last trips on Jeju was to the Jusangjolli Rocks, which were somehow formed by basalt/lava/volcano/ocean activity. I have no idea. But they were really strange and interesting. There was a big wooden platform built over the sea so that tourists could look at the rocks. That's what we were doing, too, when we weren't following other foreign tourists around and trying to figure out where they came from. The little girls in the corner are Jean and Natasha.


And for the requisite food photo, this is from a chigae house in Taegu. Chigae means stew, and it's soooooooooo good. At this particular place, some of the chigaes are meant to be cooked at the table, which is fun to watch (if you've done Korean barbeque then you get the idea). The chigae is made with a huge dollop of hot pepper paste, and as the stew gets stirred up it gets redder and redder, and all the meat and vegetables simmer happily. This isn't my favorite – I like duenjang (sp?) chigae, which is made with soybean paste – but it was pretty good nonetheless.


Finally, two photos from the Teddy Bear Museum, one of the must bizarre tourist sites ever. Hundreds of teddy bears on 3 floors were set up in glass cases, recreating historical events and famous works of art. Below is Jean's favorite, a painstakingly recreated Korean wedding - you can't see it, but they're actually eating kimchi. And my favorite, The Last Supper.