To Jeju
I’m writing this one from a lovely coffee shop overlooking the Yellow Sea. A typhoon just passed over the island of Jeju, where I’m staying, and so the strong winds have whipped the waves into a frenzy. The rollers come in and hammer the black volcanic rocks that make up most of the island’s coast, and the spray sometimes looks high enough to reach some of the lower balconies of the various hotels and pensions that line the shoreline. The clouds have been low all day, hanging over the ocean so that you can hardly see more than a few hundred meters over the water. Let me explain. No, there is too much – let me sum up.
The last week and a half since Snow went to Seoul has been so busy!
Friday Kaj got out of quarantine, after her COVID test (naturally) came back negative. Despite two negative tests and 13 days of quarantine after a passing contact with someone who a few days later tested positive, the government still insisted she remain quarantined until noon the next day. Just in case.
Anyway, we had a proper Friday date for the first time in two weeks. Early Friday we took the train down to Suncheon, to a little cafe overlooking a lake named Mackenzie’s, advertising itself as an American-style restaurant. Then we went nuts. Bacon, eggs, sausages, French toast, pancakes, hash browns, bottomless coffee – a breakfast spread to delight anyone.
After a long, lazy brunch, we took the train all the way to the final stop – Yeosu Expo.
Yeosu Expo has a brand new exhibit, Arte Museum Ocean. It’s advertised as a new digital art experience, perfectly suited to cater to Koreans’ love of taking photos and showing them off on social media. Good thing I never do that.
Anyway, the exhibit actually was super cool. There are ten rooms that you wind through, each with its own theme. You start in Blossom, a few different rooms overflowing with multicolored lights and mirrors, meant to evoke wandering through a flower. Next comes Ocean, a massive animated wall and floor of ocean waves striking a beach while the aurora borealis flickers overhead (we sat in this room for a long time and just enjoyed it). After Ocean you venture into a large hall evocative of the bottom of a streambed, with massive waterfowl the size of houses occasionally striding through, plunging beaks as large as a kayak into the water to go after the fish swimming around. Next is the Night Jungle, two exhibits. One lets you meet photorealistic depictions of African wildlife, which Kajal enjoyed even though she’s from Africa, and the other lets you draw your own elephant, lion, deer, or fox, and add it to a digital scene.
Rooms 5-7 were Waterfall – a large mirrored hall with a waterfall made of digital bits pouring everywhere, stretching into infinity, Moon, which mostly just had a very large rabbit in a nod to Chinese folk tales, and Stars, a room we spent ages taking photos in due to the huge number of glowing ‘stars’ filling the available space and constantly flickering in every color of the rainbow.
The last three rooms were Wormhole, a black and white room that messed with your head as you dove through a tunnel, Wave, which is, uh, exactly what it says on the tin (I was a little let down by wave), and then the gallery.
I loved the gallery, spending probably 40 minutes there until the exasperated staff kicked me out so they could close. It’s a large hall, the largest in the exhibit, and constantly shifts. Sometimes it takes you on a journey through the seas around Yeosu, above and below the water, which was lovely and immersive. But I really loved the art gallery. Starting from the Renaissance and working its way to the early 20th century, the hall would shift every 5 minutes or so to display the works of some of the greatest masters in striking clarity. You could see the works of Michaelangelo, Monet, Manet, Matisse, Van Gogh, and others, all at 1:1 scale. Digital reproductions, of course, but I didn’t mind. The decor of the hall would change to reflect the period of art being displayed, as would the music to properly suit the atmosphere. I wandered up and down for ages trying to look at everything. If they hadn’t kicked me out I probably’d still be lost in there. I think every art museum should have a room like that.
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The week since was hard for Kaj. She spent 4 wonderful years here in Korea, but it was at last time for her to return home to her family in South Africa – with a dog and a man in tow, so it’s not like she was going back empty-handed. Her dog is super-cute, if nothing else. Anyway, that meant packing up her home, giving away or tossing whatever she couldn’t carry, and bringing all of her earthly possessions into a few small suitcases. We worked at it through the week, while also traveling to say goodbye to the important people in her life before she said goodbye for good.
Thursday and Friday were her last days at school, and then on Saturday and Sunday we raced to make the last preparations.
See, we can’t fly Snow until September 17th, but are getting kicked out of the apartment at the end of the weekend. So, she decided to make a virtue of necessity – for most of our last three weeks in Korea, why not head to the sunny island of Jeju and have a mini vacation? Snow would be a pain to fly, but there’s a ferry that leaves very early (as in, 1:00 am) every morning from Yeosu and makes landfall on Jeju by 7:30 am. We could get a small cabin for ourselves and Snow, and sail to an island getaway for a few weeks.
Sunday was the hardest day. Friends she had made – Zoe, Monica, the Old Man in the Park (more on him another time) came to say their last goodbyes. The entire apartment lost the life and character it had while Kajal was living in it, and gradually became a sterile, anonymous, lifeless thing as her belongings vanished into the suitcases or into the trash. Finally, at about 10:30 pm, I took Snow downstairs for the final time while she lingered to say goodbye to the old place. I don’t know exactly what emotions ran through her heart as she looked at what had been her home for three years one last time, but I do know how my heart broke to leave my Gwangju apartment after only one year, so it can’t have been easy. Eventually, though, she joined us, gave me a wistful smile, and we called a cab for the port.
At the ferry terminal, even at midnight, it was crowded as dozens of people queued to board the Gold Stellar, the large ship waiting to take us all to Jeju. It was big, probably 300 meters long, 100 in beam, with three passenger decks (including a well deck for cars) and two more for the engine and bridge crews.
Snow was in his crate, a bit fearful from all the chaos as we walked through line after line, and hauled him and our bags up the gangplank and on board. There, we managed to squeeze into an elevator (Snow’s first elevator ride in his life), then came through a surprisingly nice lobby with numerous little chairs and tables and couches. We had to head out onto the deck and then around to the “pet room” for the 6-hour voyage.
The Gold Stellar has a few cabins for its passengers. Third class is a massive open air hold, with a few lockers and absolutely no furniture or other accommodations. Passengers claim a patch of floor and make themselves as comfortable as they can, most people laying out pillows and blankets and trying to sleep. Second class offers you a private cabin with a TV and some plugs, but is otherwise the same. First class presumably has such luxuries as a chair or a bed, but they didn’t let riff-raff like me see such grandeur, so all I can do is conjecture. Anyway, the only place to bring a pet is in a special third-class cabin.
The pet room was about 15 x 15 feet, two hard floors separated by a walkway sunk a few inches into the deck. There’s a single wall of lockers with life jackets, and two interior hatches lead to a room lined with cages for large dogs, and a pet shower with exterior access to a small exercise yard. We shared this tiny space with at least 5 other families and fully ten dogs. Apart from Snow, cowering in his crate, there was a large German shepard, another shepherd mix, two Pomeranians, a poodle, a Shih-Tzu, and several other dogs (small and fluffy, as Koreans like). We staked out our small corner with our luggage, but hte dogs were in close quarters and most were clearly unused to travel. They barked and whined and cried, sniffing and straining to investigate each other, hiding in their crates, peeing, whatever their little doggy brains conjured up as the most appropriate behavior at the moment. One had a delightful habit of barking madly at anyone who came or went in the cabin – which was often, with more than a dozen humans present.
At twenty past one, we sailed away from Yeosu for good.
Snow was good, not barking, but he hated his crate and begged and cried to be let out. Kajal’s soft-heart won over my own callousness and he spent much of the voyage cuddled between us. The cabin was lit by harsh fluorescent lighting and obviously was loud and crowded, but I still somehow dozed for most of the nighttime journey, waking up as the sun rose and we neared Jeju.
Kajal is more personable than I am and chatted with the couple across the way, where the man spoke pretty good English and was equally friendly. They were traveling with a dog near Snow’s size, and the two became fast friends that morning (before being parted for all time, alas – that’s how life goes sometimes, Snow). Stiff and sore from the uncomfortable night, it was with considerable relief that we docked. Then it was another winding journey back through the ship and down to the rocky, volcanic shore of Jeju island, and a cab to our home for the next few weeks.
Anyway, that’s my current situation. The heavy cloud has become rain as I type this, and we need to start thinking about leaving this comfy coffee shop, with its large, overstuffed couches and lovely view of the sea, and scrounging up something to eat. I hope you are all well, friends, and I’ll see you all soon!
Gwangju Dreaming 