35. Timothy

Even though my flight to Jeju was on a Saturday, Haeyoung had to work in the morning - but we were going to have lunch before I had to take off to the airport. I used the time until then to find when and where exactly the bus to the airport leaves, and to have a second look at the port. And then lunch was so delicious and the company so good, that I caught the bus twenty minutes later than intended. On top of that, traffic was atrocious, and instead of 90 minutes the transfer across Busan took about two hours. I arrived at the checkin-desk with 15 minutes to go until takeoff, focused only on not missing the plane, and must have been quite startled when the staff asked me whether I preferred an aisle or window seat. Either that, or it's standard procedure to have an extra close look at late checkin luggage. Whatever the case, I was asked to wait at the counter until my backpack had been scanned, and - after about a minute - told to join security for a closer inspection. They had seen an electrical appliance, with a wire coiled up, and wanted me to show it to them. It took me a few moments to realize that they meant my laptop charger (I was not sure about which of my belongings were in my hand-luggage and which were in the backpack), but together we found it. With the immediate security risk resolved, their focus wandered to a different item; back in Zurich, I had wrapped a couple of buttons - part of a special delivery of climbing pants to Eunkyoung in Seoul - in a piece of paper, on which I had been practising Hangeul, the Korean writing, pretty much with random simple words. While we were looking for the charger, somehow one of the security crew saw this, and now asked me whether I had written this myself - from then on they were all smiles, and I was finally on my way to Jeju.

Tim picked me up at the airport, an unexpected kindness; in general he struck me as a gentle giant (him waving to one of his elementary-school English pupils is a sight to behold). In the evening we joined the expat crowd for an open mic night, and later on went to the aptly named "The Bar". It was good fun, but it meant that we had a late start the next day, and what I had wanted to be a daytrip up Jeju's Hallasan turned into an afternoon at the Trick Art Museum. Its concept: take masterpieces, monsters and dinosaurs, arrange them so people can interact with them and take cheesy pictures, and let the crowd exit through the gift shop. Definitely not my kind of museum. The next morning I pulled myself together, and at least went to see the Manjanggul lava tube. Jeju is a volcanic island off Korea's southern coast, and sports craters, basalt stone cliffs, and underground caverns. Manjanggul is part of a system of roughly 7km of such caverns, created by subterranean lava flows, of which about 1km is open to the public. It was a bit of a bus ride and accompanying walk to get there, but the caves are impressive and very nicely lit.

Particularly interesting is the lava pillar all the way at the far end of the public part, where lava flowed and dripped down from another tube higher up, creating a strangely shaped pillar.

Porous volcanic rock is ubiquitous on Jeju, and is used - among other things - for dry walls.