Early on the 4th day both Matt and I awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. In true Haines fashion, he practiced his speech for the first time just hours before giving it. Also, in Haines fashion, it turned out great. I envy his Joe Cool approach to these matters. If I don't prepare far in advance and stress out about it, it doesn't turn out well.
The rest of the day was spent dipping in and out of presentations whose subjects tickled my fancy. Following the final presentation, all of the symposium participants gathered for some closing remarks. One of the organizers mentioned some statistics about the event. For example, ISLCT did obtain its objective of "international-ness" through submissions of countries like Korea, Japan, China, United Kingdom, ect. However, it was interesting to see that nearly 70% (from memory) of the participants hailed from South Korea. I don't think it was as "international" as they had hoped.
I woke up this day with one single goal in mind. You see, Jeju is a volcanic island with many natural beauties scattered throughout. However, none of these interested me more than the Manjanggul lava tubes. Why you ask? Well, because I'm a dude who daydreams about huge waves of scorching hot lava powering through underground tunnels, reaching temperatures so hot that the rocks themselves melt! Yeah...that's probably why.
Before we could walk within the vast underground cathedral birthed from fire, we had to go to the airport. Recall, if you will, the unfortunate welcoming we had to Jeju that was the breaking of Matt's suitcase. Upon arrival at the airport we tracked down our guy and he brought out Matt's 'like new' luggage. For our troubles Matt convinced them to let us check into our flight way in advance (this will be important later). Next we started nailing down the logistics of our quick trip to the lava tubes.
In theory, we could take the hour long bus ride, walk around the lava tubes for a bit, and be back to the airport about 1.5 hours before our flight. So we went for it. Since we had no idea what anything/anyone was saying, we relied on the kindness of people to get us around. We hopped on an airport bus that took us to the main bus terminal.
Through some quick communications via map-pointing we were able to 'eeni-meeny-miny-moe' our way onto the correct bus just before it left the bus station (seem familiar...?). During the ride we were able to see different side of the island, both literally and figuratively. We got a glimpse of the more low-income areas which reminded me of Mexico in some ways. A unique aspect of living in Tsukuba is that a low-income area is essentially nonexistent, so I was a little caught off guard. Another very interesting observation was their farm plots.
Matt pointing to the title of his paper/speech.
The rest of the day was spent dipping in and out of presentations whose subjects tickled my fancy. Following the final presentation, all of the symposium participants gathered for some closing remarks. One of the organizers mentioned some statistics about the event. For example, ISLCT did obtain its objective of "international-ness" through submissions of countries like Korea, Japan, China, United Kingdom, ect. However, it was interesting to see that nearly 70% (from memory) of the participants hailed from South Korea. I don't think it was as "international" as they had hoped.
Quick pic before they took down the symposium banner.
That night Matt and I ate dinner with the guys from Hann Ocean Technologies (Henry and Andreas). Afterward we walked to a more 'Western' bar to have some celebratory adult beverages, play pool, and throw darts.
Matt is helping is partner (Henry) to line up the shot. Andreas is on the left.
I'd rather not disclose how many drinks I had that night (if I could, I would). We had a great time hanging out with Henry and Andreas and made it back to our hotel safely.
Day 5
I woke up this day with one single goal in mind. You see, Jeju is a volcanic island with many natural beauties scattered throughout. However, none of these interested me more than the Manjanggul lava tubes. Why you ask? Well, because I'm a dude who daydreams about huge waves of scorching hot lava powering through underground tunnels, reaching temperatures so hot that the rocks themselves melt! Yeah...that's probably why.
Before we could walk within the vast underground cathedral birthed from fire, we had to go to the airport. Recall, if you will, the unfortunate welcoming we had to Jeju that was the breaking of Matt's suitcase. Upon arrival at the airport we tracked down our guy and he brought out Matt's 'like new' luggage. For our troubles Matt convinced them to let us check into our flight way in advance (this will be important later). Next we started nailing down the logistics of our quick trip to the lava tubes.
In theory, we could take the hour long bus ride, walk around the lava tubes for a bit, and be back to the airport about 1.5 hours before our flight. So we went for it. Since we had no idea what anything/anyone was saying, we relied on the kindness of people to get us around. We hopped on an airport bus that took us to the main bus terminal.
These statues were outside of the bus terminal. Creeped out...?
Through some quick communications via map-pointing we were able to 'eeni-meeny-miny-moe' our way onto the correct bus just before it left the bus station (seem familiar...?). During the ride we were able to see different side of the island, both literally and figuratively. We got a glimpse of the more low-income areas which reminded me of Mexico in some ways. A unique aspect of living in Tsukuba is that a low-income area is essentially nonexistent, so I was a little caught off guard. Another very interesting observation was their farm plots.
All of their farm land had lava rock walls, and a lot of them. The rocks were simply stacked on top of each other, no mortar, no nothing. I thought to my self "They look so fragile, doesn't the wind just blow them over?" I think wind isn't an issue because their stacking method leaves a lot of holes between rocks. So, the wind just passes through the holes. Bada-bing, bada-boom!
The bus dropped us off right next to a sign that said "Manjanggul: 2 km" D'oh! Without hesitation we set off on our mile long walk.
Apparently most people drive to the lava tubes. There wasn't much of a shoulder.
Oh, cool. Tetris ahead.
After about 30 minutes, we finally made it to the lava tubes. The Manjanggul lava tubes are over 8 miles long, but tourists are only allowed in a 1/2 mile section. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site because it has some of the best preserved lava tubes in the world as well as some rare features.
Walking inside is quite surreal. This room for example seemed like it was excavated for, say, a subway. In terms of scale, the ceiling in this room was about 30 feet up. Much like a river canyon, you can see various levels of flow based on the horizontal lines on the walls.
As you might imagine, walking was difficult due to the lava etched floor.
I find it hard to describe all of the aspects of the lava tubes that made them so cool to me. So let me just say: "The Manjanggul lava tubes are the cat's meow." I think that sufficiently gets my point across. Matt has more photos that I would like to post, but his computer is broken so just check back in a couple of days.
While taking in the splendor of the lava tubes we lost track of time. It goes without saying that our antics to get back to the airport were reminiscent of a Charlie Chaplin short. For the sake of length I will give the condensed version of the story:
A failed attempt to grab a taxi lead to us boarding a very questionable bus. Matt and I quickly became the only passengers on the obviously outdated bus as it bobbed and weaved through the countryside in an almost chaotic fashion. There was a moment where I thought he might be taking us to his murdering grounds. I guess he determined not to kill us as he finally dropped us off at another bus stop. We eventually got on another bus that took us to the main bus terminal, but we had lost at least 45 minutes and it was not looking good.
We ended up arriving at the airport about 30 minutes before our international flight was set to depart. In any other case, at any other airport, we would have been utterly out of luck. But we weren't out of luck...we had already checked in. Also, the airport (although international) is quite small. So, we made it through security and to our terminal in 10 minutes flat. We had, once again, escaped the clutches of poor punctuality and were on our flight to back to Japan. See ya, Korea.
-Seth
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