My 'Hawaiian' Birthday

Continuing my posts about Jeju.... I don't care if you're sick of them! My birthday fell smack bang in the middle of our Jeju trip and I spent the day being badass (like every other day.) It started with cake in bed. 

Korea does AWESOME cakes and they're usually less than $20 NZ, just pop into one of the many 'French'-named bakeries and take your pick. This little number is from Paris Baguette.

Hidden in that stack of fruit is TOMATOES. 

Between the four of us we managed to polish off most of the cake before taking a bus to take a ferry to U-do, or Cow Island. Udo is on the east coast of Jeju, and the bus to there from Seogwipo takes years. It's only 40 or so kilometres, but as we stopped at every. single. town. on the way, it took an hour and a half to get there. Korea has rad public transport so I was surprised at how much the transport on Jeju sucked. Get on to it, Jeju!

Anyway, we caught the ferry to the island which was a 4,500 won round trip - cheap as chips! Somewhere online it says the trip to Udo is an hour by boat, but that somewhere is a dirty lie, it took 15 minutes max. It did however take about 30 minutes for the local bus to leave and take us to the nearest swimming beach. The wait was worth it though - the beach was the prettiest I've seen in Korea.

We spent an hour or so there swimming and watching the large group of people in white shirts do various team-building exercises. You can see them crowding around the boat in the picture above.

It was a bit of a mission getting the bus back to the port from the beach - I think there's only one bus and it does a full circuit around Udo and then stops for 30 minutes at a time to let the driver have a smoke and chat with the fishermen at the port. Fortunately the island is only 17 kilometres in diameter so the circuit doesn't take long.

When we got to the port we checked the only thing off our to-do list for the day - hiring motorised vehicles! For 60,000 won ($67) we got a quad bike and a golf cart and two hours to hoon around! It was amazeballs.

Bangin' rides

After very reluctantly returning our awesome rides we headed back to the mainland and got some dinner. Amazing food, fantastic company, wonderful birthday.

Aaaand.... matching couples!

Coming in to Full Bloom

I've documented them before but the changing weather has made them crop up everywhere. C & Woobang Land had a particularly fine display that I admired while waiting in line. Sometimes I wanted to pick a few for myself and take them home, but I know that would ruin the spectacle and other people deserve to admire their beauty too.

I'm talking about matching couples, of course. Here goes!

Seodaejeon Station. Just follow the arrow!

Shopping in Mokpo. As Tyra would say, they're matching H to T.

In line for a ride. This picture's not amazing but the match included backpacks.

It counts, right? All together now, 'awwwww!' (spotted at Everland)

Also at Everland. The backpacks are close, but no full match.
Full points for pants, shoes and shirt.

And finally....

We spotted these guys while leaving C & Woobang Land, and although I had to run after them and use my flash, the four of them didn't even flinch when I took their picture. Beautiful, fierce, wonderful, stunning. I want to see more.

I document them because I want to be them.

Let's take a moment to discuss another of my favourite things about Korea. 

These particular breeds flock to popular entertainment and shopping spots, like Myeongdong in Seoul, or Nampodong in Busan. The first time I saw them was at Lotte World, while waiting in line for a particularly awesome ride. My good friend Lauren and I have sacrificed our dignity time and time again to be photographed with them on trains, busy streets and park benches. 

I'm talking of course about the Korean Matching Couple. Googling tells me this phenomenon exists in China as well, but I have seen some beautiful specimens on the shores of the Land of the Morning Calm. Witness:

And the coup de grace:

Matching QUARTET!

Unfortunately as it's barely spring, the full glory of the matching couple is not on display. When I finally capture the complete shoes-pants-shirts-hats combination I'll be posting it right here. Until then, enjoy these Google images and likeminded blogs, I sure do!