In Which We Visit Three Waterfalls in One Day. And It Was Awesome.

So we decided to have fun with our third Saturday here on Jeju-do and see some of the really famous sights. We were actually a little surprised that none of them were particularly crowded and that we saw almost no Chinese people. The island has three waterfalls that are very famous. They are: Cheonjiyeon Falls, Cheonjeyeon Falls (there's a difference) and Jeongbang Falls. There are also several other smaller waterfalls thrown in around the island for good measure. Yesterday we visited two of the famous ones and one of the not-so-famous-but-still-kind-of-famous ones. We've done our research on cool things to do on the island, you see. But I get ahead of myself. First, we had to get to the south side of the island. This was accomplished by catching a bus to the Jeju-si Shi-weh Bus Terminal (Shi-weh means out of city, for those playing along at home) and hopping on a bus. The ride to our first destination took a little under an hour on a pretty, winding road that had some very canyon-promising washes running under it. On the bus we met a nice guy from Sri-Lanka who spoke English and was telling us about some of the things to see on the island, but between his accent and the noise the bus was making, we only understood about half of it. What was our first destination you ask? Well, it wasn't any of the waterfalls already listed. This one was called Wonang Falls, in the Donnaeko Valley. The Donnaeko Valley, coincidentally, looks a lot like a canyon. I'd be curious to explore it a bit more. Anyway, we walked down a wooden path for a ways,

And took an accidental detour down into the watercourse, but not to the spot we wanted to go. But, we eventually found it! This place:

Yeah, I know. Awesome, right?

I was happy to be there!

The draw of this place is that, not only is it beautiful, you can also swim in the crystal-clear water. Which we did. I had wanted to jump off of the waterfall, but there were actually a bunch of rocks in the water that made that inadvisable. However, I did find a fun place to jump. Observe: 

Anyway, Wonang Falls was pretty awesome. The water was cold, but you could get used to it after a while. I've definitely been in colder water before. Here are a few more pictures:

The view up canyon. Like I said, I'd be interested in exploring a bit here.

Our next stop was Jeongbang Falls, one of the only waterfalls that falls directly into the ocean, and purportedly THE only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the ocean. We faced one obstacle in getting there: the bus stop that the Internet had told us to catch the bus at was no where in sight and not in short walking distance. That problem, however, was solved nicely by the two nice Korean guys who we (here "we" is read "Nancy") asked for directions. They ended up offering us a ride, which we gladly accepted, and they dropped us off right at Jeongbang Falls, saving us time and money. Once there, we bought some ramen and soda from a convenience store (surprisingly good and cheap) and then bought tickets (2000 won a pop) and headed down. We had eaten our lunch near the top of the stairs coming back up from the falls, and everyone coming to the top was exclaiming about how hot it was. We soon realized why they were doing that, because there are a lot of stairs going down the cliff to the seashore (though we didn't have any trouble coming up them, because we're awesome). But, it was worth the trip. The waterfall was sweet!

As you can see, there were quite a few people here, but not the shambling horde of Chinese people I had expected. This is fairly low flow for the waterfall, and it doesn't look like many people stand underneath the falls themselves, and we scoped out the top, and while there didn't seem to be a ton of anchoring options, I'm sure we could figure something out so we could rap this one. It's like a 20 meter drop from what I've read. Also, a bonus thing that we got for going there today. The ocean was throwing in some HUGE waves! It was sick! I tried to take some pictures, but here they mostly turned up as duds. 

I guess that one's kind of cool. Anyway, it was a cool waterfall. Here are a few more pictures. 

You can see a pretty big wave in this one.

I went down in the pool a little bit, just for the fun of it.

After that we climbed the stairs and bought a couple souvenirs (the spelling of that word is weird) and then went looking for Seojeongbang falls, which is supposed to be right next to it. The trail led along the shore cliffs and had some awesome views: 

The sun was in her eyes.

We did find the falls, but they were a little underwhelming. However, the waves crashing into the cliffs next to it were not! Here are some pictures.

If you tell me that this picture isn't awesome, there is something seriously wrong with you.

After that we headed off on our quest to find our final destination for the day: Cheonjiyeon Falls, arguably the most famous and most beautiful of the three famous ones. I had figured it out on the map beforehand, and it turned out to be pretty easy. Once we got fairly close we just followed the signs. 

We weren't sure why these hand things were here, but figured we should take a picture.

We had to pay 2000 won a piece here, too, but it was totally worth it. They had a really nice trail set up, and the waterfall was pretty sweet. It was bigger than I thought it would be. We got there so that we got to see it in the light and then just had to wait a little while until it got dark and they lit it all up. Here are pictures:

The sign said if you touched the pearl and made a wish it would come true. I mostly just felt like a doofus.

This bridge was pretty cool.

In case you didn't guess, the sign says, "Cheonjiyeon."

Lit up! We had a nice Korean couple (who might have been on their honeymoon, Jeju is popular for that) take this for us.

Cool bride in the distance. We'll have to check that out sometime.

Anyway, it was a fun day overall! That about summed it up. We had a little trouble finding the place to catch the bus back to Jeju-si, but eventually caught it and got home all in one piece. That's about all I have to say for this post, aside from the fact that it's pretty long. And I don't apologize. This is Captain Danger out.