Yesterday was perfect in almost every way. Myself, Dahee and Laurence decided to climb an Orum (its pretty much a mini volcano) as the weather was incredible.

The wind here is really strong and it occurs almost everyday and living on the west coast doesn't help us much. I think we have a reputation for getting the worst of it. Some days I'll have my bike on the lowest gear riding into the wind and it feels as though I'm on the highest gear. You should thank yourself I have not been blown over to Japan yet and writing all about Japan!!

SO yesterday there was no wind. No wind at all. There was not a cloud in the sky an the sun was making it warm enough for t-shirt weather (almost... but you'd need to keep moving) and we had the best company. All of these factors put together create the most perfect...

DAY OF FUN.

So we got lunch in town and were hurried out of the restaurant as soon as we finished so others could sit down (which apparently is really rude here but with the sun shining as much as it was, it was no factor in our day at all), got Laurences coat fixed for maybe one pound and then almost found me a piano teacher but she wasn't in and so departed for our journey to the top of a volcano.

The Orum in on the way to my school so we decided to try and find a new path as one of the roads is quite fast and and not so scenic so we found ourselves in what I believe, to be the most rural area of South Korea I had yet seen. There were no houses, only stone walls, trees, a few horses and us. Ah! It was so serene. The sun was shining on all the dead vegetation (as its post-autumn here now) releasing abundances of bronze and golden colours and a silence only to be challenged by the wierd noises that horses make or us walking around.

These scenes were regular up until we hit the main road to to Orum. We were the only people on the Orum (which, considering the weather and Korean's love of walking, was quite rare) and had a race to the top (which almost killed me.... and Laurence won) and then climbed down into the crater, which resembled more of a quarry in regards to its steepness. I got maybe 20 meters away from the centre but returned back to the top as there is a lot of recent activity in the soil there; bits of earth are falling down into the volcano. We walked around and circular pieces of grass had just disappeared downwards to create random holes. These holes got the better of me as I didn't want to fall into the centre of the earth from Jeju Island and so escalated back up again. I think the volcano is just really old and the old lava tubes and tunnels inside it are collapsing. There were two places where it would seem that a whole tunnel had collapsed as there would just be a huge ditch.

SO THEN our plan was to return home and watch Toy Story 3 after the sun had set, but I had a phone call to go over to the other side of the island (Hamdog) to play with rockets. We all went there and almost died 10 times over as the chaps had some paper planes are were making them fly by attaching fireworks to them. Thier intentions were sound as they really were experimenting however in reality some planes would fly, and others would crash and explode sending fireworks in every direction causing everyone to run away. Two planes got burnt up and a wealth of knowledge was gained.

Today the weather is almost identical, although the wind is back and I can spend my morning writing about what I did yesterday, such is my life :D.

If you were to ask me 'Are you a busy person?' I wold almost definitely say yes, but if you were to ask 'What do you do that keeps you so busy?' I would not be able to answer you in any definitive way. I wouldn't even be able to say that what I do is productive. If I were to take myself back to Friday then I could say:

I rode my bike, I got stared at by the old ladies, I had a really good day in school (they had a festival), I came back to town, I met up with Laurence and Paul and ate out, I tried talking to a few locals, we came back home, I watched a video on a Japanese teacher who had a very different approach to teaching, we went into town and saw a few friends and the day had already ended!

Simple eh? I'm beginning to believe that's why life is so good out here; the pure simplicity of it. If I were to leave this island now, I'd be dreaming about it for the rest of my life.