Jeju Island

I was born in the countryside of Vietnam but I have only ever known the city landscape. You don’t really get much interaction with nature in the city so I felt disconnected with the natural environment. That changed when I studied abroad in South Korea in the spring of my junior year.  The most enchanting and magical experience I have ever had with nature was on a weeklong trip with friends to an island off of the Korean peninsula called Jeju Island.  Jeju Island is famous in South Korea as a popular spot for honeymoons. It is often labeled as the Hawaii of South Korea. The island is particularly known for their sweet and unique breed of oranges, called Hallabang, and scuba diving grandmothers. It is a tiny island but it is packed with a variety of landscapes ranging from beaches to caves to mountains.

On my second day on the island, I traveled by ferry to a small island off Jeju Island called Udo. Udo is 2.28 square miles and resembles the shape of a cow lying down. You can go through the entire island on a motorbike in 1 hour (4 if you stopped to take pictures and enjoy the scenery like I did). My friends and I did just that. We rented ATVs and just took off on the island with little more than a cartoon map that I found on the ferry. On the island, there were 3 beaches with different types of sand – coral, white sand, and soft tan colored sand. Being on the coral sand was amazing (although killer on the feet). The water was completely crystal clear and just seemed to glisten in the bright but not overhearing sun. Being from around the DC metropolitan area, I have been too accustomed to the murky sand water in Ocean City, MD). I have never been in water that is so clear that you can see your own feet! The beach seemed to stretch on for miles with only the outline of Jeju Island visible in the background.

Standing on the pristine beach in the warmth of sunshine was when it hit me. That’s when I thought about how there are tons of little gems like this in the world. Although it seems like we have conquered every surface of the Earth, there is still so much left that we have yet to explore. Maybe it’s best if we leave it that way but standing on that much made me realize that nature should be preserved. That beach was not created overnight. It was formed through hundreds of years of the same repetitive action. In our society, as long as you have money, you can create whatever you want, even your own artificial beach. However, it will never have the same sentimental value like something that has literally hundreds of years of history and stories to tell. 

I have always through I was a cosmopolitan girl. The idea of living in a rural area makes me uncomfortable. Even living in the suburbs is dreadful enough. I love skyscrapers, lights, excitement, and activity. But being on that island made me want to stay and slow down my pace of life. I wanted to enjoy the simpler things in life because they may not be there in that perfect state forever given our increasingly detrimental influence on the environment.