On Garbage Detail

We had been communicating with a fellow named Jim who runs the Jeju Island Tourism facebook page. He asked if we wanted to join him on a volunteer trail hike whereby the volunteers pick up trash along the trail. They're having a trail festival here next month and they want this particular 18 km section to be as clean as can be so they're doing "clean-up" hikes four times this month in preparation for the festival.

We volunteered to join in!

Jim said he would meet us at 8:45am this morning outside the guest house where we were staying right downtown. From there, we walked to the meeting point at the start of this section of the trail.

This is a major intersection near where we're staying.

First, I should tell you a little bit about the island. It's approximately 73 kms (45 miles) long by 41 kms (25 miles) wide. There are two major cities, and the entire population is about 600,000 people. In the center of the island is a Korean National Park!

Jeju Island.

In 2007, they designed a system of trails that go around the entire island, with most of the trails following the coastline. The sections that go through the two cities include residential streets and urban pathways. This section, with a lot of it going through urban sections of the city of Jeju is where we were on trash duty today!

Walking towards the meeting point, we went through one of the markets in the city. Jeju is famous for it's fishing, so there are a lot of fish stalls in the market!

Seafood anyone??

Look at the size of those shrimp!

These are funny looking fish.

First you have to figure out how to fillet them. Then, you have to figure out how to cook them!

We love wandering around the local markets.

There's Jim, behind Ruth in the picture above. He's an expat from England who came here to teach English and ended up staying after he met his wife here. Now, he's an expert on tourism for Jeju Island, and he speaks pretty darn good Korean too!

Our group, getting ready to head out.

A waterway through Jeju City.

They issued us each a pair of "trash tweezers" for lack of a better term. And a bag for trash and a separate bag for recyclables.

Ruth. The bag lady!

Jeju does tend to have a little more trash lying around than what we saw on the mainland. It's still pretty clean though, so we really had to look for it in places. And actually, it's amazing how much you can find when you actually start looking for it! Other areas, when you were right on the waterfront tended to have some sections where there was quite a bit to pick up because of the wind and the tide which washes stuff up onto the roads and trail.

This was a pretty section of the trail that went through a park.

Yikes. There are some ugly lookin' spiders here!

This hole was dug by the Japanese during WWII. Not sure why, but I guess they had a plan. There were 72,000 Japanese troops stationed here towards the end of the war in preparation for an allied invasion of Japan that never happened.

At the top of this hill, there's a pagoda that offers great views looking back at the city.

Looking back at Jeju City.

Kevin.

Looking towards another section of the city.

This is a typical historical Jeju homestead building. The roof is thatched, and covered with a woven fabric.

Rough seas!

You might have noticed from the pics that our weather has taken a turn for the worse. In fact, today was warm enough at 21C (70F) but really windy. And it's going to get worse as we have Typhoon Vongfong headed our way tomorrow. Should be interesting!

The island is all volcanic rock and they've built some great walls out of the rock. 

The sea is really rough, and breaking over the seawall.

Pretty mural around a schoolyard.

We had to be careful not to get wet along this section!

And then, it was time for lunch. We had done about 10 kms and it was just after 1:00pm. Not making great time, but we were stopping a lot along the way. To pick up trash, and to take photos!

The whole group went to a typical Korean restaurant. We sat on the floor!

The table is ready.

Pull up a chair, Ruth!

The rest of them had a noodle soup. We had a vegetable beef soup with tofu, along with a bowl of rice each.

The crew, having lunch.

Ruth found some kitty cats along the way.

We all decided that because the weather wasn't the best we would not complete the whole 18 kms. In fact, we only did about another hour after we finished lunch. Probably 12 or 13 kms in total. Still, we felt like we accomplished a lot and the ladies from the group had told Jim that they were impressed with our trash picking up abilities! Hey, everyone's got to be good at something, right?! 

Our Olle Trail volunteer group. Missing a few members who dropped out earlier.