Sorry Mom and Dad (NSFW)

After finishing camp and meeting the governor at a dinner, all of the teachers took a trip to Jeju Island. It was a really beautiful place that I hope I can come back to at some point. Honestly, my time on Jeju Island was strictly controlled and somewhat sanitized -- a twenty minute stop at some beach, a forty minute bus ride, a thirty minute stop at a park, and so on. All day. All tourist spots. I do have photos of these places, most of which I don't remember that well, and I'll get to posting them later. Forgive me if I sound ungrateful; going to the island was a great experience. But after working 10 days straight from 9 in the morning to 9 at night, I wanted to spend my time in Jeju peacefully, taking my time to see the sights I wanted and straying from the group of 70-something teachers to meet other people.

For the most part, this didn't happen.

Luckily, nights were free, and I vowed to myself that I would go to the place I've wanted to go ever since I looked up Jeju Island on Wikipedia.

I was going to Jeju Love Land.

Proceed only if you are 18+!



Jeju Island, located south of the Korean peninsula, is a volcanic island that's a popular honeymoon site for Asian couples. For this reason, Love Land was built as a kind of sexual-education site for tourists. The outdoor sculpture park is, indeed, very graphic and educational, but it also had a strong sense of humor about sex in general. The overriding atmosphere communicated, "Hey, newlyweds, we know you're scared about all of this, but don't stress! We'll show you how fun and how funny sex can be!"

I journeyed to the park with Jessie and found a group of three other very laid-back girls from our program who were also looking around excitedly. It was late at night, and we only had an hour before the park closed. Nonetheless, I was pretty impressed with the people I saw there. There were groups of young adults and couples. They all looked at the statues, laughed, and took photos, but I never witnessed any behavior that made me uncomfortable or that was disrespectful.

It seemed so symbolic. Here I was on this newlywed's paradise, stuck eating at the same cheap, greasy buffets and being hustled to many locations without ever fully being able to digest the scenery. It was a pathetic, neutered way of traveling. Of course I needed to be liberated at a park -- away from the buses and the crowds and the tour guides -- as I looked at images of wild sexual abandon.