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Sailing for nearly 36 hours a distance of 585 nm the Volendam docked in Jeju at 9.44 am on a cool 16 c day. Our day tour included the Sunrise Peak and the Seongup Folk Village. The first stop , Seongsan Sunrise Peak was scenic but nothing to write home about, especially the Lady divers display. The peak is a classic tuff cone rising 180 metres above sea level. It was formed by a hydro-volcanic eruption 5000 years ago. It is now a World Heritage site. The second, Seongup Folk Village is an operating historical village where we obtained a sense of how people in Korea lived before industrialisation. The guide was a mine of information, however telling us:
- the lady divers have reduced in numbers over recent times from about 50,000 to 5000, so much so that it is now a dying lifestyle. There is now an institute dedicated to training would be divers to keep the art alive.
- unemployment is supposed to be about 6% but only 20% have full time jobs. The dream of all workers is to have a full time job.
- 80% of all year 12 students attend University and the average take home pay for a 3 year university graduate is $22,000 approx while the 3D jobs (dirty, dangerous and disgusting) average $47,000.
- her opinion that the two Korean states will never unite, mainly because China will stand in the way, so Nth Koreans will continue to starve.
Originally Jeju was an independant kingdom resulting from migration from China. It is now a self governing state in South Korea with a population of about 500 000 trying to make the best of limited resources. Besides subsistence farming it has ship building, light industry and tourism from the mainland.
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