I guess the biggest news with me recently is that I've started SCUBA lessons.  It's running just over $400us and includes 3-4 open water dives and 2 controlled shallow dives.  I've been to two lessons so far and loved it.  The first lesson was a lot of classroom instruction and a couple hours of shallow water diving where we practiced different fundamentals.  (Buddy-breathing, regulator relocation, buoyancy control, octopus breathing, clearing water from masks, etc.)  I still giggle like a school girl every time our German instructor, Ralf, tells us to put his octopus in his mouth. 
The second dive consisted of more buoyancy practice, diving up to 2.5 meters, swimming with full gear and a retest of the basics.  Being totally submerged, looking around at fish, crabs, shells, and watching your bubbles float to the surface, all while breathing freely is just an amazing feeling.  It's like so many dreams that I've had of breathing underwater previously,  and now it's real.  Jeju apparently has some amazing diving.  We recently held the world underwater photography championships on the tiny islands/reefs right off the coast.  You can see one of the islands from my apartment. 

Right now my buddy Pete is here from the States, so I've been working and trying to show him around town in the meantime.  He got here Wednesday and leaves Saturday, so there's only so much we can do.  Today after work, Paul and I took him to Oedolgae to do a little cliff jumping and swimming.  It was a nice end to a hot day. 

Apparently the rain season is about to start.  We are supposed to get rain 3-7 times per week until the middle/end of July.  I'm not really looking forward to it, but maybe the waves will pick  up.

I got a little dawn patrol surf session this morning.  Woke up about 4:45 (insomnia pays off sometimes) and texted Paul till he woke up.  We hit the road shortly after 5:00 and were in the water around 5:30am.  We surfed near the point at Jungmun with 3 South Africans that are great surfers and pretty nice guys.  The break we were surfing was in about 3 feet of water over top of reef and lava rock.  It's a little sketchy surfing in shallow water, knowing that if you mess up, you could have a rough landing, but it was worth it.  99% of the waves coming in were lefts, and I'm not too confident going in that direction, so it was definitely a good chance for me to improve my abilities.  I only had a couple wipe-outs, that weren't too bad.  One wave, I got close to sneaking into a mini-barrel because I had a late take-off, but the lip just threw over me quickly, and I kept going outside.   I also had one of my best lefts ever.  It ran for about 75 meters, shoulder high, making a connection onto another wave that was curling around the point and the entire time I could see through the wave to the grey/white/black coral and stone beneath.  It was really gorgeous, and I feel so fortunate to be able to surf at such a beautiful spot with a good crowd.  I watched the sunrise over the architecturally-stunning convention center, saw the haze burn off of the neighboring cliffs and Oreums (mini-volcanoes that dot the island) and surfed in crystal blue water.   Does it get much better than that?