Every year, the Natural Sciences college has a year end dinner. This year, we will not be able to carry the remaining budget over to next year, so it has been decided that the year end party will be on Jeju Island.

Jeju Island, off the south coast of Korea, is the premier Korean vacation spot. A short one hour flight from the mainland, it is several degrees warmer than the rest of the country, and a has a wealth of beautiful volcanic scenery. It has famous three attributes: stones, wind, and beautiful women; and three famous lacks: walls, thieves, and something else.

'Lacks' is clumsy. Perhaps it should be translated as three famous 'haves', and three famous 'have-nots'. That seems a little wrong too though. There are three things that are famously abundant, and three that are famously absent.

Jeju certainly has stones and wind. There weren’t many walls around houses. I can’t say much about thieves, and as for beautiful women, well, it is Korea. But if I had to come up with a defining 'have' for the island, it would have to be kyul.

Kyul is the Korean word for mandarin orange, or korean orange, or satsuma. I think a clementine is a little different. But here it is kyul, and they almost all come from Jeju island. There might be a couple other haves: I saw a lot of golf courses; and there are a lot of specialty museums selling specialty crap. But one can not deny, that Jeju Island has kyul.

Our trip consisted of a quick tour of some of the high points of the island, interspersed with a couple of meals and a Year-End-Business-Round-up banquet. Flying into Jeju on Thursday morning, we, about 70 faculty and staff from the Natural Sciences College, boarded two buses and started touring.

“Welcome to Jeju!’ starts the in-bus tour guide. “Thank you for choosing to wrap up your business year on our island. You chose a fine time to come here. We had snow last night. The first time in about five years.” She went on about the weather and our schedule for a couple of minutes until we got out of the city into the surrounding rural areas. “Now here you will see some kyul trees. Does anyone know what kyul are? Yes; oranges!

“And if you look off to the left there, behind the rock: kyul trees!

“Here now, some kyul trees! And behind them, over there, kyul trees!

“Now, there is Mt. Hallasan. And below it: kyul trees!

“Here you will see some kyul tree! And it you look closely enough, you can see kyul on them.

“Has anyone heard of a Hallabong? It’s a big kind of kyul. There are some on some trees over there."

The kyul trees were wonderful. It's a gorgeous tree, full of little orange juicy balls. I must say, it is worth it going to Jeju just to see the trees. They are great. But the tour was a bit shit.

“Where are the rocks?” someone yells from the back of the bus. “And the beautiful women?” tags another, to a spattering of laughter.

“Ha ha.” laughs the guide, “I’m sure we can find some of both. But if you will look out to your right. A kyul orchard. Look at how they’ve just filled it full of kyul trees. Isn’t that something? That’s where all you Christmas kyul come from!”

We are visiting an insect museum. Not entirely a museum of insects on pins; though there is some of this. But a museum with insects on pins posed in historical tableau.  It seems an odd choice of museum for a tour of 70-odd grown-ups.

But here is something entertaining for me.

I’m standing in the main hall of the museum waiting for a friend to come out of the bathroom. A man comes through on his cell phone. Yelling into it: “I can’t hear you. No, I can’t hear. Please talk louder. I can’t hear.”

“Hey! Why don’t you go outside?” I ask.

“Speak up. I can’t hear.”