From Osaka to Jeju Island, S. Korea and Nine Bridges Golf Resort

Today was the end of the Japan portion of our Asia Golf Trip and time to say "Goodbye" to Shuhei, our boon companion and helper for the past week.

Shuhei was great fun to be with and we appreciate all that he did to make this a great trip.

On the way to Kansai Airport in Osaka, we passed this well known Japanese landmark

If you look carefully you'll see the Amazon.jp on the building!!

Our flight to Jeju Island was uneventful. It's a bigger island than we had expected. There are numerous small mountains throughout the island and one big one that still had some snow at the top. While driving to the resort, our guide told us that the weather forecast for tomorrow was an 80% chance of rain. Seizing the initiative, be managed to change our tee time to this afternoon and got in the round with only a bit of rain on the 18th hole.

On the 1st tee at Nine Bridges

Nine Bridges was built in 2001 with the upfront objective of making the Top 100 list. They made it in 2005 and now the Golf Magazine Top 100 logo is displayed on all of its merchandise.  Unfortunately, we found that the course really doesn't live up to its lofty ranking. We thought it was a very nice course; nice but not spectacular.  In its defense, we played on a very drab, overcast afternoon so we didn't get the benefit of any scenic views that might have made the day more memorable. Having played such great courses with fantastic ambiance and scenery in Japan, this was a bit of a let down.

Nevertheless, our intrepid threesome (Richard had earlier planned on heading back to the States after Hirono) didn't let it get our spirits down. We enjoyed our final outing together (final for this trip, I mean!) and headed back after the round for a shower and then off to dinner. To fill up the free time tomorrow resulting from moving golf to this afternoon, we have all scheduled spa treatments! After that, we'll head to the airport and our flights to Seoul (for John) and Tokyo (for Art and me).

As a sad footnote, most of you will have heard of the capsizing of the Korean ferry this morning with over 300 high school students aboard. The ferry was heading to the island that we are now visiting and obviously is the subject of tons of press coverage.