Our six days on Jeju Island flew by incredibly quickly. It may have been due to the fact that we traveled all around the island, spending the night in a different city, or the fact that we filled our days with hiking adventures and beach trips. To start off, I’d like to mention that I have been hearing about how beautiful Jeju island is for years, and consequently, visiting Jeju during my three month stay in Korea was basically a given. Rather than go with the boys at the beginning of the trip, Christina and I took a little vacation from work and headed to the south for a long weekend! I know that I have mentioned this before, but it is incredibly easy to move around Korea without a car, we were able to take the subway directly to the Gimpo International Airport Domestic Terminal, early on Friday morning to catch our 1:00pm flight. We actually made it to the airport in plenty of time, and I stopped for some delicious omeu egg thing, it was incredibly delicious! I think that Christina was disgusted by the amount of egg in the omelet, but she is wrong. Eggs are nothing but delicious! After Christina power took her final (8 T/F questions worth 200 points… what the hell?...) We went to get our seats assigned and wait for our boarding time. Now, I have to mention the Korean service. Every single flight attendant was beautiful, young, thin, and very well dressed. They all smiled warmly while guiding passengers to their seats, and honestly I have never felt better on a plane. The atmosphere was very nice, we were surrounded by Koreans and Chinese all excited to go on their vacations! Except for the stupid little kid who kicked the back of my seat the entire flight - which was only about 50 minutes, so not that unbearable - and a bit of turbulence, the trip was smooth.
Based on previous research, I knew that taking a taxi in Jeju could be exorbitantly priced. The taxi system often has a base rate in place for the tourist destinations, for example it cost us 15,000KRW for a ride to one of the most popular hiking trails on Mt.Hallasan. We also got screwed over on the ride back to our guesthouse… The taxi driver wanted to charge us the base price, and never set the meter, then he refused to accept cards when we reached our destination. Sigh. But, back to the main point, I had researched the Intercity bus system that runs through Jeju island before we arrived, so Christina and I were able to travel cheaply whenever possible. We took the 730 Bus through the center of the island to get to the mountain, the 700 East bus along the coast, as well as the 600-airport bus for our return flight. The bus system on Jeju was incredibly inefficient, the buses only come every 20 minutes or so so it is not productive if you only have a few days to see the island. But for a six-day trip where each destination was minutely planned and spread out, the bus system worked fine.
By design, I planned the trip around guesthouse locations. Christina and I each brought only a backpack, but it still was not very pleasant to carry for long periods of time. Thankfully most locations, beach, caves and the sunrise peak had lockers for our stuff, but often times we would check into the guesthouse and then explore the surrounding areas. We spent the first day in Jeju city. After checking into the guesthouse (You&I Guesthouse, proved tricky to find), we explored the city and discovered a massive underground shopping mall, and walked along a pier at a harbor. The ocean breeze blowing through the city and along the coast was incredibly refreshing! It is rarely windy in Seoul and I believe that I almost forgot what wind felt like! Haha, not really, but the wind was very refreshing! See the pictures above!
By design, I planned the trip around guesthouse locations. Christina and I each brought only a backpack, but it still was not very pleasant to carry for long periods of time. Thankfully most locations, beach, caves and the sunrise peak had lockers for our stuff, but often times we would check into the guesthouse and then explore the surrounding areas. We spent the first day in Jeju city. After checking into the guesthouse (You&I Guesthouse, proved tricky to find), we explored the city and discovered a massive underground shopping mall, and walked along a pier at a harbor. The ocean breeze blowing through the city and along the coast was incredibly refreshing! It is rarely windy in Seoul and I believe that I almost forgot what wind felt like! Haha, not really, but the wind was very refreshing! See the pictures above!
The guesthouse gave us coupons for a nearby movie theater, so we decided to go see a Korean film. We ended up picking “Roaring Currents” which depicted General Lee Soon Shin’s victory against the Japanses invasion in the 1500’s. The movie was all in Korean so I understood very little of what was being said, however it was a very good movie! I found myself gasping and covering my eyes along with the other Korean’s in the theater. Although I did spend a “small” period of time dubbing the characters in my head with English to keep myself amused during some of the long talking scenes… Movie’s in Korea are very similar to what you would experience in America, except that the popcorn and soda’s are reasonably sized, and everyone is assigned a seat in the theater. Other than the fact that I may have laughed in parts where other Korean’s were crying, and gasped when other Korean’s were just chillin in their seats, I feel like I understood and watched the movie well!
Like I said before, we spent each night in Jeju on a different part of the island. After checking out of our guesthouse in Jeju City, we headed to our guesthouse near Mt. Hallasan. This guesthouse, however, proved impossible to find. We wandered the countryside for a long time in the general area we thought that it was located (and I mean countryside, it was empty), we eventually stumbled across a guesthouse that we thought could maybe be the right one. In hindsight, we probably should have realized… it was tucked way down a dirt road, and was very… rustic. This guesthouse however, was one of the most fun experiences I had on the island. (see above post for the chopstick story). We were welcomed by all the Korean staff and guests, and gathered together around 7:00pm to eat dinner together. The food was delicious! Pork stir-fry with rice and side dishes! They brought out a few big plates and we all ate together. There was makkolii and Hallasan Soju (stronger, cleaner version of soju), and I really enjoyed talking to the other guests. There was one Korean who knew English pretty well, and he translated for us so we could chat with the others. I forget his name, but he is a naval engineer and came with his older friend whose name was “Guy” and his last name meant “half,” so he got called “half guy” for most of the night. We chatted about baseball, Korean/American stereotypes, and the dinner passed by quickly. Now, during the day Christina and I had hiked 12 miles total (uphill both ways) to visit the peak of Mt. Hallasan (too foggy, couldn’t see anything), and we were exhausted so we went to be early, but the rest of the Koreans stayed out until around 3 or 4 in the morning. Actually, the hike we completed that day was… highly interesting. After checking into the random guesthouse we found, we had to walk part of the way long the road to get to the mountain before a taxi stopped and picked us up, and as a result we were a bit late to complete the hike. There were certain checkpoints that we had to reach before times in the day, a ¾ way-point by 1:00pm, and we had to head down from the peak by 2:30pm. The lady at the information center told us that it generally took hikers three hours to get to the first check point… and we only had about two hours. Long story short, we basically ran up the mountain. I was completely covered in sweat. Fortunately we did make it to the top. I would have been very disappointed if we had put all that effort in and missed our destination. Although it was too foggy to see anything :(
I didn’t know it then, but we would spend a lot of our time in Jeju hiking. Fortunately, I love hiking and looking out over the small villages and towns so all the climbing was a good thing! This trip was quite a work out! Sticking to our plan, we headed along the east coast, visiting the Mangjang caves the next day! Through out the first few days that we had been in Jeju, we kept running into the same pair of Caucasian travelers. In the caves we ran into them one more time, and decided to catch a taxi to the beach together. We headed to Gimyoung Beach on the northern coast. The beach was absolutely breathtaking. The most beautiful beach I have ever been too, hands down. One ah, interesting thing about Korean beaches, is that they are ALL about safety. They rope a tiny area off on the beach for all swimming to take place, and they place lifeguards on the beach, in the water with the swimmers, and on jet skis further out. Now, I am all about safety, but this was ridiculous. The swimming area was completely congested with inertubes and floaters, so Christina, Matt and I walked further down the beach to an open area. Now, I would like to take a moment to explain the danger of Korean beaches on Jeju. There was literally no danger. The water was shallow; the bottom sandy, and there was little to no rip current. As we were walking out into the water a bit, a Korean lifeguard came over on a jet ski to stop us… his actual words were, “you will die.” -__-
Matt decided to feign ignorance, and after a bit he realized that we weren’t in any danger and left to go guard the beach area. At least there must be little to swimming accidents in Korea.
Matt decided to feign ignorance, and after a bit he realized that we weren’t in any danger and left to go guard the beach area. At least there must be little to swimming accidents in Korea.
After a quick shower, Christina and I said goodbye to our new Australian friends, and headed to our next guesthouse. We took the 700 West bus, and got off in the general area we though the house was. When booking the guesthouse, I really had no idea what I was really signing up for. The title of the guesthouse was “Kim’s Cabin Guesthouse,” which really should have been a bit of a tip off about the location… It took our taxi driver several phone calls in order to figure out the location… It was nestled in the hills of Jeju, opposite the sunrise peak. A beautiful location really, even if it was a bit inaccessible. Next to the guesthouse was an inactive volcano which Christina and I climbed twice, once before we went to bed, and again for the sunrise. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but still beautiful. The girls also staying in our room were from Quebec, and we had fun talking and hiking with them.
Ill go over the next few days in pictures since it is too much writing to record it all. Basically, we bounced from the sunrise peak to waterfalls and beaches. I am so glad that we were able to take time out of our schedules to visit Jeju island! I have wanted to visit the island for some time, and it is nice to be able to cross this off the bucket list! Although it was a bit overrun with Chinese tourists (I think they outnumbered Koreans 3 to 1), the experience was incredible! And the scenery breathtaking!
Ill go over the next few days in pictures since it is too much writing to record it all. Basically, we bounced from the sunrise peak to waterfalls and beaches. I am so glad that we were able to take time out of our schedules to visit Jeju island! I have wanted to visit the island for some time, and it is nice to be able to cross this off the bucket list! Although it was a bit overrun with Chinese tourists (I think they outnumbered Koreans 3 to 1), the experience was incredible! And the scenery breathtaking!
This trip was fantastic! I hope that you enjoyed the pictures, and now want to come visit Jeju island! Due to time constraints, Christina and I only saw the north and eastern side of the island, so on a later trip I would really like to rent a car (most efficient way of traveling around the island), and visit the west cost as well! Biking is also really popular on jeju as they have nice paths essentially around the entire island. I would also consider a biking trip (apparently it takes about 6 days to travel the entire circumference). That is all for this post! Have a great week!