Jeju Island

Alright, I finally have time for an update. Sorry for the delays. I haven’t had internet in my room, which has been frustrating. This post will be about my trip to Jeju. I’ll write another post about where I’m living now soon.

So, I went to Jeju Island with my friend Vanessa and her friend, Teresa and a few others who broke off from us after the ferry. I had a great time and am very glad that I was with friends who knew how to get around and speak some Korean. Jeju is a tropical island full of palm trees and interesting vegetation, mountains, beaches and rural farmers. It is known as the Hawaii of Korea. The Islanders were very nice to us tourists.

On Friday night, I went down to Mokpo via the high-speed KTX train, which took about 3 hours. I met my friends on the train. We stayed in a hotel and in the morning, got on the ferry. We saw jellyfish in the water which was really cool. The ferry took 5 hours and by the time we got to Jeju, the sky looked pretty overcast. We took a taxi to our hostel. The taxis are pretty cheap here and you don’t tip. It rained a little so we relaxed until the sky cleared, which thankfully didn’t take long. Then we went out in search of food by the beach. We found none! It was a pretty quiet rural area and we wandered miserable in the sun, but all we found were drink places. We came back to the hostel and the hostel owner drove us to a restaurant, which was very nice of him. We couldn’t find much to eat so we all had the miso stew, which I thought was delicious. In traditional Korean style, we had many side dishes and we sat on the floor. Then we decided to walk along the beach and we had some refreshing drinks as we watched the sun go down.

blue sea

Vanessa, Me, Teresa on the ferry

Jeju with storm clouds

view of our first hostel

dinner! yum.

refreshing drinks on the beach

the shoreline after sunset

The next day we went to the Manjanggul cave area with a new friend from the hostel, Carlee. First we did a hedge maze. It reminded us of Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland and it was pretty fun. Then we went in the cave, which was really cool. There was 1km open to the public (I have to switch to the metric system here!), and we walked through and back. It was a cave that was formed by lava flowing a long, long time ago. There were interesting formations and it was a wide open tunnel the whole way. It was very cool in there compared to the hot heat. I was glad I had brought a sweater. Then we ate a snack, went back to the hostel for our stuff, and boarded a bus bound for Jeju city where we had lunch at Outback Steakhouse. They are everywhere in Korea! And it was almost exactly like back home, down to the delicious hot bread. The only differences I noticed was that my meat wasn’t done as much as I like it (they cooked it some more after I asked) and the mashed potatoes were just a smashed baked potato with cheese and bacon.

Then we went on to another town, Seogwipo for our next hostel. By that time was too late to see the waterfalls so we decided to go to the beach, but unfortunately the beach nearby was too rocky for swimming, so we were all a bit disappointed that night.

walking.

the maze.

this sign in the maze amused us.

"where am I?"

this phone booth looked like the traditional Jeju statue man. 

entrance to the cave

the cave

our second hostel

The next day, we got up and saw two waterfalls. They were both stunning. It was hot out and the sun drained us after walking around all morning, so we decided not to try to climb the mountain Halla-san as we had originally planned. We stopped at a visitor center there but were just too tired. I am sure that I’ll have the opportunity to climb a mountain again, but just maybe not when it’s brutally hot like it was on Jeju. That afternoon we got to our guest house in Jeju City. It was extremely nice. We headed out to the closest beach and spent a few hours enjoying the salty water and sunshine. Then we got back to the guest house and had some food delivered, and relaxed and played cards.

first waterfall

second waterfall

bibimbop for lunch

On Tuesday, we saw an outdoor art exhibition and went shopping a little. Then we boarded the ferry bound back to Mokpo. I wish my camera hadn’t run out of batteries because the views of the sunset were truly amazing. Also, two Korean college students came up to us and they spoke pretty good English, so we had a great conversation with them as we all asked questions about each other. Most Koreans I have talked to have been extremely nice and helpful.

After the ferry, I took a train back home. Overall it was a fun trip. I’m glad that I’ve seen Jeju.

note the Korean peace sign.

So these are just some of the pictures. It was just too time consuming to get them all on one post as I originally intended. To see the others you can see my flickr for the best ones and my photobucket album for the rest.