Day 1
After a short one-hour flight down from Seoul, we took a taxi to the southern half of Jeju. Our first stop was at a gigantic green tea field and museum for Osulloc, one of Korea's most famous tea companies. We proceeded from there to a nature park and hiked alongside a river to view some gorgeous waterfalls. Jeju is a volcanic island and over time the rock formed into some really interesting geometric shapes through a process called "I Don't Know Please Don't Ask Me." We also visited a teddy bear museum with a pretty huge collection, including one that had been auctioned for over $200,000. Dinner that evening was probably the best of the entire trip: Cutlassfish which was nearly as good as the steak we ate in Florence.
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| Green tea field |
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| $200,000 bear |
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| It was so incredibly good |
The next day we traveled out to a new AirBnB and got to hang out with the nicest dog ever. We visited a few volcanic rock beaches which showcased more beautiful rock formations and tropical foliage. Jeju Island is essentially what Korea would look like if it were filmed on location in the Philippines. It was really interesting to see a culture that I'm now so familiar with but in a completely different natural setting. This was also the day that I discovered Jeju's best beer, which is oddly not nearly as popular as its counterpart made by the same company. I spent a lot of time seeking it out and hoarding it after that.
Day 3
This was my favourite day of the trip. We first visited a famous rock formation in a bay along the shoreline before heading up to our next hotel near Seongsan Ilchulbong, a volcanic mountain about 180 meters tall. We hiked to the top in about 20 minutes and enjoyed the most gorgeous views of Jeju Island of the trip. At this point we had been battling the rain on and off, but we got a nice break in the weather during the hike. The top of Seongsan Ilchulbong is a very well preserved caldera and the whole mountain looks like some sort of medieval fortress. The hike to the top is a popular activity for visitors to Jeju and it's pretty easy to understand why. We also hiked up the coastline that evening to enjoy a delicious spicy fish soup for dinner. I ate far more seafood on this trip than I would have thought myself physically capable in the past.
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| Seongsan Ilchulbong |
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| Jeju Island from the summit |
Day 4
Today was our day for some outdoor hiking so naturally it was also the day it rained pretty much nonstop. At this point we became aware that a pretty major typhoon was approaching Jeju Island and we had begun seeing the early effects of it. We first visited the dark forest, which grows so densely that about ten meters into the treeline it becomes as dark as night. We hiked some trails through the forests that grew on top of a series of inactive volcanoes and lava tubes. These were a bit hard to see due to the heavy tree growth and the inclement weather, but it made for a fascinating hike. We climbed a separate volcanic hill out in the countryside and saw some spectacular views during a few short breaks in the rain, and finally walked along a volcanic beach before heading home for the night.
At this point, unfortunately, Chloe was making some last-second changes to our flight and travel plans, as it became clear to us that we would have to get off Jeju Island before the weather became much worse. We had plans to meet our friends in Yeosu, but many of the flights throughout the weekend were already being cancelled. Thanks to Chloe's planning we managed to get out early, but this ended up being our final day on Jeju. Truly a beautiful island, and one I'm looking forward to seeing again in the future.
Day 5
Our flight to Yeosu was by far the shortest, emptiest flight I've ever taken. Yeosu is just over 100km from Jeju island, and more than half the plane was empty. All told the flight took around 40 minutes; I had barely started reading my book when the captain announced that we had begun descending into the airport. We took a short rest when we arrived in Yeosu before heading out in the evening to visit Yi Sun-Shin square. I learned that during the Imjin war, Yeosu was where they had built the turtle ships that helped Admiral Yi defeat the invading Japanese navy. There was a full-scale model of a turtle ship near the harbor which normally allows people to enter and explore, but was unfortunately being renovated while we were there. We later saw on the news that Jeju had taken a pretty huge beating in the storm, and we were grateful to have gotten out when we did.
Day 6
On the sixth day we met up with our friends and toured around Yeosu, which was how we discovered that nearly everything had been closed down due to the approaching typhoon. We still managed to see some pretty cool stuff and the weather wasn't too bad throughout that day. One of the reasons I wanted to visit Yeosu in the first place was because of a song by the Korean group Busker Busker, titled "Yeosu Night Sea." They have a beautiful coastline and harbor and it was really great to get to see it. I spent a lot of this trip marveling at a lot of Korea's natural beauty, which you don't always get to experience when you spend most of your time in Seoul. That night I also learned about a traditional Korean card game called "GoStop," which I originally thought I was quite good at until I started an extremely long losing streak. Really fun game though. I just suck.
Day 7
Almost there! Day 7 was Chloe's birthday, so after celebrating together with out friends we headed up to Suncheon, our final destination for the trip. Suncheon was an oddly quiet city, and it actually felt a little eerie to travel through. I had this nagging feeling the whole time we were there that I should have been seeing more people than I was. People were probably just staying in as a result of the weather at the time, but it still felt a bit odd. But we had a great time exploring the city and visited an enormous garden not far from our hotel. It was a bit late when we went, but we still saw some gorgeous floral arrangements and exhibits. My favourite thing there was the Bridge of Dreams which crossed a river connecting the east and west halves of the garden. The wall was covered in small drawings done by students throughout the area. There must have been thousands, possibly tens of thousands, and each drawing was unique. It was a really interesting concept.
Later that night we also discovered that Suncheon is pretty famous for its cooking, and we had dinner at a tteokgalbi restaurant that was so good we made a point of returning the next day for lunch.
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| The Bridge of Dreams |
And so we came to the last day of our trip. Our first stop was to a small village that had been constructed as a film set, and was the former shooting location for a number of Korean dramas. It was incredibly detailed, and felt like wandering through an actual ghost town at times. There was a large section that looked like a low-income community set atop a small mountainside, with roads and steep stairways connecting individual houses. Afterwards we traveled out to a large wetland preserve on the coast of Suncheon bay, which was the home of a number of unique plant and animal species. We hiked to the top of a mountain observatory, and over the course of the 3 or more hours we were on the trail, we didn't see a single other person. For a while it seemed like we were the last two people left on Earth, as even the staff who ran the wetland preserve had gone home by the time we got down from the mountain. It actually got so spooky that we started playing "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers just to make the atmosphere a little less tense. Nothing bad could happen when that song is playing, right?
It was an amazing trip, and I am endlessly grateful to my wife for organizing and planning everything. My final days at work were pretty stressful, as can no doubt be inferred by my previous entry, and during that time I wanted so badly to get out and see the rest of the country. I'm thankful every day to be married to someone who works so hard to make these things possible for me.
Chuseok just concluded, so I'll be spending my last week in Korea getting ready for the move back to Canada and reflecting on my time here. I'll be concluding this blog soon, with one final post to come after this one. I'm not sure yet how to put a lid on this whole thing but I'll do my best.
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