Jeju Island is the largest island in South Korea – made up of a large mountain in the middle and split mostly north and south, with two towns on the upper and lower coasts. We flew to the north and then took a Limousine Bus to the southern town of Seogwipo and here is what we found in our three days there.
The flight to Jeju was uneventful Jeju Air is a lovely airline and with the seats by the Emergency Exit we had tons of legroom and we even got food on a one hour flight!
We landed and collected bags etc, then searched for the buses, after a little confusion we found the bus stop and Palm Trees. The exit of the airport felt like we had landed in Thailand or somewhere, the heat hit us as we exited the air conditioned concourse and we searched for our Bus.
The Journey around the island and to the South coast took about an hour, the stops are odd, the bus travelled for about forty minutes non stop and then looped around in and out of some of the luxury 5-star hotel/Spa/Golf Courses before depositing us on the side of a hill fifteen minutes walk from our hotel – which was a bit of a pain, as we had to trek through the town and shopping area with suitcases and bags. But eventually we made it to the hotel.
Hotel First 70
After Busan we weren’t expecting much, but wow were we wrong! From the outside it looked rather grey and ordinary, but the moment we stepped into the reception we were shocked. It felt like the wrong place for our luck, lifting your eyes skyward revealed a open walkway around each floor all cream and pristine. We got our key and headed to the 9th of 10 floors. We were given a corner room and having spent 3 nights in a box with the view of a fire escape we expected nothing more. What we opened the door to was luxury, actual luxury, a single room with two beds, but there was space between them. Two walls of windows giving views of downtown Seogwipo and the nearby mountains, but still a view! There was also a bath! with a strange viewing/kinky window from the bedroom into the bathroom that had been bricked back up (thankfully!)
The Area
We unpacked, relaxed a bit after that walk and then went for the required first wander, with Naver and the Pocket Wifi in hand we set off searching for Veggie/Vegan food and what else Jeju had to offer. Having watched TV shows where people go to Jeju, What Ash had expected was little roads with bungalows and orchards of Orange Trees, fields of Green Tea everywhere and dry stone walls. What we got was more of a standard town or small city, the same roads as everywhere, shops, restaurants and bars, but also indoor markets and a lot of orange!
That first night we wandered along a road of bars and restaurants still puzzled by the closing time, by the time we headed out and started looking for food it was gone 7pm, near on 8pm and places were already shutting. After a few failed attempts we found a little Bistro with a separate veggie menu, the place only had about four tables and we were the only customers, it had a nice, calm atmosphere and the staff/owners were lovely, but we will tell you all about that in the food post.
The next morning we woke to discover the rain had set in and covered everything in mist, that put pay to the planned hike up the mountain, so after watching some random Korean TV we decided to head into the town and the indoor market.
This it turned out was the thing you do on Saturday in Seogwipo, the place was packed, filled with the entire town’s residents, all buying Hallabong – Large Oranges – and all kinds of dead things, the centre of each walkway in the covered old shopping area had a stream running through it, providing the fresh water and air conditioning, so fresh that it was populated with Koi Carp and large Goldfish. We wandered around buying drinks and souvenirs then when the rain calmed we decided to go find the nearby Ecology Park.
The Cheonjiyeon Ecology Park and Waterfall
This is a short walk (15minutes) from the town centre to the west, at first it looks a lot like any park, but after a bit of walking past football pitches and along a couple of paths, crossing bridges and following walkways it’s clearly a centre for all manor of wildlife and Bob never wanted to leave! We toured the entire park, we did get a bit lost trying to get to the waterfall and in the end had to settle for a distant view. It turns out the pink Jeju Olle Trail Course path is the route to take not the magenta! That route is a little more jungle and muddy paths, that also takes in the Poetry Path and the Zen Garden, but it’s all good, whichever way you go.
We finished the day as the sun was setting heading up from the harbour with an ice cream and headed for dinner, which given the time and the fact that everything else was already shut turned out to be that same little restaurant as the night before (it’s really that good!)
The next morning was a lot better weather, it started off a little cloudy but quickly improved, so we set off out to Seobok Park a traditional park with a number of statues and buildings as well as a park and some pretty views of the sea, before heading down to…
Sojeongbang Waterfall
We found a lovely gallery and coffee shop by the car park before heading down the few hundred steps to the waterfall. You have to pay a few hundred Won for a ticket but it really is worth it.
This really is a great sight, at the bottom of the descent along with a hundred or so people, we sat on boulders and rocks and watched a dramatic cascade of water falling into the sea, churning up mist and spray, before streaming into the ocean. A steady flow of people move around, climbing rocks and a few braving the icy water to get across to the gravelly vantage point under the fall to get a better picture or an inevitable selfie! With a ton of photos and video ourselves we headed back up the mission of climbing the stairs and intended to go to the next section of our day, another Waterfall along the coast and then up a mountain.
But this is where things went a bit off kilter. Ash discovered that he had forgotten the Sun Tan Lotion, realising his mistake set off to return to the hotel to retrieve it, 15 minutes away. Halfway up the hill at a junction, he crossed the road and stepped onto the curb and *Snap*, his knee popped and cracked and pain erupted in the joint. This is not an unusual occurrence for the accident prone, walking disaster, but a few steps told him this wasn’t the usual joint pop. He got back to the hotel, found the lotion and set off back down the hill to rejoin Bob. By the time he made it back down the hill to Seobok Park where Bob had been patiently waiting and taking photos. The supposed 20-30 minute round trip ended up taking nearly an hour for the hobbling traveller and by the time he got back to the park he realised there was no way he was going to climb a mountain. The pain level was already past the 8 out of 10 and getting more painful. We tried to make some progress but the descent back down more stairs and slopes, proved that whatever he had done was not good.
We made it to Jaguri Park described as ‘A playground for the elderly who once swam and dreamed of becoming female divers’, it’s a little manmade spring with a mysterious pair of doors, that go into some a secret dark interior (A Male and Female separated Jjimjilbang aka Public baths) The paved area in front has a pool of the spring water which is nice to dip feet in or great to shove a broken knee in, like an ice bath! This was as far as we got on our adventure for the Sunday in Jeju!
We returned to the hotel, to rest and take painkillers – lots of painkillers! and then went in search of food. Bob was not a happy camper but we found an option for Veggie food in town and we hobbled to the centre to try out the local Chinese restaurant – Sinlungpu Malatang
Sinlungpu Malatang is a Big Bowl Chinese, where you pretty much get handed a bowl which you fill with the various vegetables, tofu, meats etc that you want and then they cook it with the broth of your choosing we will go into more in the food post.
The Jeju Beer Fountain, was a great place, they had a selection of Craft Beers including a Sour – which Bob loved and a Peanut Stout which Ash thought was delicious. The sizes were odd though, small was 1/3 a litre, medium 2/3 and then large was a bottle of 2 litres of beer, which we ordered when we left and took back to the hotel to drink later for purely medicinal purposes!!
Sunday night was spent contemplating whether Ash would need to fly home, it was not a good night.
Monday came and we hoped a good sleep would fix Ash’s leg, it didn’t, the knee still hurt and was still swollen.
We had meant to climb the Sammaebong Peak, but Ash was most definitely not going to be able to, we went to reception to ask if there was a doctor, but they sent us to a clinic, unfortunately all the way back up past the Beer Fountain and restaurant from the night before.
The 365 Clinic was open but empty when we got there, just an old guy sat dozing on one of the chairs. We sat waiting for a staff member to appear, after about 15 minutes a woman walked in and signed a form and then walked out again. We realised it was the list to be seen. So Ash signed in and at 2pm on the dot the clinic came to life, suddenly all the staff came back from lunch and the place filled with 10 nurses. We decided there was no point with Bob waiting around all day wasting the final day, so she left Ash at the clinic and headed for Sammaebong Peak.
Just 10 minutes later Ash was called in to see a doctor and through a strange use of Google Translate – where Ash typed in what had happened and translated the sentence, then the doctor read the original English and spoke at first in korean and then in English, it seems he was just a bit rusty, but a few sentences and his brain adjusted and he examined Ash’s knee and confirmed what Ash already suspected – a torn Meniscus and maybe a ACL tear. Treatment – a Cortisone injection. Having had the same treatment on the other knee in the past it wasn’t ideal but it would allow Ash to continue the holiday and not have to fly back to England.
Just another fifteen minutes and the injection was done, the doctor and nurses were amazingly nice, helpful and reassuring. Painkillers and muscle relaxants were prescribed and then the doctor escorted Ash to the Pharmacy down the road. In all Ash was in the place less than an hour and how much did all that cost? Equivalent to £34 for the examination and £0.45 for the injection and £18 for the prescription. A total of £52
Having made it back to the hotel via the market which was still busy on a Monday afternoon, Ash treated himself to a cup of Tteokbokki from one of the street vendors and it was delicious! then he returned to the hotel and promptly fell asleep!!
Bob: meanwhile I was off having an adventure, I surmounted Sammaebong Peak, passed the KBS station and walked down thousands of steps to the Hwanguji Haean Beach. It was here I passed a really lovely old woman who stopped and had a chat, gave me a coffee and even a vegetarian hot dog. It was a much needed rest and fun to see how well I fared with the language. After wandering around looking at the tide and what not I continued on my journey.
I walked back towards the Olle Trail – to find the route to the Waterfall that we had missed on day 1. After a long convoluted route up and down a million more steps – through a car park, passed a pond and then through the entry gates – once again there was a small fee but it was worth it. I took a look at some of the shops, bought a couple of bracelets and then found the waterfall! Once there I called Ash so he could have a look even if he couldn’t be there in person. After a while I decided I had walked as much as I could for the day and started heading back – all in all my day’s walk was 27km on paper but it was worth every step.
That evening we had to pack ready for the flight to Seoul the next morning, so we decided to get a take away. Ash really wanted Korean Fried Chicken and Bob wanted Pizza, we found a little take away place just up the road, down the road, around the corner and back up the road again, we got a bit lost!! But after twenty minutes wait we returned to the hotel to discover, we had the wrong order. Bob had to return and get the right order, but eventually we sat down and ate, way to much food and it was delicious!
The next morning we decided to get a taxi to the airport, simply because Ash couldn’t face trekking all the way across town to get the bus to the airport an extra hour early. We found a cab and piled in, the ride straight across the island from South to North took about 40 minutes and the driver avoided the toll roads and it was very pleasant drive. The cost 40,000 Won.
We got to check in and then got the most pettiest bitch at the check in desk, who refused to let Ash fly because of his knee. Basically Jeju Air wouldn’t let him fly with an injured knee and expected him to stay in Jeju until the knee was better or it fell off!
Thankfully having run around the airport to prove that the knee was functioning and all good, we got on the plane where Ash sat wincing at the pain and the stupid flight attendant. But we were off to the capital
Well there we go a full and detailed run through of our time on Jeju Island. We hope you enjoyed that and we will return with more details and more adventures next time. Until then sign up to receive emails and subscribe to see the next post when it’s published.
Climbing Moss 