Jeju Island

We spent 4 nights in Jeju. It is an island off the southwestern part of the peninsula. It is the vacation capital of Korea, and Koreans take much pride in the island. We can understand why! We took a 10 minute taxi from near our apartment, 70 minute bus ride to Busan, 1 hour flight, and 80 minute bus ride to the side of the island opposite the airport and city. We were glad to stay in the small town of Seogwipo - pop. about 85,000. We stayed in a guest house - sort of a small hotel with prepare-your-own breakfast in a downstairs kitchen area. The owners are amazingly welcoming and helpful. I would have ideas for what we might do, and they would sort of change them based on day it was, for example. They were right. We met people from Florida, Germany, and Sweden.

We had a great view of the harbor, which has a beautiful bridge (it looks like a sailboat and has different colored lights) to a small island and also a waterfall nearby - prettiest at night with lights. We walked around there the day of arrival and also around the traditional market in the downtown area. It's our first view of such a market - lots of stuff from the sea that we didn't think looked very appetizing. The contrast with this area and some of the upscale shoppimg within a block is an interesting aspect of Korea. We ate at Mr Pizza!

The next day we took some buses and taxis to the nearby resort area of the island. There are many tourist museum type places - everything from teddy bears to where we went: the automobile museum. It exceeded our expectations. There must have been nearly 50 vintage/antique cars. On the way there we saw a "Kart" place - small vehicles driven around a track. Michael really wanted to go there, and our taxi driver called someone who spoke English so we could explain. Our experience with the people has been so positive. While we were waiting for a taxi (the security office at the auto museum called one for us), they had us sit down and have a cup of coffee. After Karts, we went to the beach area. Michael spent a lot of time in the water with a tube and also building a sand castle. We were not avoiding Korean food, but we were very hungry and ended up at Kraze Burger.

A popular and reasonable way to see the island is to hire a taxi for the day, so we spent the next day in the taxi quite a bit but seeing many island highlights. We went with an English teacher and her mom so split the cost. Our driver was recommended by the guest house and was very helpful and spoke English pretty well. We saw natural sights including a green crater area formed by volcano (lots of steps to get to top) and a lava tube (big cave). We also went to an area that has the traditional housing set up of Jeju Island. Our driver pointed out that the house style is only in Jeju. It was a 9 to 6 day. We had dinner at a place that has a grill in the middle of the table - recommended by guest house. It was very good and many good side dishes.

The last full day we walked/hiked a local Olle (two syllables Ol - Le;). The guest house owner drove us to a good starting place and recommended a buffet restaurant as our ending place. She has taken lots of pictures that she shows on the computer to give directions around town, etc. So we knew what our ending place looked like. The hike included city park, rocks by coast, road by a nearby harbor, and what seemed like walking through bush! On the rocks by the coast, we met a Korean man (Kim, Ki Hyun ... 2 parts the same as my name!) and his 13 year old daughter. She was fairly slow (and Mr. Kim said angry too - probably not enjoying the rocks), but Michael wanted to stick with them and they were very agreeable. Mr Kim told him "Mommy, take care." Mr. Kim sort of took charge including picture taking. He spoke some English. We showed him the name of our target destination, and it would have been hard to make it there without him. We took a path that said it was closed, for example! (A recent typhoon has caused some damage on the trails.) But we got there! And the buffet was delicious and a bargain. I wanted to buy lunch, but then Mr. Kim bought coffees afterwards, and the coffees cost nearly as much as lunch.

He and his daughter were headed to Peace Museum and Chocolate Museum, so we went along after going to Karts one more time for Michael. He arranged for taxi driver to stay with us for set price and then to bring us back to our guest house. I should have paid more because of the distance to our guest house, but Mr. Kim said 30,000 won for him and 20,000 won for me because he is the man and I am the woman. They ended up coming to our guest house and going out for dinner with us - traditional restaurant with fish and local pork and the most side dishes I have seen so far. They then headed to the harbor. It was a fun and interesting day.

At the Jeju airport we sat down at a little coffee and snack place. There were Korean and English on the board, and it's fun to be able to read the Korean translations of English words. I could sound out hamburger, coffee, and sandwich. A Korean syllable can have three sounds at the most, so bur and ger get split. I noticed with mart and kart spelling also that there was a second syllable with the t's and then a vowel in that second syllable (sort of like short i). No one pronounced it that way; it's just the spelling. Also, there is no f in Korean, so I was curious what letter they would use in coffee - it was the b/p letter (sound is sort of inbetween also). We found a website with short lessons, and I am trying to get Michael interested. The two people talk quite a bit and joke around, so the informal nature makes it a little more fun and insightful too.

We were sad to leave Jeju and hope we can make another trip there.