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Hey everyone,
So Saturday, May 5th was Children’s Day here in Korea. As a result, the government decided to give us a national holiday on Monday, meaning we got a rare three-day weekend. Tanya and I decided to take advantage of the three-day weekend by joining a group of EPIK teachers (EPIK is the government-run English program here in Korea, so EPIK teachers work in the public schools, whereas Tanya and I work in a private, after-school academy) on a tour to Jeju Island, sometimes considered to be the “Hawaii of Korea.”
For those of you unfamiliar with geography around Korea, Jeju Island is located in the Korean Strait, directly south of Gwangju, the city I’m in. Gwangju is in South Jolla province, the province that constitutes the Southwestern corner of South Korea. Because it’s an island, getting to Jeju requires taking either a plane or a ferry. Jeju might be familiar due to the infamous Sewol Ferry accident of 2014, where a ferry to Jeju carrying over 400 people, including 325 high school students, capsized and sank, resulting in the death of 304 passengers, many of them students. On a more pleasant note, Jeju is known for green
Smile!
I promise I'm not as scared as I seem to look in all of the pictures I took here...tea, a handful of natural landmarks (more on those later), Loveland, a sex-themed sculpture park, and oranges--one of the major tourist draws is getting to pick your own oranges.
Because the tour group we joined began its journey in Seoul (a four hour drive north of Gwangju), we were told to expect the bus at the bus terminal at about 2:30 Saturday morning, but that we should be there at 2, just in case. At around 1:00, I received a text message from the tour group saying that the bus was running about an hour late, so we had another hour to wait before going to the bus terminal. Natanya and I met up with the rest of the Gwangju group at the bus terminal at 3 am, ready to get on our way to Jeju. All of the EPIK teachers work normal daytime hours, so since they got off work at around 4 pm, they had all had plenty of time to nap and rest after work. Tanya and I had basically gone home, had dinner, and got ready to go, so we were pretty tired.
The bus didn’t end up arriving until around 4 am, and
when they did arrive, it was this random guy who approached our group and told us to follow him. I think he verified one of the members of our group (the EPIK teacher who had organized the whole thing for the EPIK group), and so we followed. Except the tour leader, Hwan, stopped not five feet later, paused, looked around as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was or where he was going, then told us to wait as he rushed off in a random direction. He reappeared a few minutes later, turned us around, and brought us outside to the bus (the long way, so that we crossed through the taxi line at the crosswalk, and then had to cross back in front of all the taxis that had just picked up passengers and were trying to leave. What? We were all confused about that, but we made it to the bus without anyone getting hit. Once on the bus, we basically ended up with the worst seats, as we were the last pickup, and thus got the leftovers. As a result, I was in the very middle seat at the back of the bus, and Tanya had
to wake up some random girl who had sat in the isle seat so she could get to the window. The girls in the very last row of seats had their seats reclined all the way, meaning the people next to me had zero leg room, and had to stretch their legs out towards the middle isle, leaving me to squeeze as small as possible. The last row of seats also didn’t recline, so we were stuck straight up for the duration of the bus ride. Oh, did I mention the air conditioner wasn’t on? The air in the bus was so stifling that the windows fogged up, and I couldn’t help but mention to Tanya in our texts that we were breathing “the recycled air of a bus full of strangers” (I’m a good friend like that). It was definitely one of the most challenging bus rides I’ve taken.
At about 6 am, we arrived at Wando, the port city where we would catch our ferry to Jeju. Things got kind of hectic at this point, as we were told that we would be given our tickets later, but that we should board the ferry at 7:20. The
Seongsan Ilculbong
Nothing to most of the people I know, but I'm pretty proud I made it to the top communication about where we were supposed to meet to get our tickets was poor, resulting in our group not being in the right place to get our tickets at the right time. We finally realized we were supposed to go back to the bus to get our tickets, but once we got back to the bus, the tour guide, who actually had the tickets, had passed us going to the port. 180 back to the port. Once in the port, our tour guide had managed to disappear, and the tour guide for the other bus had no idea where he was. Great. Some of us took the chance to go to the restroom, figuring he would be have reappeared by the time we got back. Tanya and another girl ended up tracking him down and getting our tickets from him, and we stood in our group and waited, figuring he would tell us when we were supposed to board. He didn’t. The guide for the other bus finally told us that we were supposed to be boarding (our tour guide had apparently already boarded), so off we went to the ferry. Once on the ferry, we were directed to a
room with a raised floor on either side of a walkway down the middle. People had spread blankets out on the floor and were laying down to rest for the duration of the trip. Since we had gotten on so late, there wasn’t really any room, but we had a group of 11, so we ended up just edging our way into some space. Tanya went up with another girl to explore a little, and found out that the rest of our bus had managed to spread themselves out across padded benches that lined the space upstairs, but that they had sprawled their stuff across the seats in such a way that they seemed disinclined to share their space with us. So we settled in for a very cramped, uncomfortable four hour ride. We didn’t find out until the return trip, but apparently there was a faster (2 hours instead of 4), more spacious ferry to Jeju, which the other bus took, and which we rode on the way back. Somehow our tour guide had messed up, or something had happened that meant we ended up on the indirect ferry that was less comfortable. Add to that, everyone was tired
Natanya and Keleigh
The three of us went orange picking together and cranky, and ooh it was a rough trip, let me tell you.
We finally made it to Jeju, and hopped on another tour bus (this time our group had learned our lesson, and made sure we were the first on the bus so we got quality seats toward the front). Our first stop was the Manjanggul Lava Tube, which is basically a cave that was carved out by lava back when Jeju was an active volcano. Although the tube is about 9 km long, only one is accessible to the public. As cool as the cave was, I have to admit I spent most of my time watching my feet so I didn’t fall on my face. The cave was DARK, lit only by sporadic artificial lights along the path, and very wet and uneven, leading to extremely high probabilities that I would end up splat on the ground. For the record, I only tripped like, five times, and didn’t actually end up falling, thank you very much. As is the way of tours, the caves were a quick in-and-out stop, only really long enough for everyone to walk the length and back.
Our next stop was
(Almost) the whole Gwangju crew
I think Emma is floating around behind us, unaware of the picture Seongsan Ilchulbong, or “Sunrise Peak,” which is a mini-mountain with a crater at the center of the peak. Upon arrival, our tour guide announced that it should take about 20 minutes to hike to the peak. A group of people, Natanya included, decided they were going to time themselves going up and try to get up within the 20 minutes. They ended up getting to the top within about 15, I believe. I stuck with two girls who, like me, were just determined to make it to the top (I will be the first to tell you that I hate hiking, and I am super out of shape, so hiking, especially in East Asia where “hiking” basically means walking up a never-ending staircase, is a struggle). We ended up making it to the top in about 25 minutes, although it would have been sooner if not for the fact that we took a long break right near the top, thinking we were only about halfway up. We were honestly just happy we made it to the top, and I will admit it was kind of cool to see the crater. The views on the way down also definitely made it
worth it.
We then went to Seopjikoji, but ay this point it was getting pretty cold and windy. We were also still super tired after not getting much sleep the night before, so Tanya and I went out to snap some pictures, but then got back on the bus to nap for a bit while everyone explored. After Seopjikoji, our tour guide brought us to a Korean BBQ place for some Jeju black pork, a specialty of the island. The pork was great, although I’m definitely not enough of a food connoisseur to be able to tell you how it was any different from regular pork. The problem at dinner was not the pork. The problem was being told to “sit at any table in this area” and then being kicked out only once everyone else had already been seated, and having to fit ourselves into the leftover spaces at other peoples’ tables. The problem was that we got three pieces of pork (think bacon, but cut about an inch thick, rather than the thin pieces we are accustomed to) for four people. The problem was that we hadn’t eaten a real meal all day, and were HUNGRY. And
honestly, I’ve gotten Korean BBQ with friends before, and we have easily consumed five times that much meat. After such a long day, dinner felt like kind of a rip-off, and most of us ended up eating two or three bowls of rice to supplement the main part of our meal. It was a rather unsatisfying end to a rough day.
On Saturday, it was pouring rain. I mean the drenched-in-seconds kind of rain, where your shoes have no hope of staying dry, and I hope you like having personal puddles in your shoes. The previous day, our tour guide had on multiple occasions talked about how the weather on Jeju is special, because each section of the island might be experiencing vastly different weather, so while it might be pouring rain in the north, the south might be clear skies and balmy. I think this left us pretty unprepared for how much rain we encountered across the island on Saturday. By lunchtime, we were all fairly miserable, with soggy jeans, sopping shoes, and socks that were soaked through. Even with an umbrella and a poncho that I bought at our first stop, all of my clothes were somewhere
on the scale between damp and drenched.
Our first stop, though, was the Jeongbang waterfall, which is unique in Asia as it falls directly into the ocean, rather than into a river or lake. After a quick stop for some pictures, we followed up with the Cheonjiyeon waterfalls, which are accessible after a short 1 km walk along a subtropical path. The tropical aspect was definitely emphasized by the rain, as the trees hung heavy over the path, and we were walking alongside a raging river. Our last stop before lunch was the Jusangjeolli Lava Cliffs, which are hexagonal rock formations that rise out of the water and admittedly look really cool from the cliffside. It was also pretty amusing seeing our nice line of colorful umbrellas as we all shuffled across the lookout point and snapped as many pictures as possible before seeking shelter in the bus.
After lunch, the tour group decided to forego its previous plan of trail trekking and beach time, instead opting to visit the O’Seollok Green Tea fields. Natanya, one of the EPIK teachers and I decided to ditch the tour group at this point, and instead went in search of orange
grooves so we could pick ourselves some oranges. Our decision was really last minute (our tour bus had started moving by the time we committed to our decision), because we were hoping for a bigger group to join, but we ultimately decided to go. Our tour guide gave us the contact info and location of a place we could go, so we hopped in a taxi and went to the orange farm. To our relief (and our other EPIK friend’s chagrin), we were under a roof the entire time we were at the farm. The farm itself was definitely a tourist spot, because in addition to oranges, it had a small butterfly garden, lots of pinned bugs, and a petting zoo! So not only were we dry, we got to pick a few oranges (three), and pet/feed some animals! I’m so glad we ended up leaving the group, because I’m not huge on green tea, and I was really looking forward to picking oranges.
On the evening of our last night in Jeju, we were free to get our own dinner, so our group opted for Indian food (yum, curry), followed by some karaoke. I had a total blast
Tanya's best friend
He nipped her later, when she wasn't giving him enough attention getting to know the EPIK teachers better, and I’m excited to continue to spend time with them on the weekends, since our schedules during the week don’t line up at all.
Early Monday morning we made the trek back home. This time, we got to ride the faster ferry, which was also way more comfortable and had a lot more room that we were able to spread out in, as there were at least 12 separate rooms the size of the one room we were cramped in on the first ferry. Also, since we were comparing to the pervious one, the return trip felt almost fast. The whole return trip actually felt shorter, since we had more comfortable seating, and we made it home without incident!
In summary, our tour guide was pretty disorganized, so we probably won’t take any more tours with him, but it was nice to have a tour bus on Jeju. I’m not sure how the public transportation is, but the island is a lot bigger than I thought, so taking a taxi everywhere would get really expensive really quickly. However, Jeju is definitely a worthwhile place to visit, especially if you can manage
to avoid the rain, because rain sucks. 10/10 would recommend.
Sorry that was so long, but thanks for sticking with me!
Until next time!
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