Jeju Island or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Selfie

This May, we had a special three-day weekend in honor of Buddha! That's right, May 25th was Buddha's birthday.

For this long weekend, I decided to head south--way south--to Jeju island.

To get to Jeju from Gwangju, we took  bus at 3:00am (ugh so early) and rode a couple hours to the ferry terminal. From there, we took the fast ferry to the island. The slow boat is about four hours--too long for such a short time to take a trip to Jeju! The fast ferry was, luckily, only a little over two hours.

Waiting in the bay for our ferry to depart

I was pretty excited to be on a ferry for the first time. Even though I slept most of the time. And I lost one of my contacts while on the ferry so I had to wear my glasses for the rest of the trip :(. This was tragic. Really, I complained about it the whole trip.

Once we got to Jeju we hopped on another ferry to a small island off the coast of Jeju--Udo. Udo means "cow" in Korean because the bird's-eye-view of the island looks like a cow.

Udo island is famous for its peanuts and, more importantly, its peanut ice cream.

We did a bus tour of the island and saw some of the most beautiful views of the ocean I have ever seen. But then again, I've spent almost all my life hundreds of miles away from ocean so what do I know.

After a few hours on Udo, we headed back to the main island.

Goodbye, Udo!

Overall, it was a fun time

When we reached the main island we went straight to Sunrise Crater Mountain (성산일출봉), the crater of an extinct volcano. The crater is 100 meters deep and 350 meters across.

The hike to the rim was HARD. It consisted of several steep stairs and at times I felt like the Witch of the Waste in "Howl's Moving Castle:"

Once we reached the top, the view was definitely worth it. I looked over the crater and was amazed by how beautiful it was.

Then I turned around to see the view on the other side:

After we made the steep downward journey back to the tour bus, we headed to our beachside motel, checked in, and walked to the beach for dinner. A famous dish in Jeju is black pig pork BBQ. Spoiler alert: the meat isn't black at all and really just looks and tastes exactly like any other pork. The only difference: the price...

The only picture I have of me at dinner. You know, looking like a dweeb in the background. Not sure if when the camera man said, "smile," he meant me too or just these two girls.

 Of course I couldn't end the night without dessert so my friends, Molly, Perry, and I hopped over to Caffe Bene for Oreo bingsu (Korean shaved milk-ice dessert).

*angelic chorus*

 A lot of the restless Canadians on our trip continued to play until the wee hours of the morning but Molly, Perry, and I were ready to call it a night. They had their couples room and I stayed in a hondol-style four-person room (meaning I slept on a blanket...on the hardwood floor...not so bad once you get used to it).

Kitty corner from our motel was a lovely beach which, unfortunately, I didn't have much time to enjoy. But I did take the time to snap a few pictures in the morning before the tour bus left.

This day was called the "Southwest Tour." I was really looking forward to seeing some more beautiful sights around the island.

On the bus, ready for another day of exploring!

 First stop: #7 Olle coast trail. The island has 21 coastal footpaths that are all connected and each segment is numbered. There were posts where you could get a stamp to prove you visited each one.

I believe this is "Whale Rock." And if it's not, that's what I'm calling it anyway.

 The trail led to Oedolgae (Lonely) Rock. You know that legend that every coastal culture seems to tell of a maiden who waited for her sailor man to return to her but turned into stone because he never showed up? Well, this is Jeju's maiden rock thing. But really, the rock has another name based on something else many people think it looks like...

Couples were lined up to take pictures in front of the rock so I accepted that I wasn't going to get a clear shot.

 Molly, Perry, a couple new friends, and I stopped by a cute little cafe to rest.

Fresh Jeju island orange juice!

 Next stop, Jusangjeolli (주상절리) Lava Rock Column Formations. In case you couldn't tell yet, Jeju island is made up of lots of volcanic rocks. The lava rock column formations are famous because they look as if someone carved them--the cuts are so straight and geometric. But it's all natural!

Look closely at the columns at the base

There were a lot of other fun things to look at around this area.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

 ...As well as fun foods to eat

Next up on the Southwest tour of Jeju island: Cheonjeyon (천제연) Water Falls. This was a subtropical forest area that was absolutely gorgeous.

Some people in my tour group (ahem rowdy Canadians ahem) decided to go for a swim in waterfall areas even though:

"No swimming: When swimming you can be died with heart attack."

 

The waterfall and forest area was probably the best part of this day. But the beach we went to next was nice too. Jungmun (중문) Beach is supposedly one of the best beaches on the island. It was definitely beautiful but I'm not really the right person to talk to about "best beaches." There were a lot of people on the beach but the only ones who braved the cold water were the surfers.

 Alas, we could not play in the water too long so next we went to San Bang San (산방산) Temple. I enjoyed going to a Buddhist temple this day because it was, appropriately, Buddha's birthday.
This temple had a steep walking path up to a cave grotto where we could go drink from a small pool for good luck.

Inside the grotto

The Buddha inside the grotto

View from the inside of the grotto looking out

The big Buddha

The sun was very bright...

This is called Dragon Rock because it looks like a dragon laying down. Do you see it?

On the coast was this ancient watch tower where people would stand guard and light a fire if they saw battle ships in the distance

 There was another walking trail around this area and a little carnival. I got to ride on one of those swinging viking boat rides, which was a blast. Foreigners on one side, Korean strangers on the other. We were facing each other so every time one side flew up into the air, we would scream to the other side as loud and as goofy as possible. It was fun connecting with these people none of us knew or could really speak to because of the language barrier. But for a good 15 minutes we made each other laugh and smile.

Last destination on the Southwest Tour: Loveland. Don't Google search it! I sat out because it's a park where you walk around and look at sexually explicit sculptures and that's not my thing. So instead I got a frozen treat from the convenience store next door!

We ended up in downtown Jeju city for dinner, where we went to a highly recommended Indian restaurant. The food was really good--we filled up on delicious curry and naan.

When we got back to the motel area, Molly, Perry, and I once again stopped at Caffe Bene for dessert. This time we got a different shaved ice treat that looked like it was put together by a five year old: cotton candy and coated pop rocks galore.

It had been a long day. I had acquired a nice sunburn on my arms to prove it. 

The next morning I snapped a couple last pictures of the beach by the motel.

We had one final stop before boarding the ferry home: Manjangul Cave. I enjoy studying geology so this was an interesting place to visit. It's one of the longest lava tubes in the world! As you can imagine, the pictures aren't very exciting.

At the end of the lava tube was something else special: the world's largest lava column. It was formed by lava spewing from the top the the cave and building up from the bottom.

And with that, it was back to the ferry terminal.

Boarding the ferry home

Being on the ferry was pretty much like being on a bus. Except you can move around and there's a Dunkin' Donuts on board

Jeju is a gorgeous place to visit. As someone who hasn't spent much of her life around the ocean, I was stunned by some of the views I saw. My only regret is not going to Jeju during a longer vacation! Next time, I will hike Hallasan--Korea's tallest mountain!