Jeju

I spent 4 days in Jeju, an island often described as the Hawaii of South Korea.

Jeju wasn’t originally on my radar, but I decided to come because (a) my friend already planned a trip here and I wanted to see her plus meet new people and (b) the National Day holiday is apparently a bad time to be in China due to how crowded everything is so I escaped to South Korea.

My initial impression of Jeju was actually that it was pretty drab haha. Our Airbnb was along the northern coast of Jeju, near the airport, in a town called Dobu-dong. After hearing the comparison to Hawaii, I was envisioning beautiful sandy beaches and resort atmosphere. Instead, the shoreline was more rocky, and the architecture and buildings felt kinda brutalist and industrial with mostly boxy shapes, neutral colored concrete exteriors.

Despite an underwhelming first impression, I ended up having a great time in Jeju, plus after spending more time walking around I learned to also appreciate the neighborhood more. I like that it’s a place where real people live. The town had a local feel, with older folks out and about in the morning exercising, plenty of cafes and restaurants, and scenic viewpoints along the waterfront road. Also, other parts of Jeju (east and southwest) do have more pretty nature and a more vacation vibe.

The overall pace of this trip was fairly relaxed and slow which I enjoyed since the rest of my travel has been a bit frenetic.

Sightseeing

Seongsan Ilchulbong

This a popular scenic spot on the northeast coast of Jeju. It was a short walk up some stone stairs to get up to the top. Very pleasant weather, cool enough for me to not be sweaty even after walking up several hundred feet of elevation, which was amazing because I hate being sweaty haha.

The main viewpoint at the top faces east and is apparently a great sunrise spot. We were there at sunset and still found it pretty, but we enjoyed looking west over the city more than looking east out toward the ocean. As we walked down, it started to get dark and the lights along the path lit up and that was very beautiful.

Scuba Diving

This was my first scuba diving experience. I’ve never appreciated air so much! I have to admit I had a harder time than I expected and perhaps trying something new and potentially dangerous with a language barrier was not the best idea haha. We watched an instructional video but it was in Korean with English subtitles. There were 3 guides and only 4 participants, which was a great ratio. They had us change into our bathing suits and put on wetsuits, then gave us a mask and strapped on a weight belt and the air tank. The gear was soo heavy! I had a pretty hard time standing up and waddling toward the water especially since there were a few stairs involved. I had to walk slightly bent forward to prevent the tank from making me fall backwards.

We were instructed to slowly fall backwards off the dock into the water. I felt pretty calm and confident at this point, and was perfectly fine when I fell into the water. I was also fine when they had us dip our heads under water to practice breathing through our mouths through the regulator. However, when the guide started pushing us further underwater to dive, I had a moment when I realized I couldn’t breathe deeply enough to get enough air sustainably since the waist belt was too tight. This freaked me out and I had to gesture to go back up and then gesture some more to explain the problem and then they understood and loosened the belt and I was ok to try again.

Next, I had an issue with the internal pressure build up in my head. They taught us the technique to equalize the pressure by holding your nose and blowing outward to make your ears pop, but I could not get this to work after trying multiple times and so it was kinda painful in my ears until eventually I just got used to it or something?

The final problem was that my throat got really dry from only breathing through my mouth for a while, and eventually I had to cough and didn’t know how to do that safely while underwater. So I had to go up again to the surface to cough and then go back down. The guides had definitely identified me as the problem child of the group at this point haha so they did not seem surprised when I wanted to go back up again and even assigned 2 of the 3 guides to help me.

Part of why I felt scared underwater was the realization that I probably could not get back up to the surface without help. We had fins and I can definitely swim 15 feet upward normally, but with the weights and the heavy tank it was actually quite difficult to move upward until they did something with our vests (probably to pump air into them?) to help us ascend. Otherwise we were super heavy to help us stay underwater. So I felt a lot more conservative in asking them to take me up when I sensed a potential problem, to prevent myself from getting into an emergency situation if for example I started coughing and then choking.

The water was not very clear so we couldn’t see too much tbh. We could see some fish when they were right in front of us and it was cool when they gave us some food so we could feed the fish. A lot of the time was actually spent on them taking pictures of us while we posed in various ways. While one person was getting pictures taken, the rest of us were kind of just hanging out on the seafloor.

We didn’t dive deep, only about 5 meters, which I thought would feel like nothing but actually did feel kinda deep the water was murky. I’m glad it wasn’t a very deep dive for this first experience since I think I would have been way more scared.

I would probably scuba dive again if it were in a very pretty area with clear water (like a coral reef) and English speaking for more training, but overall it was just an ok experience and I don’t see myself doing this regularly just for fun.

Osulloc Tea Museum

This place is a collection of a few buildings and surrounding tea fields. It’s a major tourist attraction with tons of tour buses filling up the parking lot. Probably the busiest place besides Hallasan that we went to in Jeju.

The main building has a bunch of tea samples and is primarily a store selling tea and cookies. I tried a bunch of samples and ended up buying 3 different teas including a roasted green tea one that is Jeju exclusive meaning I guess you can only buy it in Jeju. An observation deck on the top floor has nice views over the tea fields.

There’s a separate cellar room where they are aging tea in various wood barrels. We entered each of the 3 rooms and the smells were very distinct, and we sampled each of the 3 teas. The oak barrel one had an interesting smoky flavor and I might’ve bought one if I hadn’t already bought so many already haha.

There’s also an Innisfree store and cafe. Apparently the owners of this tea museum also own Innisfree so they created a crossover store that sells skincare products that have a tea element. I was tempted but I already have plenty of skincare and I couldn’t read any of the product descriptions haha. The store was so pretty with lots of light and plants. And it was heavily air conditioned which was great since it was pretty humid outside.

Oedolgae

There’s a nice path along the ridge along the southern coast. We were targeting a specific spot called Oedolgae Sea Stack which is a scenic cove and rock stack. We meandered slowly around here and took some pictures. Other tourists were also taking photos but it was much less crowded than the other spots we went to on the trip.

Hallasan National Park

We hiked to the top of Hallasan which is a national park and is the tallest mountain in South Korea. We did about 4k feet of elevation in 6.5 miles. I really enjoyed the climb; it was a good workout without being overly difficult. I was thankful for the forest coverage and clouds while climbing up. Then at the top it was actually a bit chilly and I wished for sun for better views. The crater that you look down into from the summit is very scenic and has a small lake.

At the top, there was a line of people near the summit area. Turns out this a queue for taking a picture with the iconic rock sign thing at the top. We decided to skip the line and just take some pictures at other summit spots. I think this was the right move as the line was moving very slowly haha.

One thing I noticed that was odd is that there’s no culture of stepping aside to let people pass on the trail. We would step to the side when we noticed someone trying to pass us, but we had to aggressively overtake people to pass since they would not move over. This was kind of difficult at times since the trail is narrow. Very different than what I experienced hiking in North America where people will briefly step aside when they sense you are behind them.

The trail alternates between pleasant boardwalk / stairs and unpleasant rocky terrain. On the way up, it was all fine and I appreciate the variety. On the way down, I got tired of the rocks real fast and kind of wanted to be done with it lol. I was impressed at how busy the trail was since it’s a nontrivial hike. A lot of older folks doing it.

This trail had frequent signage indicating where you are in the hike and distances to the next checkpoint and rest areas. This was pretty helpful! It also indicated whether the terrain was easy/medium/hard, but my experience was there is no clear difference between medium and hard lol.

I was happy with the frequency of rest areas. There were two real rest areas with real bathrooms along the trail. One of them had a lot of steps and benches where people would sit to eat a snack. So many people were making ramen (where did they get the hot water??). We had brought some sandwiches and gimbap and were happy with that but also kinda jealous of the ramen haha.

Korean Spa

Went to a classic korean spa. Wet area with various pools, and a dry area with different dry saunas and areas to lay down. It was pretty relaxing and I spent about 3 hours there. Only $10 USD for unlimited time. I used this time to get my act together for the upcoming Taiwan leg (including finalizing my hotel for literally tomorrow so I won’t be homeless when I arrive lol), and listen to my audiobook a bit.

I did some contrast therapy later in the evening, alternating between the hot pools and the cold pools. The first entrance into the cold pool is the hardest but once you full send it all the way in then it’s actually not so bad. The cold pool was 15C ish so actually not too cold, and the hot pool did not have a temperature but felt pretty hot. I dislike being publicly naked but I know that’s just how it is so I got over it after a few minutes and everyone else is doing it so it feels more normal.

Bonte Museum

We drove past this art museum while exploring southwest Jeju. We thought about going in to do a quick walk through but it was $22 USD and we decided it wasn’t worth it compared to other options for that day. We did get to see the exterior of the museum and I noticed a sculpture that looked very familiar! There’s one just like it in front of the MIT Student Center, though the MIT one has numbers while this one has letters.

Dobu-dong

The neighborhood with our Airbnb has a lot of hidden charm. I liked the local waterfront with many lighthouses and a rainbow-block lined road. I ran around here my first day and then did another walk around on my last morning. There was a local swimming pool that was surprisingly nice and I had a good swim workout there.

Food

Korean Barbecue

We ate barbecue twice! Both times featuring Jeju black pig. The primary cuts offered are pork belly so we had a lot of that. We also had some ribs and some pork shoulder. I liked the first restaurant a bit better since I thought the meat was more tender. The dipping sauce offered at the second place was better though. We also had some soybean stew and fried rice sides which complemented the meat well. It’s nice to get some lettuce to wrap the meat and feel more healthy too haha.

Unagi

This Michelin guide restaurant was excellent and I’m so glad my friends found it. They actually went a few days before I arrived then went again because it was so good. The unagi bowl and accompanying soup were both delicious. I tried some of the pickles and shockingly liked some of them even though I normally dislike pickles. The ambiance was calming and homey with light wood decor and a leave-your-shoes-at-the-door policy.

Cafes

The cafe culture here is impressive! They’re easy to miss from the outside since all the buildings are kinda just grey and boxy, but the interiors are beautifully designed and modern, and a lot of them are multi level and have ocean views. I don’t drink coffee but was told the coffee was great. There was one cafe I went to twice right next to our Airbnb where I had excellent milk tea and pastries. There was also a runner’s cafe frequented by a lot of sponsored athletes who were gathering in Jeju for a race happening this weekend. And another very aesthetic cafe near the unagi spot that looked like a cross between a cafe and a library, and had lots of nicely dressed people taking photos.

Other

A collection of random observations I noticed while here, in no particular order:

• There are many stray cats, including one that curled up right behind the wheel of our parked car for a few minutes!

• The Airbnb bathroom has no shower curtain and has no trash can.
• All places we took showers at (the Airbnb, Korean spa, scuba diving) provide multiple mini towels (hand towel sized) instead of one larger towel per person.
• The local swimming pool is very accessible and super nice and clean!
• There are palm trees and beaches but the overall vibe is not as tropical or resort vibes as Hawaii.
• The island is about size of Maui; somehow I thought Jeju was bigger but it’s not!
• Most of the cars are white, some are black, not many other colors. It was kind of interesting looking at a parking lot and seeing all white cars.
• Cafes open at like 9/10 am and not earlier in the morning. I was surprised by this especially on the last day when I was looking to hang out somewhere before my flight.
• The island is almost entirely Korean speaking, not much English, definitely good to have a Korean speaking person in your party or use a translate app!

Future

A few things I’d like to see if I were to come back to Jeju in the future!

• Haenyeo Museum: the haenyeo are women who dive without equipment for multiple minutes to harvest abalone; I want to see that in action and check out the museum.
• Jeongbang Waterfall: this waterfall looks so beautiful and falls directly into the ocean.