Jeju Island - the beginning...

On Wed afternoon I took a flight down to Korea's largest and most southern island - Jeju.

The initial blast of hot air and sunshine as I exited the airport indicated that this was going to be a fun few days.

After walking around downtown Jeju I gave in to my urge to finally see and swim in a real Korean beach. However, this urge was only satisified after a 7km hike down to the nearest beach - Samyeong Beach. My only hope was that the hike was worth it.

I arrived around 7pm - much to the delight of the many young and old Korean people whom seemed to find my looks to be very peculiar. I had been warned in my Lonely Planet guide that this beach is made of black sand, which is supposed to be good for your skin, like most unusual things in the world.

The initial assessment was that this could be a great beach. The sun was setting, people were having fun in the ocean and there was a general feeling of happinness in the air. Even the earth grader that was moving mounds of black sand seemed delighted to be there.


I jumped in the water only to find that my manhood had completely dissappeared - due to the rather cold water.

Without hesitation a couple started talking to me. They spoke good English and invited me back to their house for dinner and a place to stay. This was great news as I was originally going to stay on the beach with black sand...

I returned to their house for a meal and a bed on the floor. It turned out that they were hosting a Canadian man who is teaching English in Jeju. My hosts were great tour guides, pointing me in the right direction for the best things to do and see whilst on Jeju Island.


Thursday morning kicked off with an early start - 6AM. Today my mission is to hike up Mount Hallasan. It's an inactive volcanoe that sits 1900 metres (about 6000 feet) above sea level. Luckily the weather was fairly cool and a little rainy - excellent hiking weather. However, I soon learned that the hike itself was 9.6 km each way. That's a total of almost 20km (just over 12 miles) return trip. Wow!

The hike involved traversing up the volcanoe, on a path of volcanoe rocks - nice and comforting for your feet.


After around the 6km mark the gradient increased significantly and the hiking became rather difficult. The peak greeted me with a spectacular view of mist and cloud and fog. Lovely! The temperature had dropped to around 0 Celcius and the wind was enough to blow a house of it's foundations. Neverless, the hike was a good personal achievement. I completed the whole return trip in 4 hours 20 minutes on nothing but an empty stomach containing 1 Snickers bar and 1 bottle of water. Well, we all do silly things...


After the hike, I decided to find a decent beach. Jungmun is the one to go to. I arrived there around 3pm. Sure enough, the sand was whitish, the waves were big and plentifull and there was a good sized crowd to go with it. However, unfortunately the beach is patrolled extremely vigourously by many life guards (whom I suspect can't really swim judging by their swimming skills) with whistles. If you DARE go into water that is deeper than your shoulders you are whistled back into more shallow waters. This was a little frustrating however I did mange to body surf a few waves which was quite fun.

The post beach bliss soon wore off as I did more walking, followed by more walking. I was trying to find a house which was a friend of the people that I stayed with last night. Pretty soon I decided to try a phone call. Unfortunately, the person who answered seemed to know little English so I gave up. However, the person who's phone I used in the shop seemed to be very excited to have me there and gave a free popper of pea juice for his troubles... Did I just say he gave me a free gift for barging in and using his phone?... Yes, that is correct. Once again the Korean people have outdone themselves with generosity!

Thursday night I decided to sit by the sea and write in my journal under the dim aura of a street light and with a few sea bugs crawling nearby as friends. After some time I took a walk along the break water, watching the waves crash in and nearly drench me in the darkness. It was on my return to my sleeping place (Jimjilbang) for the night that I ran into a group of Korean people finishing their dinner festivities. They began to speak to me and one in particular spoke quite good English. We ended up sharing a couple of Soju's together and walking back to the Jimjilbang.


The walk back included a group of young giggly Koreans who were having a street party in a random car park. They were very excited to see a foreigner and decided to offer me some of each drink and type of food that they had.


However, it was my new Korean friend (Woo Seok) that offered to be my tour guide for Friday. He promised to pick me up from the Jimjilbang at 10AM. The agreement was that I teach him to speak propper English and he takes me for a tour of the island. Sounded good to me!

Sure enough, Friday morning at 10AM he picked me up for a local's tour of Jeju island. This included a look at the cinema museum, a quick hang out with some local fisherman, a tour of the traditional folk village and a trip to the lava caves. The caves were particularly spectacular, purely because they were formed from lava escaping from the island and eventually settling to form a lava cave. What made the cave even more interesting was a young Korean kid who spoke very good English and decided to latch himself on to me and practice his English.