The first week in May I had 3 days off, meaning I had a 5 day weekend. Me and my friend Amy decided to jet down to Jeju island for a little vacation. Jeju island is known as the “Hawaii of Korea” and is a popular honeymoon destination for Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese.
We flew down from Gimpo Airport in Seoul on Tuesday night and headed to our classy 5 dollar a night motel called “Jeju Hiking Inn”. The next morning we explored the island and went to some cool waterfalls. The best waterfall was Jeongbang, which is the only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the sea. We tried the delicacies as well, Jeju is famous for oranges. So we tried orange chocolate, orange rice wine, and lots of other orange things. That night was cinco de mayo so we had a little happy hour with some Coronas up on the roof of our hostel overlooking the bay.
That night we decided to check out the really ritzy resorts on Jeju. We headed to the Lotte Hotel, which looks like a castle. We ate dinner at one of the really nice restaurants there. I got salmon, something I never get here, and it was amazing! After dinner we went to the hotel casino. Casinos in Korea are a weird phenomenon. Korean nationals are not allowed into them because gambling is illegal. But hotels like to rake in money from foreign tourists (especially the Japanese), so they have casinos that are only for people with foreign passports. We literally had to show proof that we weren’t Korean to get in, not what age we were.
The next morning we took a long scenic bus ride to the east side of the island. First we went into a huge Lava tube cave. Jeju is volcanic just like Hawaii so there are lots of caves and lava features. The cave was really cool. After the cave we went to Seongsan, which means Sunrise Mountain. It isn’t actually a mountain, but a crater made by an old volcano. We climbed to the top of it and there was an awesome view of the town below. We explored the area for a while, including the black sand beaches, and then we headed back to our area. We went to the world cup stadium where they had some lanterns set up for Buddha’s Birthday.
The weather had been kinda blah in Jeju up until Friday. On Friday it was supposed to be nice so we went to the beach! It was so nice and so sunny and I got REALLY sunburnt. The beach itself was beautiful and after a long day of hanging out there we went to the Shilla hotel for some beer on the porch.
The next day we had plans to climb the tallest mountain in Korea, Hallasan, but those plans didn’t sound as appealing as the beach/pool. So we scratched them and headed to The Shilla Hotel. The Shilla is probably the nicest hotel on Jeju. The pool is offlimits to nonguests, but since we’re foreigners noone questioned us. We hung out by the amazing pool all day and pretended that we were rich guests staying at the Shilla. It was a good day.
The next morning we headed back to Seoul on the 1 hour flight. Jeju was a nice vacation from Seoul and did actually remind me of Hawaii a little bit. It’s probably not as exciting to us, however, because it’s only an hour away from Seoul instead of a long journey. Anways it was a good vacation!
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