Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

Jeju Island is South Korea's Hawaii, a nice little volcanic island. It's so popular that there are over 100 flights per day between just Seoul and Jeju. Sometimes they literally have flights every 5mn. The amazing part is that we arrived too early for our flight due to my not knowing how long it would take to get there via cab during rush hour, and our incoming flight was known to have issues already. The counter lady actually put us on a flight leaving 20mn from the time we checked in at the outside counter. We got through the airport and to the plane in 17mn and the plane took off on time, amazing.

I typically rent a crappy rental car to remind myself that my own cars are pretty nice :) although in this case the thing didn't even have room for our luggage and they were fully booked and unable to swap us for a better one at the airport :( On the plus side, I think South Korea is about as safe as Japan, so we didn't have to worry too much about someone breaking into the car and stealing our luggage:

we spent the first night by the beach a bit west of Jeju:

This was because I was planning on doing a loop going west, but I then found out about the Nexon Computer Museum. I definitely wanted to check it out, so we went back east to check it out, but started with Loveland, which opened 1H earlier:

mixed messages :)

We then checked out the mysterious road bit next door where your car rolls downhill while it looks that you're going uphill :)

Next, we went to Nexon Computer Museum which was well worth the alteration to my plans (going the next day on our loop back was not possible as it was closed on mondays).

Sadly, at this point I should have rechecked the weather forecast and noticed that the rain on monday had shifted to be later sunday. This messed up the rest of our day as I explain below. In hindsight, I should have continued the loop east and done more museums sunday. Usually I plan better than that but messed up this time :(

So after Nexon, I resumed my original planned loop of turning West, even though it was already just past noon by then. Weather was still ok at the beginning:

Jeju is known for black pigs

Found a nice temple on the way

Next, we went to Manjanggul Lava Tube, it was quite big, long, and impressive. Sadly, it was devoid of life (bats, spiders, or other). I think so many people go by that they go to hide in non public portions of the tube:

By then, we started going to the west coast, and weather started turning south. It didn't pour rain, but visibility got bad quickly. This really sucked because we were supposed to climb to Seongsan Ilchulbong, also called Sunrise Peak. You hike up to the top of a volcano for great views. Seeing the weather, I didn't want to bother because I knew we'd see nothing. Jennifer wanted to try anyway, so we went up, and saw nothing :(

we also missed that, too bad

from bad

to worse :(

this is what it was supposed to look like

I do feel crappy about this because if I had swapped both days, and done the loop in reverse, we'd have gotten to the Jeju Folk Village in time for performances, and seen the great view after the storm had passed.

Next on the road was Jeju Folk Village. By the time we arrived, we missed their last performance, but had enough time to visit the village:

nice rock

By then, fog was to the ground, so we drove further towards our room and got nice BBQ dinner:

The next morning, we went to see some waterfalls and saw a portion of the Jeju walking trail (a 7 day or so hike around the island):

Next, we went to Jusangjeollidae, a nice hexagonal lava rock formation:

We then parked at Yeomiji Botanical Garden and first walked to Cheonjeyeon Falls nearby, across a nice bridge:

After spending some time at the falls, we went back to the botanical gardens, which were pretty good actually:

the top level had an observatory

Next, we went to the Jeju Peace Museum, it's not great or flashy, but gives a good history of the Japanese occupation of Jeju Island and how they started digging tunnels like at Iwo Jima, waiting for the Americans to come attack, and fight them off until the last of them is dead. While it's not super impressive, you can visit a pretty pristine tunnel they dug:

Last, but not least, we went to the Jeju Air and Space Museum, which was definitely a nice surprise, even if not as much of a must go in my opinion as the Nexon Computer Museum:

Jennifer is happy, she got to see a small horse on the way back to the airport :)