Korea 2013 - Jeju

 Determined to make my recent trip to Korea the last, I included 2 places into my itinerary (Jeju and DMZ) just to make sure that I didn't need to revisit them anymore. Sorry as much as I would like to, I really can't enjoy Korea like how many people did despite being there twice.

Jeju is a nice place, beautiful being not city-like. Many people mentioned it to be 'a very beautiful place', I find it an over-compliment. Its nice, but not extremely pretty. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the nature in the waterfalls, the craters, greenery and the lava formations, etc.

We were on this island for 3 nights, the first being on arrival and thus only explored around jeju town. In summary, what attributed to our cost is on food and transportation as we booked a driver to bring us around for 8 hrs a day for 2 days. Some of the places we went are so called 'Must Go' includes Seongsan Illuchubong, Yakcheongsa Temple and some cliff-like places formed by volcanic lava.

Seongsan Illchubong from afar 

Seongsan Illchubong from the top

 Jusangjeolli Cliff

Main temple of Yakcheonsa Temple 

Pretty signs everywhere

Hall of 500 Arahan

Jeju boasts of many places used for filming and to be honest, I can't really be bothered and was not very interested as well, given that I am no fan of any korean dramas. The only one I could recall during my trip was the white church used in the drama 'All In'.

Filming location of All In

One of the most prominent thing one would ever see in Jeju, is a pair of stone grandpa outside almost every area with a gate. From our guide Mr Richard Kim, we came to understand that in the olden days, Jeju is FULL of women and very little men. In those days, men were treated like king and do not have to work. The women will do the necessary. Due to the large presence of women and to neutralise the super high levels of 'Yin', these statues resembling 'erhem' were placed everywhere.

Stone Grandpa

There's plenty of seafood in Jeju and everywhere you go, you get to see woman divers (average age about 60+?) diving without oxygen gear into the icy waters to pick abalones, shellfish and other seafood. Everywhere you go, you will be able to see outlets selling live seafood like the ones below:

  Along the drive off the coasts, it is not uncommon to see fishermen sunning their catches

Apart from seafood, we also tried out the BBQ Han Beef (Korean Beef) which is supposedly to be highly recommended. Expensive stuff, the imported ones are even cheaper by half. 

These 2 pieces costs us about 80 USD. A bit unacceptable.

After cooking a bit, the blood oozes out.

The finished product - not too many pieces eh? Makes the whole meal expensive.

Seafood hotpot which is nice but also expensive. I guess Jeju is just expensive.

Hallabong orange. Weird shaped, expensive (paid 4 USD for this) and tastes normal.

That pretty much sums up Jeju for me.