Tag Archives: jeju roadtrip

South Korea, Travelinds

Jeju-do Roadtrip – Part 3

27 July 2014

Jeju Island, South Korea

Geumneung Beach
Geumneung Beach

Our last full day we headed up towards the north western corner of the island, hoping to catch a bit of sun and find a place to settle down for the last evening on Jeju island.

Circumnavigating Jeju, you can catch a glimpse of Hallasan (the prominent volcano mountain in the centre of the island) when the clouds aren’t covering it like a fluffy white beanie.

 

Geumneung Beach

Our first stop for the day was at Geumneung Beach, the quieter, neighbouring beach to Jeju’s most famous one – Hyeopjae Beach.

We found a spot of sand (between the ‘for hire’ umbrellas) and enjoyed the hike across the bay to get to the water deep enough for swimming.  As with most beaches in Korea, it wasn’t more than chest deep and you have to just pretend to be really swiming.

Windhill Hotel and Resort, Aewol.
Windhill Hotel and Resort, Aewol.

After a couple of hours, we washed off and headed up towards Aewol where we had seen a hotel online that looked like a winner.

 

Windhill Hotel and Resort

Windhill Hotel&Resort turned out to be quite difficult to find (through winding little alleys and one car wide farm roads our GPS directed us, when it would have been so much easier to come in from the other side on the coastal road through Aewol) @_@

It was a nice little hotel though and we had a comfortable stay in a clean, airconditioned room.

Cafe Uncle Tony’s

We found a small restaurant down the road, Uncle Tony’s Cafe, where we had the most delicious fish and chips we’ve found in Korea. Thank you, Britain.

Cafe Uncle Tony's, Aewol
Cafe Uncle Tony’s, Aewol

We enjoyed it so much we came back again the next day for brunch. And had fish and chips again! With vinegar! This place has a great vibe and mouth-wateringly good food.

Back to Jeju City

The last day we headed back in to Jeju City to get ready to board the ferry again.

With about an hour and a half extra, we decided to do at least one cultural activity and settled on an interesting visit to the Natural History and Folklore museum.

Heading back down to the dock was bittersweet, but Jeju is a truly beautiful place and it’s easy to see why it is held so dear in the hearts of the Korean people.

 

Memories

Favourite memories for the trip included hallabong, beaches, local hospitality and the mysterious volcanic rocks that line the turquoise bays. Goodbye, Jeju Grandfathers, and keep watch until next time.

Mount Hallasan hiding in the clouds
Mount Hallasan hiding in the clouds
South Korea, Travelinds

Jeju-do Roadtrip – Part 2

26 July 2014

Jeju Island, South Korea

tumblr_inline_nclsgwf0tT1rg4d7lThe second night of our road trip, we stayed at a pension on the West Coast of the island – in Korea, ‘pension’ refers to a self-catering holiday flat or room, usually with a kitchenette.  We had almost driven right around the island from Woljeong-ri in the northeastern corner, past some stunning ocean views, to the southwestern corner of the island.

Travelinds found a pension called Madangdol Pension and booked in for a night. It looked out over the dark blue ocean crashing on to volcanic black rocks – amazing!

There was a Heuk Dweji (Black Pig) restaurant down the road from the pension and enjoyed a scrumptious Korean-style braai, seated on the floor of a restaurant whose only other customers were some rough looking fisherman and farmers from the area. If the owners were surprised to find two random waygooks in their establishment, they didn’t show it.

Jeju Island Black Pig
Jeju Black Pig Barbcue

At the pension, there were only three other guests (a mother and daughter who were on vacation with the daughter’s new boyfriend who was a university professor and the designated barbecue chef for the family).

Travelinds shared some South African biltong and cider with them, they shared some of their barbecue with us; and the evening ended with us teaching them how to play a couple of card games and chatting about life and travel dreams. What fun!

The morning came too soon and we were on our way once more. Heading back up north towards Jeju City.

Jeju

South Korea, Travelinds

Jeju-do Roadtrip – Part 1

25 July 2014

Jeju Island, South Korea

Art House
Art House

This summer, Travelinds did a roadtrip to Jeju Island – South Korea’s ‘Maldives’ and a popular honeymoon destination for Koreans. There were four days (Monday to Thursday) to explore and decided it would be more fun to go over on the car ferry with our dear old Kia Sephia.

We stayed three nights and chose the hotels as we went along. From Jeju City, we drove around the whole island going east first and driving along the 1132 Coastal Highway.

We stopped the first night at Woljeong-ri and stayed at “The Art House”, a charming bed and breakfast with pension rooms also available.

It was only a short drive from Woljeong Beach with its beautiful turquoise sea, sandy beach, giant energy windmills and only a handful of tourists. The Art House is on Agoda.com – see the reviews on TripAvisor here.

Woljeong
Evening swim at Woljeong Beach

At Art House, we met up with a couple from Spain who were touring Jeju without a car and more importantly without any knowledge of Korean. We offered to drop them off along the way to our next destination so that they could explore before heading back on the local 700 bus.

Woljeong-ri
The drive along Woljeong-ri (on Jeju’s north coast)
Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak
Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak

We dropped them off at the UNESCO Natural Heritage site called Sunrise Peak (Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak) to hike the volcanic peak with the hoards of tourists spilling from tour busses. With a sore ankle and suffocating heat (or was is crowds?) as an excuse, we declined the hike, took some sneaky pictures at the museum that made it look like we had touched the mountain and headed off down the coast in our air-conditioned car.

Pyoseon Haevich beach, low tide.
Pyoseon Haevich beach, low tide.

Next stop was the south-eastern corner of Jeju at Pyoseon Haevich Beach and Jeju Folk Village. The beach was lovely for swimming, but not so lovely for tanning as the whole bay is covered in water during high tide resulting in permanently wet beach sand, even at low tide. Most people hire those silver picnic mats and umbrellas (Korean style) and sit on these for a bit before retreating from the sun.

The only bikinis were H and a couple of other Russian tourists that were frolicking in the shallow bay – full body wet suits, long sleeve rash vests, big hats, fully clothed swimmers, tubes, umbrellas and loads of whitening suncream reminded us that we were still very much in Asia.

Jeongbang waterfall.
Jeongbang waterfall.

We looked in at the Jeju Folk Village but decided against going in as we had run out of time and it was time to drive on to our next hotel on the west of the island.  On the way, we managed to stop at the Jeongbang waterfall for a quick snack of Hallabong (a famous Jeju tangerine with protruding stem, sweet and delicious) and a mini photo session.

TIP: The GIANT Mosquitoes at Jeongbang are permanently hungry and really dig in when they find a weak spot; like feet, legs, arms or even faces.
Jeongbang waterfall.
Jeongbang waterfall.