Jeju Island

We spent the weekend at Jeju Island, which is an hours plane ride from Seoul. Thankfully the only class I have on Friday is online, so we flew to Jeju Thursday night and flew back Monday morning. That first night, we checked in to our hotel (located in Jeju City, right next to the airport) and ate some black pork, a Jeju specialty, at a KBBQ nearby.

People call a Jeju the "Hawaii of Korea" and I was honestly reminded of Hawaii when we visited, especially of my home island of Maui. We caught a taxi to the Arte Museum, which is located west of Jeju City, and part of the ride had a lot of curvy turns through more rural areas, which reminded me of upcountry Maui. There's also a volcano, many beaches, waterfalls, hikes, and more.

On Friday we went tangerine picking at Gyulhyanggi Farm, just south of Jeju City. It only cost 5,000 won and we got to eat as many as we wanted and take home a bag-full of tangerines. Later that day we went to the Arte Museum, an immersive media art exhibition. There were many different rooms you could walk through that displayed digital art. One of my favorite rooms was one that displayed famous artworks on the walls. There was Vermeer (including my favorite painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring), Monet, Michelangelo, and more. That room also rotated through Jeju scenery and the ocean. Another interesting room had a bunch of lights hanging from the ceiling that would change colors. For dinner we went to Dongmun Traditional Market, which had a bunch of food stalls and Jeju souvenirs.

For Saturday, we decided to rent a taxi for the day ahead of time through Klook. Basically we sent our itinerary to our driver a couple days before and he took us to all the spots within 8 hours. Our first stop was the Teddy Bear Safari Teseum. They had a bunch of Teddy bear displays, like with small teddy bears wearing traditional clothes from different countries and bears representing the Olympic sports. Afterwards we went to Seonim Bridge, which had a couple waterfalls and a huge bridge over a river. Nearby was The Cliff, a bar where Twice filmed their Alcohol Free music video. By then it was lunchtime and we went to a seafood place our driver recommended. As Jeju is an island, seafood is also a specialty there. There was so much food, which included a grilled fish, abalone rice, and a seafood stew.

After lunch we went to Camellia Hill Botanical Garden, which was a huge park that had a lot of flowers and plants. One area had pink grass and another had a white tower which you could walk up and see most of the park from. After that we drove to Osulloc Tea Garden and Innisfree Jeju House. The garden had a cafe with many matcha-themed drinks and desserts and there was also a gift shop selling tea-related products. I LOVE tea so I bought a premium tea collection which had 8 different kinds of tea and some loose-leave green tea. We walked to the Innisfree, which was close by, and they had some Jeju-exclusive skin care products. Then we took some pictures on the green tea fields right next door. To end the day, we were dropped off at Dodu Rainbow Coastal Road, which had some rainbow colored blocks lined up on the road near the ocean. Then we ate at a nearby KBBQ for some more Jeju black pork.

It rained on Sunday so we spent the day going around Jeju City. I did a lot of souvenir shopping at Dongmun Market, which sold a variety of snacks, trinkets, and tangerine-related souvenirs (hats, magnets, keychains). We also walked to Yongyeon Pond, which was located right where the river met the ocean. There were many souvenir shops along the way so I bought more stuff. For dinner we had some meat noodles and then went to bed early. We flew out the next day at 7am, thus ending our short vacation in Jeju!