30 Sept 2011
We had finished our company event in Seoul and had extended our stay in Korea so that we could visit Jeju island. We had booked ourselves on an 11.20 AM Asiana Airline flight to Jeju departing from Gimpo airport.
The taxi ride from our hotel in Seoul to Gimpo took less than an hour and the check-in was smooth. We had some time to kill before our flight so we went to enquire about the bus transfer that we would need from Gimpo to Incheon Airport for our return flight back to Singapore in 4 days time. There were a few bus operators and the pricing was competitive.
Our flight to Jeju took slightly over an hour. We had our first glimpse of Jeju from the air. Beautiful, colourful mosaic of green fields, small islands and coastline and then some tall buildings of Jeju-si City as we approached Jeju airport.
While waiting for our luggage, I went to pick up some brochures and most importantly, a map of Jeju in the English language. On hindsight, we should have picked up one with Korean language as well. This is so that we could show it to non-English speaking taxi drivers in Jeju and point our destinations to them.
There are two main areas with accommodation for visitors in Jeju, Jeju City (near the airport) and Seogwipo (including the Jungmun Resort Complex), at the southern part of Jeju. Although many visitors to Jeju would stay a night or two in Seogwipo and a night or two at Jeju City. We decided to stay all 4 nights in the same hotel to avoid the hassle of having to check in/check out of several hotels.
I made reservations at the Lotte Jeju Hotel. My wife’s instruction prior to the trip was: “hotel must be nice!”, so I figured it was OK to splurge a little on this more upmarket hotel.
Best way to get to our hotel located in Jungmun Resort Complex from the Jeju Airport was by limousine bus #600. The bus stop was located right outside the arrival hall of airport, on the right side. The #600 bus would stop at the doorstep of every major hotel within the Jungmun Resort Complex before ending up in Seogwipo. Fare was 3900 KRW per person and journey to Jungmun took slightly less than an hour.
Lotte Hotel was nice and luxurious. Wife was happy. The bathroom room came with bidet (not something we would use) and heated toilet seat (this was nice on a cold day). We had booked a Lake-view room so we could get views of the famous windmills. We were assigned a room near to the windmills but it was a long, long walk from the hotel lobby.
View of the windmills and sea from the balcony of our room.
As we had a heavy breakfast in Seoul,we went for a late lunch at the Western (Italian) restaurant that was still open. We were the only ones eating lunch in the restaurant at 3 PM. The seafood pasta and king crab pasta were excellent and we had an enjoyable meal.
It was about 4 PM when we finished. I had originally planned to go visit Yakcheonsa Temple and Jusangjeolli Cliff, before walking back to the hotel via the coastal Olle trail.
We decided to skip Yakcheonsa Temple and took a taxi to the cliffs instead. The short ride of about 15 minutes costs 3000 KRW.
Some stalls were selling the famous Jeju tangerines near the entrance. 3000 KRW for a small bag of tangerines. We bought the entrance tickets instead of the tangerines.
The Jusangjeolli Cliff viewing platforms allowed visitors to view the interesting and unique rock formations from various viewpoints along the coast.
Here are some pictures of the cliffs.
The hexagonal basalt rock columns were formed from volcanic lava from Mount Hallasan. Not many places on Earth have such features – similar rocks can be found in Ireland's Giant Causeway.
Jusangjeolli Cliff Viewing Platform.
There were signs explaining how the basalt columns at Jusangjeolli were formed.
The sea was quite rough. Waves as high as 20 metres are common in this area.
Some locals were seen fishing in the distance. I wonder if the catch was worth the risk they were taking.
The shots below were taken using my 200mm zoom lens.
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