Sunday, October 12, 2025

Day 3 - Jeju East

Day 3 was spent taking a day tour exploring East of Jeju. The bus was full and I ended up having to sit with this girl from Germany. She's quite nice and friendly, but unfortunately I don't think I was as friendly to her that day. Even on a normal functioning level (where have I ever on a normal functioning level?), I wouldn't say I'm a social person. On a day where the energy level was not 100%, well I was more quiet. I do have a bit of guilt for not being more friendly to her. She did find other girl to hang out with though so good for her :D Anyways first stop was Ilchul Land. I didn't know what to expect here. After going through it, I think the concept might be the same as Hallim Park though in terms of botanical sections, I think Hallim Park is better. I don't know if this impression is because I didn't go through every corner of Ilchul Land. I noticed that they have many areas purposely decorated for you to take pictures to post in social media, like the colourful chairs in the picture below. I told the German girl, I don't know if it's an Asian thing because I notice this a lot in Indonesia and this kinda thing makes me feel sad - creating things for the purpose of content in social media :(

The big attractions here are the caves. Caves are caves, but the caves here are illuminated in interesting colours and there's some art works. By the way, a thought came to mind as I had been visiting these caves, that in prehistoric time human lived in caves right - how miserable it was when you're sleeping or just sitting down and a drop of water dropped on you from the ceiling. I had this thought as I walked on these different caves and experienced this. Back to the caves, there are 2 different caves, 2 different entrances. I don't know if they have different names or both are called Micheon Cave. In the first cave there's a Buddha statue inside and a cool big pond with some belief in it that if you dab the water in your head (I forget the locations), your wish on something (I forget what, I think health, wisdom, and something else) would come true. These caves are cool with the lights and all and I also mean it literally, it's cold inside.

Other than the caves, Ilchul Land also has pond with waterfall, some sculptures outside, greenhouses, a small recreation of a folk village, a menagerie of some animals (I didn't look at them closely). Some people wrote they saw black pigs, but I didn't see any.

The next stop was Seongeup Folk Village. This folk village is like adjacent to where people are still living. Again maybe because energy level was not high, I didn't really stop at every corner to take a look at things. We stopped at a courtyard where we're shown the games people used to play where you throw sticks into a small bucket (I failed) and throw rings into a stick (I also failed) and was also introduced to the types of punishment which was meted out in the olden days. One was where you get hit with long paddles and another was something that I can't explain. I guess if you watch Korean dramas, you may have seen it. Side note: I forgot to write this on the first Jeju post. One time I knew this lady whose young son went on a field trip to Jakarta. The son called his mom to inform her that they really speak like they do in a sinetron / Indonesian soap opera. When the mom told me the story, we both laughed. When I landed in Jeju and started hearing these people speaking in Korean, I did also have that moment of I guess stepping into a Korean drama :D

After that was lunch. We were given options of grilled pork or bibimbap. Again I wasn't sure about the food and pork seemed like a big commitment like what if I really didn't like it, so I chose bibimbap, though the ignorant me had it completely different in my mind. In my mind, I pictured kimbap (the rolled rice with filling with seaweed) that only some minutes later I was like wait what, what if it's that thing where it's rice and on top of it there's things. Yes that was really what bibimbap is. So this option was the vegetarian option which for people who know me would perhaps be even more concerned about me being able to eat it. Not gonna lie, I was concerned, but there's no onion on it and there's fried egg so I thought we could do this. I only put a little of the sauce / gochujang though because I wasn't sure and I proceeded to mix it all. I managed to finish my bowl, thank be for the fried egg and I actually like the pumpkin. Here I also tried a bit of the millet wine, again not a drinker so I can't differentiate between millet or rice wine. Then the restaurant Ajumma gave us some of the grilled pork and dang, it's actually really good. The two pieces I ate were the liver though. I was quite sure of it though my table mates didn't think so, but I like to think growing up in my family, I would be right - if not, my dad and uncle would be rolling around in their ashes.

Speaking of my table mates, the ones I talked to were these two Singaporean friends travelling together. There's another Singaporean group of friends travelling together and as far I could see they didn't interact at all and it's this thing about Singaporeans which make me feel yeah I'm not one of them or can ever be one. Imagine if it's been Indonesians, we would have chatted a lot unless they're really snobbish. I was really hoping that I would meet Indonesians in the day trips I've been taking, but no such luck :( Now, I know not all Singaporeans are the same. In fact I kinda could confidently say if it's a different race of Singaporeans, it might be different but again I think for the Indonesians, the race, religion wouldn't make much difference unless it's really some snobbish Indonesians. Of course maybe they're not weird, it's the Indonesians who are weird and I am truly part of that weird. Anywho, back to the trip. After lunch it was a short stop to Gwangchigi Beach where you could see Seongsan Ilchulbong which was our next destination. The weather that day wasn't that good, I didn't have the blue sky, but at least it wasn't raining.

Then it was off to Seongsan Ilchulbong. Guide said don't force yourself, you don't have to go all the way up or if you do, don't rush, do it slowly. I didn't think this through to be honest, I just thought I was gonna go do it. The steps for this hike are much nicer, they are proper steps. Actually I forgot to pee before going but luckily after the start of the climb, there's a toilet. I told the German girl to go ahead first. Again climbing made me not to want to chat even more. I say climb even though it's not, it's just walking up stairs and stairs. This walk up was much much harder than Songaksan. I took a few stops and I also had to tell myself you can make it, take these few steps and don't stop. Somehow I made it to the top before the thought of you cannot do this managed to creep in. When I realized I reached the top, I said thank God, thank the Holy God! I don't know how I did this to be honest. I really don't think I'm in the best of shape but I did it. There's a platform area on the top where you could sit, look at the view, and there's quite a lot of people there. I obviously do not like crowd so I didn't really stay long. I took pictures of the surrounding and the crater. Though it was a grey sky kinda day, I guess it was to our advantage because imagine having to climb up under the hot sun.

When you go down you can actually go down all the way to the beach, but I didn't do this because that would mean I would need to climb back up. So I just stood around taking pictures of the cliff by the beach and the happening on the beach - there were some firemen doing photoshoot for their calendar. The German girl took picture with them :D Then I proceeded to where the shops are and treated myself with peanut ice cream. Honestly, I could also do the tangerine ice cream but I didn't.

Part of this day trip actually also included watching the Haenyeo female divers in action. I don't know how normally they do this - I mean for tourists purpose, but anyways we didn't get to watch this because of the weather so instead we went to the Haenyeo Museum. It's not very big and it's actually very interesting because it tells the history of how these women started doing this. I just was too tired to appreciate it and to really read all the explanation. After that, there's one more stop which was Hamdeok Beach. The German girl was like, I'm actually so tired and ready to be done and I forgot there's one more stop. Yeah, me too. In this beach, you could walk around, you could for example walk to the pavillion on a hill which I didn't because I was so tired. There were a number of surfers on the beach nearer to the hill. On the other beach, it was mostly families having fun. I saw a dad poking things on a rock nearby and I wasn't sure what they're collecting. Then I saw a family who created a little pool of water and they put the things the collected there; there were tiny crabs and snails. So these were what they were looking for.

After this, we were really done for the day. For pictures from the day, see this. There's some heavy traffic going in to city center that it was dark when I was dropped off. For dinner, I thought okay let's try again for the fried chicken, that being my last day after all. Mom's Touch was open and I was glad. I ordered the smallest portion of chicken and fries and a can of pepsi to go. The girl at the counter showed me the Google translation of I needed to wait and I said okay and I did wait for sometime, at least the place was pretty empty and I got to sit. There were only 2 people in the kitchen and they didn't seem like your usual fast food joint. When I finally got my order and took it with me, I thought wow it's heavy. When I reached my room and counted, there's 8 pieces of chicken. I chickened out and chose the normal fried chicken without any sauce because if I didn't like the sauce I would have difficulty finishing it so this was the safest option. Maybe I was hungry, but I like it, quite a lot. I also like the fact the cut of the chicken was perhaps not the normal ones you find in places like KFC so this felt more natural to me. 8 pieces of chicken and fries and pepsi, I finished them all. It's crazy, but I went up mountains, not once but twice in this trip, so it felt okay and also okay because I wasn't throwing away food :D After the meal, I finally could get clean and relax.

I had to wake up early the next day because I didn't want to miss my flight. I wasn't sure what to make of the notice Scoot wrote about checking in luggages that instead of taking the free airport shuttle at 7 AM, I went to the airport earlier and took taxi. The queue wasn't crowded at all so perhaps I could have used the 7 AM shuttle - but as my mother would say, better be early. I like my trip in Jeju though it didn't feel like I had fully enjoyed it. I sure was hadn't really enjoyed my spacious hotel room. It's just it felt like I'd been running around a lot, completing stuff, burning calories, so it didn't feel like I managed to just stop and breathe. All of my trips always feel like a rush to complete things but this felt even more so. I wish I could get to Jeju again, maybe in the winter? Well if this visa free thing continues, no reason why I wouldn't be back. At the aiport I got a magnet for myself and I remembered the T-money card still had balance and I bought snack at the convenience store with it. At the convenience store I also saw Indonesian snacks, I was like stunned, you guys like this thing? I didn't even know what it was, only noticed it when I saw the word Enaak on the packaging. The flight back was uneventful. Listened to Ella Fitzgerald all the way. It's all love songs and the lyrics were funny at times. It struck me that it must be something watching her perform live. Okay, so there you go, my short trip in Jeju.

:) eKa @ 1:36:00 PM •