"Won, too, tree, clik!" We are on a tour of the South and East of JeJu Island and our wonderful taxi driver, who we have hired for the whole day, loves cameras and insists on taking our photo with Avan's camera, at every available opportunity. We rarely put ourselves in photos, preferring to capture the scenery, people or animals, but our driver insisted “it is the Korean way” so we went with the flow and now have a lovely collection of some 26 photos of ourselves, with JeJu Island backgrounds!

JeJu Island is to the South of mainland Korea and, we had read, enjoys a more temperate climate than the rest of Korea. Not while we were there! Firstly our plane was delayed for one hour due to bad weather conditions and whilst we were there for two days, a bitingly cold wind made us rug up to see the sights. On the plus side however, the blossom was out everywhere, while in the rest of Korea it was only just beginning. 

The canola flowers were also blooming, making patchworks of brilliant yellow among the green and brown fields. Koreans love to be photographed in a field of canola and so enterprising farmer’s fence off a patch and charge money for the privilege. Actually, Koreans LOVE JeJu Island. Whenever we said to anyone we were going there, the response was a dreamy look and “Ahhh JeJu you will love!”  It was, up until recently, the number one choice for Korean honeymooners but now with recent affluence, many are now honeymooning in Guam and Hawaii. We did see honeymooners and how did we know they were honeymooners? They dress in identical clothing! It looks so sweet.   

We chose a guest house, Ta Gong Gak, for our two nights on the most Southern part of the island, Seogwipo, which required a one and a half hour bus ride from the airport. We arrived right on dusk and met our hosts Sylvia and Peter. They had maps and suggestions for us for sightseeing and for our immediate need, dinner. After dinner in a traditional restaurant close by (point at the menu and hope for the best!), we set off to see a waterfall that Peter said was romantic and a must-see lit up at night. It was very cold out but he was right, it is a beautiful sight, all lit up.

The next day saw us head off early for a full nine hours of touring with our own taxi and our camera happy driver. The sights included more waterfalls, dramatic seaside cliff scenery, and the three UNESCO World Heritage listed sites of Lava Tubes, Mount Hallasan and Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak) a spectacular volcanic peak. We HAD to climb it of course! We walked through the Lava tubes too, some three kilometers, which was a wonderful experience. Our driver stopped at a lunch restaurant specializing in Seafood hotpot. It was delicious but the seafood, while plentiful was soooo tiny! Some of the amazing little seafoods, like a minature crayfish were about the size of a thumb. After a very physical day we stayed in that night, having packet noodles and fruit for tea.

With a lunch time flight back to Seoul, we set of early on the bus back to the airport so we could get into the main city area earlier and catch a taxi to another well known JeJu sight, this time man made, called Loveland.

Loveland is “a place where the imagination can run wild” according to its brochure. The park is full of sculptures of the naughtier kind created by the Korean Hongkik University Art Students. A bit of a hoot, but most of the photos are not really suitable for the website – for now anyway - we may add some later!  

Back to Seoul for us now for two nights, then off to China.  

Footnote: Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes are UNESCO World Heritage listed.