Jeju Island

We woke up at five in the morning to catch a plane flight to Jeju Island. Off the peninsula’s south coast, Jeju enjoys a subtropical climate beloved by tourists. Indeed, it was quite warm when we arrived, but not the smoggy, humid warmness that welcomed me in Seoul.

At the airport, we met our guide Joanne, a wildly energetic woman in her forties who seemed to fear silence more than the plague. The combination of our tiredness and her coffee-powered animation would have been funny had it not been so tragic.

The first place we visited in Jeju was the Manjanggul Lava Tube, a cold, cold underground tunnel where streams of unimaginably hot lava once used to flow. It is one of the longest in the world, which means that should Jeju’s volcanoes ever wake up, tourists inside will have to make a very long run for it to get away. Just joking – the volcanoes are extinct. So they say, at any rate.

 The ceiling of the lava tube
 Manjanggul Lava Tube
 A rock said to resemble the topography of Jeju Island
 A massive lava pillar inside Manjanggul
A swallow's nest outside the lava tunnel

After eating abalone and some surprisingly delicious marmalade-filled waffle-men, we made our way to Sunrise Peak. The sight is a volcanic crater jutting into the sea and connected by a very narrow land bridge to the rest of the island. It was hot, but when the wind picked up, it was far too strong for an umbrella functioning as a parasol to withstand. One of the joints on my umbrella gave way, and I am still awaiting a good time to sit down and fix it.

 Climbing up Sunrise Peak
 The view from Sunrise Peak
 The crater of Sunrise Peak
 Another view from Sunrise Peak
 The coast of Jeju Island
Sunrise Peak

I fell asleep multiple times in the car, but I do vaguely remember us having enough time to drive through the Seongeup Folk Village, a truly bizarre collection of old stone huts with thatched roofs and hardly any windows. By the looks of it, most of those houses were still inhabited, but clearly possessed modern furniture to ease the burden of living inside them.

The last two places we visited that day were the Cheonjiyeon Waterfall – honestly a rather unremarkable sight, though perhaps I am jaded by the many waterfalls I have seen throughout my life – and the Jusangjeolli Cliff. Jusangjeolli is a collection of stone pillars jutting into the sea off of Jeju Island in a way reminiscent of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.


 Cheonjiyeon Waterfall
 Jusangjeolli
 The other side of Jusangjeolli
 Dol Hareubang, gods of protection and fertility
A Dol Hareubang from up close

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