We’re continuing our group trip to South Korea, and I am heading to Jeju for the first time!

Day 1 North and West Jeju

Our flight from Taipei to Jeju departs at 6:40AM in the morning so that meant a 3AM wake up call. We tetrised all of our bags and sandwiched all 8 of us into a 9-seater we reserved for the airport and knocked out on the short plane ride after raiding the lounge and having beef noodle soup for breakfast.

As we approached the island and the ‘Hawaii of Asia’ comes into sight, I was surprised to see how big Jeju Island actually is. The only reference I had was the Naver Map I have been using while planning, and I really didn’t have a gauge of how big the island was other than the relative driving distances from landmarks.

After landing we got our bags and shuttled to pick up our rental cars, and not wasting any time we drove to Dodu Rainbow Coastal Road for some coastal views. We had downloaded Naver Map and saved all the Naver Map addresses so it made navigation a lot smoother, but do note that Naver has a bunch of excessive navigation features like locating speed bumps and speeding cameras - turn those off if you prefer a more quiet navigator.

We spent some time near Rainbow Road enjoying the views and taking photos, also checking out one of many cute souvenir shops we would be coming across.

Next stop was Dongmun Traditional Market for lunch! We parked our cars (parking lots in South Korea are very advanced - you don’t need to get a ticket as it records your license plate number as you enter!) and walked to the market, passing by all the souvenir shops and headed straight to the food. There was a variety of options from the familiar finger foods like ddukbokgi and mandus, to more novelty items like Jeju black pork fried rice and Jeju black pork on tortilla. Everyone picked something different so we all got to sample most of the stalls. I also got a Jeju fruit juice after our meal and we all did some souvenir shopping in the market. Food coma was hitting hard so we stopped for coffee at Rolling Brewery, a spot we found on Naver Map. Everyone opted for some caffeine to keep us awake after a long morning of travel.

There was more to our agenda for the day so we rallied the group and drove to Saebil Cafe, a cafe/ farm with a field of muhly grass which only turns into a sea of pink in the autumn. Timing worked out perfectly as it was late afternoon and the sun was about to set. In the distance we discovered a hiking trail to a mountain peak and we decided to add on the Saebil Oreum hike just before sunset. It was a short hike up, about 15 to 20 mins, but the route was almost vertical, and it reminded me of the Koko Crater hike in O’ahu Hawaii. We made it all the way up just before sunset and saw a little bit of the sunset (we might have come back down a little too early and missed the prime sunset views lol). At the end of the trail there are these pressurized air pumps that allow you to blow off any dust or dirt from your shoes and clothing. Pretty neat.

After the hike it was time to drive back up North to dinner! We headed to Haenyeo Restaurant which serves fresh catches from the haeyeos, or “sea ladies”, who dive for seafood and shellfish. We ordered a bunch of items to try including an assorted platter with some delicacies, abalone congee and seafood ramen, but the highlight was definitely the uni! It was so sweet and they go so well with rice.

Our stay in Jeju is a very nice place we found on Stayfolio but we were all pretty surprised by the home. It’s definitely very pretty and aesthetic but not too functional - there is no couch (but does have a pool), there is only a washer and a very fancy steam closet but no dryer, and one of the bathrooms have a very fancy bathtub with a shower head but no curtains or dividers. We later learned that this is typical of Korean households as most people air dry their clothes, and bathrooms usually have the shower in the same space as the toilet (no separate space for doing your business and showering). This took some getting use to as we all had dirty laundry from Taiwan and were desperate to launder our stinky clothes. We tried doing a load of laundry but that ended up taking almost 2 hours so tomorrow morning we’re headed to the laundromat nearby.

Day 2 East Jeju

At 6:30AM a few of us got out of bed and lugged our dirty clothes to a laundromat nearby. With the help of Google translate we were able to figure out how to use the machines, and while we waited for the laundry we stopped by a book cafe that turned out to be great. The cafe is called Jinmyeong Book Cafe and is run by this nice Korean lady who lives in the home. I tried the fig smoothie and their coffee drinks were very good as well. The lady spoke limited English and I was surprised I could use my limited Korean to communicate with her!

When we returned to the bnb with our fresh laundry, we finally got to take a good look at the bnb in daylight since we arrived so late yesterday. It’s actually right next to a tangerine farm!

Our first morning activity as a group was Seopjikoji for a coastal walk on the eastern part of Jeju Island. “Koji’ in the Jeju dialect means cape, and the coastal walk features a lighthouse, an abandoned candy house, and a new modern cafe. Did I mention there is a giant swing in the direction of Seongsan Ilchulbong?

Lunch was at Yukseongga for some Jeju black pork and boy it was so good! The seaside restaurant had a great view and does wet aging and water aging for their pork. The food was excellent and don’t pass on the cold noodles either!

For the afternoon we headed to Seongsan Port and took a ferry over to U-do, an island named after its shape. It’s supposed to look like a bull’s head but I don’t really see it when looking at the map. As the ferry was about to dock, we saw people driving these very cute scooters/ buggies on the island and decided to rent them to help us get around. We were told that you don’t need a license to drive one of these but I was skeptical - they were kinda hard to get used to at first and actually goes pretty quickly if you gas it. We made our first stop at the Seobinbaeksa Beach and tried out some hanrabong ice cream, then continued north and got lost a bit heading to the watchtower at the northernmost tip of the island. We also switched driving the 2 types of buggies and everyone agreed that the open ones are more fun to drive and gets you a more scenic view. There were definitely some adrenaline junkies and speed demons in our group as I saw some Mario Kart racing going on 🛺🛺🛺 This was actually the first time I have “driven” my boyfriend around so I hope he is not judging my driving skills based on my ability to navigate a scooter… We didn’t have time to go around the entire island so we took the same route back heading to the port to make the last ferry back (if you miss the last ferry the only option would be to spend the night on the island).

After returning from U-do Island we are off to Seongsan Ilchulbong, the easternmost volcanic mountain seen in the background as we toured the eastern part of Jeju today. It’s a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site and “Ilchulbong” means sunrise peak as it’s one of the best places to view the sunrise on Jeju Island. We had originally noted in our itinerary that we could try doing a sunrise hike but our schedules did not allow it, so sunset hike it is! This hike features a lot of steps and took us about 20 to 30 mins. At the peak you can get a great view of the city as well as the crater on the opposite side. We saw the sunset and made our way back down the stairs as it became pitch dark (note: will definitely need headlamps for a sunrise hike), did some souvenir shopping and drove back to near our bnb for dinner.

Dinner is at Hunnam Restaurant by the beach for some sliced raw fish. Hunnam is a slang in Korean which literally translates to ‘heartwarming man’, which is the exact opposite of 渣男, a slang in Chinese which translates to ‘dirtbag man’. Side note, if you read the previous blog entry you’re remember that we went to a bistro in Taiwan called 渣男, but this was a mere coincidence and wasn’t planned at all. The restaurant lets you pick your own choice of raw fish on the ground floor, will prepare the fish for you and bring them up to the dining area for you on the second floor. It’s a very cute spot that has a homey vibe and the fish we selected were great. We ended up adding more fish to the meal as the fish were a hit with the group. The uni though wasn’t as good as the ones we had from the Haenyeo Restaurant yesterday.

After dinner we took a stroll along the beachfront and played the ring toss at one of the stalls. The group won some tangerine hats and carrot hair ties which we would put into good use for the rest of the trip. We made our way over into the beach, checked out some sand sculptures and some kittens. We picked up some snacks from the GS 25 nearby and enjoyed a chill night out with people lighting fireworks and another group busking in the background.

Back at the bnb we played some Chinese poker and played the “thigh wrestling game” (they played this as a side game on Physical 100). It is hilarious and such a fun game to watch!

Day 3 South Jeju

Day 3 started out rainy but by the time to group was ready to head out the rain had stopped. A few of us wanted to get coffee nearby while the rest of the group gets ready and I suggested Glossy Matcha, a matcha spot I found through a youtube channel I have been following for a while. The place is just 11 mins away from our bnb and much prettier than I remember seeing on the vlog - the aesthetic were on point and it looked like we were visiting the set of Terrace House! We ordered the Jeju, oreum and barley cream matcha latte, while our friends raved about the matchta spanner. They were sweet but delicious, so were the desserts (we had the dark chocolate bread). The view looking out to the ocean was amazing as well. Our experience was so good that we told the rest of the group to come join us as the cafe instead of us getting take out for them. We took our time checking out the store on the second floor, the front yard facing the coastal road and the ocean, and we took a little walk closer to the water and saw some sea cockroaches and crabs (they were kinda gross looking).

Once everyone was fully caffeinated we made our way to the southern part of the island, to our first stop, Jeongbong Waterfall. You walk down set of staircases to reach the waterfall but to get closer for the perfect photo op you have to climb over a few large rocks to get closer - the rocks get slippery and there are these sea cockroaches that are not very pleasant looking. I kept marching in place to make sure they won’t get close to me.

Next stop is Oedolgae, a lone rock by the southern coast of Jeju. The rock is 20 meters high and it’s estimated to have formed 1.5 million years ago.

We had a super late lunch as it was already 3PM when we finished Oadolgae. We picked Jeju Gomjup which was close by and had lots of great reviews. The place serves different cuts of pork including skin-on pork belly, and the group agreed this spot has more variety of cuts compared to the place yesterday that does the water/ wet aging Jeju black pork. Our group also ordered a seafood stirfry which came in this giant plate. We were the only group dining at that odd hour but there were cats and dogs living in the vicinity and the cats would come up to us.

Our original plan for the remainder of the afternoon was to check out the tea museum but we realized with transportation time we would have to rush and with the rain picking up again we changed our plans to head to Jeju Arte Museum, an interactive, immersive art museum. It was one of my first interactive museums and I must say it was pretty cool and a perfect rainy day activity! There are different sections within the space like flowers, forest, stars, thunder, beach and waves, as well as a large exhibit hall that was rotating between classical arts and Jeju themed displays. Our ticket came with a little interactive tea time where the flowers blossoms as you move the glass on the table, and we were trying to get it to react to our hands in a circular shape.

Dinner was noodle soup and gukbap at Nohyeong Samdae Noodles since the group was craving something lighter. The food had a homey vibe and it was a good balance from all the meat and seafood we ate in Jeju. Before driving back to the bnb we went to the Lotte Mart for some snacks and alcohol. This Lotte Mart is HUGEEEE and consists of multiple floors. We saw that they sell soju by the liters and picked up some jeju specialty liquor, makgoli and KITH soju (some of the liquor we just wanted to keep the bottles because they were pretty). After our little shopping session it was time to head back to the bnb and start washing up and packing as we leave for Seoul tomorrow afternoon. To kill the alcohol we played some drinking games (nunchi game, mandu game and dipidipidip). We did make use of the pool in the bnb on the last day and we didn’t head to bed till 3AM.

Day 4 Jeju to Seoul

It’s a travel day today as we will be heading to Seoul in the afternoon! Everyone was up by 9:30AM to get ourselves out of the bnb before checkout time. We loaded the cars and were off to the first stop of the day, Cafe the Container, a cute cafe shaped like a container with a tangerine farm in the back. You order on the main floor and go down a level to the dining area and farm and they’ll use a pulley system to deliver you your food and drinks. We enjoyed a nice photo op outside before enjoying our delicious drinks inside - the tangerine latte tastes like creamsicle! Tangerine picking season starts in late October so unfortunately we were a little too early and the tangerines weren’t ripe yet (you can still pick them but they would be tart), but this looks like a fun activity for the winter time!

The next and final stop in Jeju was the Osulloc Tea Museum, the one we didn’t have time to go to yesterday. It’s a highly rated tourist attraction as Osulloc is a famous tea brand and I was expecting more of a museum but it turned out to be a huge cafe and commercial space in a nice building. There are several cafes and shops inside with a separate Innisfree building, but I just thought the place was overcrowded. We did try the famous green tea ice cream but it wasn’t all that special. The tea garden was pretty cool and I wish they had more of a guided tours educating on the tea growing and harvesting process.

And with that we have completed the Jeju part of the journey! We headed for the airport, returned our rental cars and once again re-shuffled our luggages (the struggle of flying budget airlines…and they actually didn’t end up weighing our carryons). We had our lunch at the food court because we didn’t realize the airport lounges are before the security checks to the gates.

The flight was only 45 mins and I slept the entire way from takeoff to landing. We picked up our bags and miraculously found a single jumbo taxi that somehow fit all 8 of us and our now even heavier bags to take us our airbnb in Hongdae. Our taxi driver was chatting us up and talking about how it was “in-yeon” for us to meet since jumbo taxis rarely goes to Gimpo airport as it’s a domestic airport. We made it to our large airbnb on a 4th floor walk up in Hongdae and it was time for us to head out to dinner! Since it was getting late we decided to get pocha at Jongro-3ga. Exit no.6 will lead you directly to pocha central, tables and chairs along both sides of the street. It was popping on a random Tuesday at like 9:30PM! We found a spot that could seat all 8 of us outside, ordered our food and drinks and our friend showed us how to make the Milkis shot which is equal parts soju, beer, and Sprite. Once you carbonate it by shaking the glass it will taste just like Milkis!

We had to use the bathroom after playing some drinking games and let me tell ya the bathroom facility on that street is… um… less than ideal… It’s in a shack at the end of the street with no lights on a squatty toilet… Let’s just say I prefer the open air bathroom with no doors in Tibet...

Post dinner we got some hangover cures and partied on at the coin karaoke spot right above. We had more friends joined us and all squeezed into a party room for 5. We ended up karaoking for 2 hours and didn’t get back to our airbnb till 3AM. Way to start off strong on our first night in Seoul!

Day 5 Seoul sightseeing

Since everyone had a late night we decided to start off our day a little later (this will become a trend for our time in Seoul). We took the subway to to Sichon headed to Sinchon Roasting Library, a cafe on the 12th floor that offers great views of the city. They have floor to ceiling windows and we were able to see Yonsei University and its pretty campus as well as the mountains further into the distance. We took our time enjoying our latte drink and shine muscat juice, checked out the bookstore next to the cafe as well as the roof before taking the bus to our next destination.

The next Gyeonbokgung Palace changing of the royal guards was at 2PM and we got there just in time to position ourselves in the crowd.

After the reenactment we are off to Insadong for lunch - the building looked like it was a traditional hanok and the kalbijim was delicious with deok! We originally wanted to walk around for a little bit more but something else would take priority.

This next activity and the events that unfolded would probably be the highlight of our trip to Seoul and most definitely a core memory for me. From Insadong we walked back over to the palace to rent traditional hanboks - you’ll see that this is a main tourist activity as wearing hanboks gets you free entry to the palace grounds and the streets surrounding the palaces are all hanbok rental studios with staff catered to tourists from all around the world. What we miscalculated a bit was the time - last entry to the palace in the evening is at 5PM as they close at 6PM, and by the time we got to the rental studio it was already 4:30PM. The girls and boys split up immediately to find hanboks in their sizes, and since the girls didn’t have time to do the hair we grabbed the hair accessories and all of us made the dash to the palace entrance. The clock was ticking as we only have 5 mins to make it from the studio to the palace. That light at the crossing felt like the longest light and if you happened to be walking by Gyeonbokgung Palace at around 4:55PM on a random Wednesday, you would have spotted a group of 8 doing a 500m dash in hanboks. It must have been the funniest sight because there were cameras recording us. We made it to the palace grounds with seconds to spare and the staff literally closed the palace gates right behind us. We knew we had to make a run because the other group of tourists who were waiting for the light with us didn’t actually make it in. Our friend actually caught this whole saga on video so I am sure I will be rewatching that many times.

We took the subway to Cheonggyecheon for a short river walk and then to Gwangjang Market for dinner. Our group initially split up but ended up at the same knife-cut noodle stall - it turns out the lady was made famous from a Netflix show. A line started forming shortly after we all sat down so we got there at a great time! The noodles were really good and so was the mandu! We also went to another stall to try some blood sauages, pigs’ feet, and fish cakes, and I got my shikhye drink.

Next stop is the Namsan cable car station as we're taking the cable car up to Namsan Tower for a view of the city. I remember coming here some 12 years ago (I came to Seoul for a graduation trip so… yeah… 12 years… 😅) and also didn’t go up the tower since the view was already amazing. We spent about an hour on Namsan before taking the cable car back down. The night was still young so we ubered back to the other end of Hongdae and spent some time at Zzang Games playing some arcade games and taking our sticker photos. The group slowly made their way from one end of Hongdae back to our airbnb at different times, some going for il-cha and sam-cha. I was the first to call it quits and my bed time was 1:30AM, needless to say tomorrow will be another late start haha.

Day 6 Seoul Shopping

Today’s a shopping day around town and it started off with coffee and breakfast in Hongdae at Angelinus. It’s one of the only coffee spots in Hongdae that is opened before 10:30AM, probably because it’s inside the L7 Hotels building owned by Lotte. The cafe was spacious and quite empty in the morning, I guess because most stores in the area aren’t opened until around 11AM. We did wait till later in the morning to check out some of the stores in the area, including Olive Young (the reason my suitcase is full), Hemeko and another clothing store. Once the rest of the group were ready to go, we took the subway to Apgujeong, another trendy shopping district. We visited the Gentle Monster flagship store and Tamburins for perfumes. We once again missed the prime lunch hours and had to try a few places as most are closed for the afternoon break, and finally settled on Hyangbang for some Korean Chinese food. To our surprise this random spot we found was amazing and they had the best jajangmyeon!

After the late lunch we took the bus to Casanello in Eonju, a cafe run by one of the participants from Single’s Inferno, Seokjin. He unfortunately was not at the cafe but the drinks were delicious nonetheless.

We spent the early evening in Seongsu, yet another shopping district and tried the famous salted bread at Jayeon Do Salted Bakery. In my honest opinion it was just okay but its got a huge following? The area has a lot of popup stores but we didn’t really wait in line to get into any. There are also some international brands that have flagships in Seongsu so if you’re looking for any Seoul/ South Korea exclusive items don’t skip out on the brands you find at home! Our group checked out New Balance and came out with matching exclusive merch.

I wasn’t kidding when I said the day was a shopping day because we hit up another shopping district, Myeongdong. The area was exactly how I remembered it - crowded and touristy. The group split up for more shopping but most came back empty handed - maybe because Myeongdong is too touristy? The only food spot we wanted to try, Myeongdong Kyoja, closed at 9PM so it was back to Hongdae we go. We’ve got to plan our meal times better but we managed to get some late night Korean barbecue, and then to a pocha for our il-cha.

Day 7 More Seoul Shopping and fine dining

Last full day in Seoul and it was a rainy one, perfect for staying inside a giant mall and never coming out. We headed to Starfield Coex Mall, first for some samgyetang as our lunch (the spot was filled with workers on their lunch break but we all thought the food was just alright), and the group got started with shopping. We hit up Uniqlo to find any Asia exclusive items, finished up my skincare shopping at Olive Young (one can never have too much skincare), and to Aland for some clothing items (I’ve been good and haven’t really shopped for any clothes on this trip). We also checked out the Starfield Library which was new since the last time I visited but the place was super crowded and somehow appeared smaller than what I have seen on photos. I would recommend checking out the Lego store within the mall that has a lego version of the library instead - that one is much cooler.

Our last main activity for the entire trip was a fine dining experience at Born & Bred, something our friend has booked months in advance. This place was featured multiple times on Korean Englishman, is on the Michelin Guide Seoul, and is rated the number one Hanwoo omakase experience. We were seated in a private dining room and had a 20+ course meal, featuring all various cuts of meat. I don’t know my cow parts very well but I tried to take note and numbered all the courses on my phone. The chef even added on a few courses for us for our big eaters in the group, and he told us about the celebrities who’ve dined there including Blackpink and BTS. Please enjoy the following collections of meat pics as I tried my best matching the photos with the name/ preparation of each cuts (click to open the lightbox to read the descriptions) Hope you’re not hungry!

The last day was a travel day for me as I have to take an early afternoon flight back to Hong Kong and then another around the world journey back home. Majority of the group was also departing later in the evening and they had time to go to Myeongdong Gyoja and even got marinated crab - the one thing I wished I had while I was in Korea. Maybe it’s time to plan another Asia trip for next year?

South Korea. October 2024