Jeju Island (Seongsan-Ilchulbong) - Day 142

Trip Start Jan 31, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Where I stayed
Chu-pung-nyong Motel
(Seoul hotels)

Flag of Korea Rep.  , Jeju Island,
Monday, July 14, 2008

The buses on Jejo are cheap, efficient and frequent and the routes go to all the major tourist sites on the island. So I caught the bus again today to a town called Seongsan Ilchulbong, where a 182 metre high extinct volcanic crater sits on the east coast of the island. The Volcano is attached to the island by a thin sliver of land and juts out into the sea like a yo-yo on a piece of string. The climb to the crater rim only took 20 minutes mainly via steep stone steps. The viewpoint at the top on the west side of the rim, gives a great view of the lush green crater bowl with flowers, shrubs, small trees and an abundance of large butterflies flying around. Beyond the rim to the east are the vast open waters of the Pacific and in the west the volcanic peaks of the island. The weather today wasn't great, I could see rain falling in the interior heading my way but the views were still extremely impressive. I walked back down to sea level and wandered along the coast for a while to get a different perspective of the volcano. Headed back to the bus stop as it started to rain, only a brief shower though before it brightened up Sanbanggulsa Temple 1
Sanbanggulsa Temple 1
 .

Returned back to Seogwipo for some wholesome Korean food and caught another bus to Sanbanggulsa, which is the location of a 395 metre high extinct Volcano situated on the south coast of the island. You can't walk to the top unfortunately, but you can walk half way up where there's a cave which contains a simple stone Buddha. A single monk was sat in the cave chanting, quite a peaceful and calming place except for a few loud tourists who came up the path after me. I had few minutes of solitude before they arrived.

I descended down to the Yongmeori coast at the foot of the volcano. The beautiful coastline is famous for it's strangely eroded volcanic rock. Due to wind and sea erosion the cliffs look like big layered waves curving around the coastline. Old Korean fishing women cook and sell their catches on the rocks of the coast. Never seen rock formations like this before, really unusual place.

Got eaten alive by mosquito's waiting 2 hours for the bus to arrive to take me back to Seogwipo. I spoke too soon when I said the buses were efficient. To be fair though the bus had been re-routed to a different road around 50 metres away, the sign informing of this change was in Korean which I obviously couldn't read. I saw buses going up this road and presumed it was a different route, but it wasn't, doh!

A really nice middle aged Korean guy paid for a taxi after the bus confusion, he got out of the taxi around 6km before me but he paid the taxi driver extra to take me to my motel. I insisted on splitting the taxi fair but he won't let me. The guy had his own company working on semi conductors. He loved to travel so we had a geeky chat about technology and our travels.
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