Jeju Island: Part 1

Jeju Island (제주도’Jeju-do’) is considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, and it is indeed a beautiful island.  I recently visited and was able to spend 4 days and 3 nights on this island. I’ll be dividing this trip into 5 different posts

To get to Jeju Island, you have two options:

1)      Take a plane. Many planes for Jeju depart from Seoul and Busan. From Busan, it is about an hour-2 hour flight. From Seoul, it’s about a 2 hour flight. Ticket prices, if booked early, cost about 70,000 won or roughly $70. If booked later, it will cost about 150,000 won or more of you depart from Busan.

2)      Take a ferry. There are four main ferries: the the popular ones departs from Busan and takes about 12 hours overnight to reach Jeju whereas the other departs from Incheon and about 13-14 hours to arrive. Other ferries depart from Mokpo, taking around 3-4 hours, and from Wando, taking about 3 hours. From Busan, the ticket price is about 48,000 won or roughly $48. If you're bringing a car, that's ok. Most ferries take cars (though there is obviously a fee for that), except for ferry from Wando. Make sure to call the ferry provider before you bring your car.

• The website for the ferry from Busan to Jeju is: http://skferry.co.kr/. Their phone number is 1688-7577. The website is not in English. If you do not speak Korean, have a Korean friend help you make your reservation. 
• More details on the port that the Seokyeong Ferry '서경 카훼리' (Jeju ferry) departs from can be found here: http://www.busanpa.com/Service.do?id=engbpa_pc_ps_02_10.
•  Other ferry information can be found here: http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/TR/TR_EN_5_1_5_1.jsp. 

To get around Jeju, you have three options:

1)      Take a bus.  This can be difficult. You have transfer buses and it can make getting to certain parts of the island difficult.  Fare is 1,100 won. Have a T-money card or Cash Bee card so that you don’t have to pay extra when you transfer to another bus. On the other hand, many consider this the cheaper option of getting around Jeju. However, you will be sacrificing convenience for cost. 

2)      Take a taxi. This is an expensive option, but it helps you get to parts of the island that buses don’t go. Starting fare is 2,200 won.

3)      Rent a car. This is what my friend and I did, and I feel it is the best option. You can get around the island with ease and don’t have to worry about things such as last bus. It also makes it easy to see the entire island. Since my friend is Korean, all he needed was his Korean driver’s license. Foreigners can rent cars, but they have to have their international/Korean driver’s license. For the entire four days, renting the car was 60,000 won , plus gas (which was about 50,000 won per fill-up).

My friend and I decided to take the ferry from Busan, because 1) we’re cheap and 2) we had never experienced it before. The ferry departed on Saturday at 7 PM. The ferry can be accessed by the Busan subway line; it’s at Jungang Station.

The ferry itself is similar to a jjimjilbang in that you sleep on the floor in a communal room. However, you can upgrade your room to a private for the extra cost of about 20,000 won. In the communal rooms, you are given a blanket and a black rectangle to use as a pillow. These blankets are not washed regularly so they feel kind of icky, but, the ferry is pretty hot so my friend and I actually just used them as padding rather than as an actual blanket.

The biggest drawback to the ferry was that on the day we departed to Jeju, it rained, so the ocean was super rough. The rain made the night very uncomfortable, despite having an almost empty communal room. Because of the discomfort, on the ferry back to Busan, my friend and I made the decision to get drunk so that we could sleep easier. The sea wasn't that rough on the way back, but the room was over capacity on the way back, so the alcohol did help us, giving us a very comfortable night of sleep.

**It’s important to note that the ferry does not have a shower (at least in the communal rooms), so I HIGHLY recommend that you bring wet/baby wipes so that you can feel slightly clean. My friend and I didn’t do this and felt absolutely disgusting on the first day of our trip.**

Learning How to Swim

My first two times I came to Korea, I lived in Seoul, but now, for my third time in here, I am in Ulsan. The difference between these two cities is startling.

I knew that Ulsan would be different. With Seoul, it is a 24 hour city, something to do every hour of the day. In Seoul, it is easy to get around without knowing Korean. Almost every young resident speaks at least a little of it. Every older residents of Seoul have some knowledge of English. Ulsan is not the sprawling metropolis that Seoul is.

Here in Ulsan, there is no English. Thankfully, while not fluent in Korean, I am competent in it. Yet even this competency did not quite prepare me for Ulsan. I forgot how much I relied on English in Seoul; if I was uncomfortable speaking Korea, I could just speak English, and I would be mostly understood. Now, all of a sudden, I lack the crutch that I had in Seoul.

I find myself now thrown in to the deep end of a pool with no idea how to swim. I try to learn things about the University of Ulsan, but the staff is far from cooperative, something that I am not used to when it comes to Korean culture. Even when asking in Korean, staff members who are to help the foreign students brush me off. There is a complete lack of communication at the university. While I am used to a relative lack of communication in Korean culture, I am not used to it to this degree.

So now comes my true challenge—being by myself, in a foreign land, learning how to swim. Let’s hope that I learn how to stroke through the water quickly.

Itaewon Freedom

I will start off this post by stating my utter disdain for 이태원 (Itaewon), or the foreigner’s district. Known as “Itaewon Freedom,” Itaewon is the old red light district (and still unoffically operates as one) of Seoul, and is a haven for foreigners.
 

 Itaewon Entrance

Many come to Itaewon for the eclectic food, which ranges from American to Australian to Thai, or for clothes since many foreigners cannot fit into small Korean sizes. Many others come for the nightlife at the clubs and the many foreign bars. Others though, come for the gay nightlife in Itaewon, one of the few havens for gays, lesbians, and transgender in Korea.

Itaewon though, can be a dangerous place. As mentioned earlier, it is a red light district (many natives try to claim that it is the former red light district, but no one can deny the throngs of prostitutes that come into the bars at night looking for their next customer). It is one of the few places in Korea where it is not safe for a woman to walk alone at night. Often times, there are people passed out on the streets, aggressive thugs harassing people, as well as an army of drunken foreigners who are not as good at controlling their tempers when inebriated as Koreans are.

A very common sight

While those are the negatives, Itaewon does offer positives. It was the one place in Korea that I could find a hair salon that didn’t butcher my hair (Green Turtle Salon: **EDIT** Green Turtle Hair salon has moved, as well as their amazing hair stylist. His new salon is Salon de Michel, and his salon is located near the main entrance of Itaewon. Please support this awesome hair stylist!), and it offers a little slice of home for many with its collection of foreign food restaurants. It is also one of the few places in Korea where almost everyone speaks English. When you become deprived of your native tongue for a long period of time, you have no idea how refreshing this can be. Itaewon also offers clothes for foreigners, albeit extremely overpriced and with shopkeepers who are not willing to haggle.

Food is the one great positive about Itaewon. The restaurant alley is filled with restaurants that have food from all over the world. From Mexican, to Brazilian, to French, and Japanese, you can find just about any country's food in Itaewon. Be warned though, the food,while mostly very tasty, on average costs a lot more. Expect to pay 15,000-20,000 won per meal on average. 

 

For those who belong to the LGBT community though, it can be the one place where they can feel truly welcome in Korea, which is notoriously homophobic. The so-called “Homo Hill” offers a string of bars and nightclubs for the gay and transgender community (most lesbian bars however are located in Hongdae). It is also the location of Seoul's Gay Pride Parade.

Homo Hill

While many hate Itaewon, myself included, many have an equal amount love it. For foreigners, it should be a place that should be checked out at least once. For some, it will leave a bad taste in their mouth, for others, it will become a second home.