Jeju was my #1 most wanted to visit place of Korea for a long time, mainly due to k-drama influences. Jeju portrayed to me as the Hawaii of South Korea, a romantic honeymoon-goto-place. As a result, I immediately booked my flight to Jeju after confirming my trip to Korea, and Jeju was the only place (aside from Seoul due to travel constraints) that I spent more than a day.
Unfortunately, the start of my Jeju trip was disastrous. My flight was delayed, so I arrived to Jeju ~30min behind schedule (past 9pm). As a result, I missed my car rental! I reserved a car with Sixt via Priceline, mostly due to its price (it was almost $30 cheaper than other companies for a 2-day rental). Unfortunately, Sixt has an extremely limited business hour (8am — 9pm) for an airport. Also I did not bother to check its business hours, expecting all international airport car rental services to open past midnight. Clearly learnt the lesson the hard way, after standing in the rental parking lot, lost & confused, struggled to call the Sixt customer service line for 20+min.
Chapeau to my hostess, who were worried about me, and started messaging me that afternoon. We already had a conversation going, while I waited at the Gimpo Airport. So I messaged her immediately after knowing that I wasn’t going to have a car that night. She definitely went above & beyond her responsibility as a hostess, checked the bus schedules for me, and instructed me where to wait for the bus at the airport. Furthermore, she also sent me messages in Korean, so that I could show them to the driver, ensured that I was able to get off at the correct stop.
With all her help, I managed to arrive at her place around midnight. She warmly welcomed me, and asked about my plans for the following day. I told her I’d like to get my car because I prepaid for it, also it would be much more convenient to travel with a car. Again, went above & beyond her responsibility, she looked up the bus scheduled, planned my morning itinerary & offered to cook me breakfast before she wished me good night.
Thanks to her, I had a good filling breakfast (toasts, fruits, & hot chocolate) and arrived at the rental car place minutes after they opened. I was shocked again, after learning that I accidentally reserved an electric car. Apparently I requested an electric car model, that I had no idea (nor do I remember the model now), I only knew that I made a reservation for a sedan. So Jeju lesson #2, car model is as important as the car type (or maybe rental companies should indicate if a model is electric? So for people like myself, who struggles to even remember car brands, would actually be benefited from?). ><
Despite all these unexpected circumstances, Sixt overall customer service was amazing. Before handing me the car, the person actually walked through all the features & functionalities in the car, changed the GPS to English, saved my Airbnb location & Hallasan Seongpanak trailhead in the GPS. Briefly talked about the EV charging procedures & pointed me the 2 charging outlets on the car. Though I wished he could’ve shown me how to actually charge the car, because I struggled a lot with the charging process in the end.
I finally arrived at the trailhead parking lot ~9:50am. The parking was full, so I had to park along the mountain road, very similar to the trailhead parkings in California. I stopped by the visitor center next to the parking lot, wanted to buy the park entrance ticket. Instead, the lady handed me a trail map, told me that in order to hike the peak, I must pass the checkpoint, a roughly 3hr hike, by 12:30. Everyone must leave the peak by 2pm sharp. Lastly, there isn’t any park fees for Hallasan National Park.
Never considered myself as a fast hiker, I decided to challenge myself and speed-walk to the checkpoint, then the peak. I could take my time and take all the necessary photos on my way down, as I planned to return from the same trail to pickup my car.
The Dongneung Peak of the Hallasan is the highest point of South Korea, 1950m above sea level. One can only get there via 2 trails, namely the Seongpanak trail (9.6k one-way) & the Gwaneumsa trail (8.7k one-way). Seongpanak trail is the most popular one amongst hikers, due to its gradual elevation gain, also there is a bus stop right by its parking lot (so convenient for travelers). Based on what I’ve read, there is a campground near Gwaneumsa trailhead, and there typically are taxis waiting in the afternoon. For this reason, many travelers suggested to ascend via the Seongpanak trail, and descend from the Gwaneumsa trail, and simply take the taxi to the next place. This is the best route to enjoy the different sceneries Hallasan has to offer. It was my original plan, if I did not waste my morning on car rental.
The trail started-off relatively flat, so it was an easy hike. I also felt super good about myself, as I passed every other hiker I saw. Especially after I saw a sign in Korean with 0.5km. I honestly thought I was 0.5km away from the checkpoint, despite the fact I just started hiking ~20min ago.
Disappointment struck me (to be fair though, it was an unofficial checkpoint) as I arrived at the place & realized that I was still 2km away from the actual checkpoint. Took a deep breath, I continued hiking.
As I was hiking, some mechanical sound from behind surprised me. It was a narrow unpaved rugged dirt road, what was this sound & where did it come from? Later I saw a delivery truck to my right, slowly passed me, with boxes neatly piled on the flat trailer board behind the truck. I was too slow to take a picture of the delivery truck/trailer, so here’s the track, which reminded me of the San Francisco cable cars:
The last 0.7km to the checkpoint was brutal with severe elevation & unpaved rugged trails. It took me roughly 20min to walk the first 0.5km, though the last 0.2km only took 1min. I was also greeted by the horrific toilet smell at the 0.2km mark. Luckily the checkpoint smelled normal.
The checkpoint was packed with people. People outside were mostly squatting or sitting on stairs eating, while people inside informally lined-up for the convenient store. I hesitated to line-up, mainly due to the amount of people in line. However, it was roughly lunch time (11:40), and I ate nothing since breakfast, most importantly I had no food.
I finally got my food at ~12:05, with a chocolate bar, a chocolate pie, a yeonyanggeng (due to curiosity), & a bowl of instant noodles. I only got the instant noodle because of hot water (there was a sign saying “only giving out hot water with a purchase of instant noodle”). Also minute after I sat down on a stair, someone made an announcement in Korean, and half of the crowd disappeared. I looked back at the convenience store, it suddenly became empty. So I rushed to finish the noodle, undoubtedly it was the worst instant noodles I ever had. I put all the other food in my pocket, dumped the remaining soup from the noodles, packed it into the plastic bag, & headed-off for the peak. There is no garbage can throughout the trail, so as the label on the soup disposal reads, “bring back your own garbage”.
The chocolate contains peanut (as the wrapper suggests). I just wished they could’ve mentioned it on the menu list. The yeonyanggeng tasted like a childhood dessert (羊肝羹) I always had, because parents said “it’s good for your eyes”. The texture felt like a mixture of jello & sticky rice.
The last portion of the hike was the most difficult part: 450m elevation gain in 2.3km. So basically, stairs, stairs, stairs. Given clear visibility, the panoramic view was astonishing, I could literally see the entire Jeju island & beyond. Though I was disappointed at the crater laker by the peak, it did not look appealing at all, and definitely very different from photos online.
I took my time to descend, also decided to take a 1.2km detour to Saraoreum Lake. Finally returned to my car ~4:20pm.
Personally I thought Hallasan had better fall color than Seoraksan. Except not according to my camera, at least not based on the photos I’ve taken.
I ended my day at the night market in Seogipo City. The market was great, with live k-pop karaoke and tons of great food. Driving, however, wasn’t the greatest idea near the market, as pedestrians were everywhere, along with one-way streets similar to typical downtowns of most cities.
First stop was freshly squeezed Jeju orange juice stand. Jeju has amazing oranges, which shouldn’t be a surprise for k-drama fans who are familiar with My Girl. Jeju also known for their stone statues, called Dol hareubang. There were many combinations of Jeju orange & Dol hareubang in the market, including orange-filling Dol hareubang cake.
Based on many travel blogs I’ve read, Jeju apparently also famous for its black pork. However I was rather disappointed with the pork I bought. Its skin was awfully hard, and absolutely impossible to chew on. There were 2 types of dipping sauces, as the meat itself was absolutely tasteless. Confused at how did the black pork got so famous, my hostess told me that Jeju used to be a poor fishing island, so pork was considered as luxurious food for the higher classes.
I stopped by the ddukbokki place, and had a bowl of warm spicy ddukbokki. Served along with it, was a cup of soup from the dipping pot next to it. It was the most interesting ddukbokki I’ve ever had, with quail eggs & fish cake as toppings. Tasted amazing and was really spicy in my opinion. Except my hostess later told me that Jeju does not have spicy food, not compared to Seoul at least. I knew that I would not eat anything spicy when visiting Seoul.
My last stop was an octopus-shaped waffle (I actually don’t know what it is exactly, so I’m calling it a waffle, due to its cooking procedure) booth. I semi-searched for this booth, as I saw many people walked around with an octopus waffle in hand. The booth also decorated with many Instagram photos, so it was popular. I barely tasted the octopus (not sure how Jeju barley tasted like), but every bite had some melted cheese strings, and it was amazing.
Same as yesterday, my hostess asked for my plans & recommended places before wishing me a good night. Unfortunately, packing took much longer than expected (~90min) that I did not have time to visit Jusangjeolli. I also spent lots time looking for EV charger, and finally learnt that I didn’t even have time to charge the car.
I returned my car roughly 10 after 8, except the shuttle did not leave until 8:40am. As a result, I actually missed my flight (8:55am). Since Jeju Air was all sold out for the day, I ended up booking with Korean Air. Thankfully I had enough miles, so this last minute trip to Busan only cost me 5,000won on a business class. =)