Seoul - Day 8 (Trip to Jeju)

Instead of messing around with Dunkin' Donuts, we opted for the hotel restaurant for brunch, the Terrace Cafe. It was one of the most interesting brunches with a combination of western-style foods with Korean. I was pretty fired up to get some cereal and milk along with some tasty multi-grain bread. I added some fruit and coffee. But the kicker was when Scottie returned with dumplings. I couldn't refuse those now could I?

After filling our bellies, we headed off for an 1.5 hour drive to the Seongsan Sunrise Peak or the Ilchulbong Tuff Cone! This drive took us to the east coast of Jeju-do. And we were finally excited to see the tuff cone literally appear out of nowhere along the shore. This is another UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site.

Seongsan Ilchulbong is a tuff cone that was formed around 5,000 years ago by a hydro-volcanic eruption in a shallow water seabed. We began the 15-minute walk or so up to the 182m peak. At our first stop, we have a nice view of the village of Seongsanpo. For the rest of hiking, we just had to weave our way through the families of tourists huffing and puffing their ascent.  We didn't spend too much time photographing at this point as we had to press on.

At the peak, we were able to pear inside the tuff cone. It looks much plusher in the book photos, but nevertheless, a pretty neat site. I suppose it would be pretty sweet up here during sunrise which is highly recommended, but I suppose that will have to be the next trip.

Vertical and spiral-shaped pillar of rocks surround the climbing path of Seongsan Ilchulbong. These were formed by different erosion processes of unconsolidated tuff deposits. The above photo is of the Chogwanbawi (Third General Rock).

We headed down to where the famous Haenyeo ("sea women") women divers performed their traditional work of underwater fishing to see if we could catch them action.  Unfortunately, their next performance was a few hours away, so we just checked out the items that they were selling, used their clean toilets, and caught glimpses of the side of the tuff cone, where volcanic ash and debris piled up and hardened.

Back on the road to one of the Geomunoreum Lava Tube Caves, another, UNESCO World Natural Heritage site, specifically to the Manjanggul. Geomunoreum Lava Tube System is a series of lava caves created by a number of lava eruptions. The Manjanggul Lava Tube is the largest of the tubes at 7.4km and 30m high at its highest point. Within, we passed lava flow lines, stalactites, a lava raft (stone turtle), a lava bench, and ropey lava.

Within the cave, we had our own self-guided tour where we passed the following highlights:

• Lava Flowlines: strips of lava along the cave walls showing how much lava flowed through this cave 
• Lave Stalactites: lava formations like sharp teeth and icicles
• Lave Raft (Stone Turtle): breakdowns of the ceiling that were carried away along the lava flow before they hardened to form a mass of rock 
• Lava Bench: lava that melted and washed off the cave floor or surface of the ceiling 
• Ropey Lava: surface of the lava flows were hardened before the inner part of the flows; meanwhile, lava continued to flow while pushing the earlier formation of the hardened lava 
• Lava Column: at the end of the 1km walk, we came upon this lava column (a stalagmite) formed from molten lava poured from a hole in the ceiling. It is the largest in the world at 7.6km.

On our way back to the airport, we had to follow the kT rental car bus for Hertz to get back to the station. Oops.  And our amusement for the next hour or so was the face that Scottie carried this Max beer that we never drank through the airport security. Nice. They didn't care about our water, beer, or even the stench from our hiking!

Back at Gimpo Airport, as we waited for our "limousine" bus, we munched on some kimbap. Scottie had been looking for this in Jeju-do to take for our afternoon snacks. Essentially a vegetarian piece of sushi, it contained rice and vegetables rolled in seaweed.

Upon our arrival to the Lee's, we were welcomed with smiles and a warm, home-cooked meal of japchae and kimchi jjigae (upon my request via Scottie). Of course, we had to open a few bottles of makgeolli to celebrate our return!

Here's a nice article on CNN summarizing all the places we hit up in Jeju!

More pictures located here.  A map of our trip located here.