Day 3, the last day in Jeju Island for Haenyeo Experience (Diving like Jeju Women), Lava Tube (Manjanggul Cave), Seongsan Ilchulbong Mountain, Jeju Folk Village and burgers for dinner at WAVE Burger.
(ภาษาไทย)
(1) Haenyeo Experience
You may have heard about the world-famous female divers of Jeju Island, the haenyeo. The female divers in Jeju island can deep dive without air tank! So I bought this trip which I thought we would dive with them, the real haenyeo!
But this turned out to just be a snorkeling trip that they provided diving suites and let us pretend to look like “the Haenyeo”. If I would know these details, I might not sign up for it, but it’s not their fault, It’s just because I can’t read all the Korean info.
Well, there’s nothing wrong with the snorkeling trip, they are well organized and able to communicate in English to us. It’s fun and they caught real octopus! They also took all the pictures for all of us for free!
If you are looking for something fun like this, you can book thru Naver.com (Korean Language) or you can drive to book direct with them at Jeju Island.
The tour costs 35,000won per person. (Read more about this trip)
After the snorkeling trip, we drove to (2)Manjanggul Cave, this is actually a lava tube where the roof has collapsed and you can walk in the tube under the mountain (23 meters width, 30 meters height).
The tube is about 9km long but the section that can be visited is about 1km only.
It is beautiful, seeing nature transformed. Wear comfortable shoes with traction and closed toes. Its wet, very slippery and uneven (rocky) floor for a good part of the walk.
The temperature is cold inside (~13-14 degree Celsius).
It is pretty dark inside I felt like I was focusing on the ground instead of enjoying the surrounding lava structures but it’s awesome to be walking on what was once flowing lava!
We took about 40-45 mins for round trip walking inside the lava tube (1km), and it’s 4000won admission fee per person (~$3.5)
Next to visit (3) Seongsan Illchulbong Peak or ‘Sunrise Peak’. The park is an archetypal tuff cone formed by hydrovolcanic eruptions upon a shallow seabed about 5 thousand years ago.
I wanted to visit at 1.30pm or 3pm because I wanted to see the (real) Haenyeo!
But we were late we got there ~5pm, but we still could visit the Peak! The Peak open from ~7am to ~7pm (they said If you go before 7 in the morning – there is no charge)
If you just want to walk around the ground area (to see Haenyeo House), it’s free. But if you want to climb up the peak, fee is 5000 won per person, the peak but they said that it took about 25 mins’ walk to the top.
We didn’t go up to the top of the peak for this visit…
If we ever come back to Jeju island again, I would like to stay around this area. There are so many restaurants, souvenirs shops and surrounded by nice scenery!
Especially, the Hallasan National Park which is not far away but we missed it for this trip.
Next is the (4)Folk Village. There are 2 Folk Villages in Jeju but today we went to Seongeup Folk Village (성읍민속마을) which I’m not sure it’s the best Folk Village to visit.
But we’re glad to find it, the GPS took us around the area, we couldn’t stop at the right spot as first.
This village is like an open live museum, there are old traditional houses built with mud and lava rocks and covered roof with dried grass.
Unique for the Folk Village is the front gate to the houses. You will see sticks up to 3 right in front of the gate, each of them has its meaning!
If they left only one stick, means the owner went out but not far away from the house, “two” means the owner went out and back within today or in the evening but “three” means the owner went away and would be back tomorrow.
But it’s no stick, means the owner is home.
You can find this 3 sticks gate as a souvenir in many gift shops around Jeju Island, I think it’s a good idea for your office table to let other people know about you (Example: Leave “three sticks” if you are on vacation!)
Nowadays, the CCTV works better for the gate LOL
The stone statue of Harubang (Jeju Statue) called the grandfather of Jeju and worshiped as the protector of this island can be seen in this village – I’m sure you can guess what the statue shape looks like!
This Village is free to visit but remember this is a real open village, so there are some people still living in this area.
It has been a long full day in Jeju Island, but it has been 3 days that we didn’t have had western food, so we ended the trip today with hamburgers at (5) WAVE Burger.
The Wave burger just popped up when I googled for “burger in Jeju island” , and it’s about 10km away from Seongeup Folk Village and it’s also on the way back to our hotel.
The owners are couple from Morocco and Korea! They only have a Korean menu but only 4-5 selections. Tim tried the BBQ burger and I had the spicy, crispy chicken.
Tim said this is the best burger since we moved to South Korea over a year ago!!! We would recommend you to stop here for burgers if you are done with the local food on Jeju island.
That’s all for our last full day trip in Jeju, we’re heading back to Busan tomorrow morning!
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