We’d initially planned out a couple of places to visit around central Jeju where we’re staying, including exploring the Handam Coastal Walk and nearby beaches. In the end, we did none of that: opting instead to just unwind by vegetating in our guesthouse, indulging in some limited retail therapy, and thinking very hard about where to find types of grub that we hadn’t tried yet, and that were still within easy walking distance. It was just as well that we were gradually winding down the earlier intensity of our activities: after seven days of hustling around, we’d all had a good sense that we’d seen enough of what the island had to offer, and were content to just spend our last days napping, looking through and organising the thousands of photos and videos taken, and catching up on these blog posts.
So, here’s what we did in the last two days: don’t in any way use this as a reference, unless you’ve spent as long a period as we have vacationing on Jeju Island, and are also feeling a little worn out!
BBQ Beef Buffet Lunch @ Woohwa Muso
The island is famous for its black pork cuisine. We’d tried that out for one day’s lunch: it was OK, but a little too expensive for our liking. Like true Singaporean bargain hunters, we were looking for a BBQ buffet-style lunch or dinner, and found one that was a 10-minute drive away. And best of all, reasonably affordable at about 31K won per head. We didn’t find any other similar options in this price range, so went for it. The restaurant offers different beef and pork cuts for that price, with lamb being an add-on that costs extra. Also included is a small range of fizzy drinks, one ice-cream flavour, and assorted sides that included pasta, salads, and various other Korean food types. The fare was decent, though we probably ruined a few chunks of beef by overcooking or undercooking them!
Jungang Underground Shopping Street
Our central Jeju guesthouse is within easy walking distance of three retail places: Dongmun Traditional Market, Jungan Underground Shopping Street, and Chilseong-ro Shopping Street. We didn’t spend much time at Dongmun since we’d already visited the fabulous Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market during the first five days of this trip. Jungan Underground Shopping Street isn’t much different from the ones we’d visited in Busan and Seoul: it’s basically an underground stretch with numerous mom-and-pop-type small shops lining both sides, with most shops being of the cosmetics, apparel, and gift shop variety. What was surprising for me was the relative lack of crowds the couple of times we visited.
Chilseong-ro Shopping Street
If brand-name and boutique-lite shopping is more up your alley, then Chilseong-ro Shopping Street will likely appeal to you more. The brands on this street aren’t the high-brow kind, and there are more apparel and footwear shops here than other types. We visited on Sunday noon while biding our time for our flight home in the evening, and like Jungan, the area was generally uncrowded.
The flight home on T-Way was again smooth and incident-free, though like the outbound leg to Jeju, the budget carrier’s job is to ferry passengers from point to point, no frills. So, one really has to bring onboard any distractions and diversions as needed! Also, this time round, there were no crying babies for those of us in economy to contend with. The flight took off punctually, and landed slightly early at 12:20AM instead of the scheduled 12:45AM.
That’s a wrap for the itinerary posts for this trip. I’ll do the usual suite of closing posts next, including a quick review of the guesthouse we stayed in in central Jeju, maybe a flora post, and finally a post-trip reflections one. Stay tuned!