This 9 days in Jeju trip has been the first one where I relied on GenAI tools a fair bit to produce various iterations of the itinerary that took onboard the kind of sight-seeing we wanted to do, preferences, and a history of our past trips based on our travel entries here. And thereafter, continual refinements to improve logical flow, increase safety nets, and take onboard also ‘best’ timings for various places. Funny thing though: after I presented the high-level version of the itinerary to our Jeju driver and guide a week before we were to travel, he immediately suggested swapping whole days and regions around. So, who should I trust LOL. Normally, I’d be leery of what GenAI tools can cook up, but in this case, I’d gone into using ChatGPT already with some level of distrust and also verifying what it was suggesting. So, what we resolved to do then was rather than try to negotiable our itinerary over WhatsApp with our guide, we’d discuss with him when we arrived on the first day.
There are only so few direct flights from Singapore to Jeju, and our flight on T-Way was not only a direct route, but also arriving into Jeju in mid-morning, so we’d have most of the first day to sight-see. On the other hand, the flight was departing Singapore at an ungodly 2:15AM. By the time we got to midnight, all of us were struggling to stay awake!
Also, T-Way is a budget carrier and we had to adjust our expectations against the full service airlines we normally fly with. So, no self-check-in kiosks at Changi Airport Terminal 2 [though check-in was very quick over the manned counter], no breakfast during the overnight flight, and heck no in-flight entertainment.
On the up side, the flight took off from T2 timely, and landed into Jeju right on the dot of the scheduled time of 9:30AM. The flight itself was smooth with just the occasional bumps from turbulence, and apart from a baby boy with a healthy pair of lungs seated somewhere in the cabin!
Our driver – Mr. Lee – was already waiting at the arrivals door by the time we’d cleared immigration and picked up our luggage. Our first stop was Iho Tewoo Beach, which was a place we were intending to check out ourselves on Day 08. The beach is well known for the two iconic, 12 meter tall horse lighthouses – one in red that signifies arrival of incoming vessels, and the other in white that represents departing vessels. Mr. Lee first proposed swapping a few days around, but when he saw that we’d already done a lot of homework in the preparation of this itinerary, was quite OK to stick with it. We stayed at the beach for just 15 minutes, then hopped back into the vehicle and drove in a southerly direction towards Seogwipo.
Continued in the next post!