Seogwipo with Scattered Showers // Hiking Hallasan

Annyeonghaseyo erebun! A note: because a lot of the things I did on my last day in Seoul (shopping in Myeongdong and Insadong especially) I will probably do all over again when I return to Seoul at the end of my trip, I'll cover them there! For now I'm just going to move on to an account of my time here on Jeju Island while it's still fresh...

[INTERLUDE: AIRPORT TIME MACHINE]

Rather than returning to Incheon for my flight out to Jeju, I only got as far as Gimpo, Seoul's smaller and more local airport - think the Gatwick to Incheon's Heathrow. Going through check-in at Gimpo is like travelling back in time to the 90s in the best possible way; with all the super intense modern anti-terrorism measures dialed waaay back, getting through security is a hassle-free ten-minute experience. No dissecting your bag into fifteen separate canopic jars and then rushing to reconstruct yourself on the other side, just putting your luggage through one scanner and walking through one metal detector. I suppose all this relative laxness could make one nervous, but at this point in my trip, I'm enjoying the convenience...

[PART ONE: SEOGWIPO WITH SCATTERED SHOWERS]

Jeju Island, floating off the southwest coast, is often referred to as "the Hawaii of Korea." The island's tropical flora and fauna and central volcano - Hallasan, on which more later - give it the feel of a beachside resort, even in its extensive inland forest area. Google image searching Jeju's natural splendor was pretty much all it took to convince me to book an excursion to the island as my first stop after Seoul. With several budget airlines competing for passengers on the route from Seoul, fares can be found for as low as $50 or $60 roundtrip for those who plan and book well in advance.

Boasting gorgeous, rugged coastlines, an extensive network of walking trails (referred to as the "Olle" trails), and breathtaking coral reefs for those brave enough to try their hand at scuba diving, Jeju is an outdoorsman's dream come true and a prime Korean hiking destination. A pity, then, that when I arrived, dark clouds hung over everything, dispensing noncommittal mists and light showers every hour or two. This rain, however slight, threatened to scupper my driving purpose in coming here - namely, to hike Hallasan, the island's central volcano. The park rangers in charge of Hallasan and its trail system are notoriously strict in their criteria for ascents (on which, again, more later), and rolling into town on the first day with nothing but scattered showers predicted for my entire stay on the island, it seemed a real possibility that the park and its trails would be closed for safety reasons until long after I'd flown out.

Regardless, my first order of business was to travel from the northern part of Jeju, where the airport is located, to the island's southern tip, where waited Seogwipo, a stepped seaside town and popular hiking base. The 600 bus, its stand at the airport conspicuous and well-marked in both Korean and English, zipped us from one side of the island to the other in just under an hour with a speed and efficiency I would later miss when dealing with other Jeju bus routes.

[Such foreshadowing. Much wow.]

After dropping my stuff at the hostel, a six-story affair right on the coast overlooking the harbor, I immediately headed back into town for a bite to eat and found myself at the Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market - another traditional covered market like Gwangjang, although a little saner and less bursting at the seams, especially late on a rainy weekday evening. Particularly noticeable here were the many, many motorcycles constantly zipping up and down the market aisles - deliverymen ping-ponging between market stalls and the surrounding neighborhoods to dispense chimaek and other fried goodies. I was immediately educated on the island's local specialties - "hallabong" tangerines and black pork - by the inclusion of these ingredients in basically every dish to be found, not to mention stalls heaped high with nothing but one or the other. The only hitch? They were both really, really expensive.

Like, really expensive. Yes, that tiny box of tangerines costs 40,000won, a.k.a. about $37.

How best, then, to sample them? By returning to the cardinal rule of Korean street food - when in doubt, get a pancake. I found a street cart, tucked between two permanent stalls and easily missable, and ordered one each of their savory and sweet pancakes. The savory, so rich and peppery I had to go in search of some banana milk to stop my eyes from watering, was filled with black pork, onions, and scallions. The sweet mixed tiny pieces of sliced tangerine with cinnamon and chopped nuts, tied together by a light, sugary syrup. This, in addition to a handful of steamed dumplings, rounded out a lovely little dinner.

My black pork pancake.

Fun fact: in Korea, it can actually sometimes be difficult to find somewhere to eat if you're just a single person! Many kinds of restaurants are specifically designed to be group activities - barbecue places and hotpot joints, for example, where a group is supposed to work together around a cooking apparatus in the center of their table to prepare their own grilled meats or stews. These places are key to Korean after-work culture, which encourages people to bond with their coworkers by undertaking hours-long food binges and bar crawls, and as such they are inherently social spaces; chimaek (fried chicken and beer) places could conceivably cater to a singular customer if they're willing to order and eat an entire chicken all by themselves, but it just sort of isn't done. In the US, there are activities we instinctively feel should be social, but some people still do alone without trouble - going to the movies, for example. In Korea, if you walk into a restaurant reserved for group meals, you will almost certainly be turned away at the door. In tourist areas where these group experience places are even thicker on the ground, it can be frustrating to walk by place after place unable to accommodate you; as such, markets, street food, and convenience stores (which - perish the thought of sketchy American gas station food! - in Korea are extensively and creatively stocked with all kinds of quick snacks and ready-to-eat prepared meals) become havens for the single traveller like me.

Having exhausted the market, I poked around in my guidebook for local rainy-day acitivities, but mostly turned up oddball museums that were either already closed or featured exhibits clearly aimed at Korean honeymooners (of which there are many on Jeju) rather than lone foreign tourists - for example, its several museums devoted to the sort of thing that is omitted with a tasteful fade to black in Korean dramas. (Yes, really.) I called it a night. Seeing rain in the forecast and expecting the Hallasan trails to be closed, I turned off my alarm and resolved to have a nice lie-in.

Agonizingly, the next morning when I checked, the trails were open, but by sleeping in I had made it impossible to get to the trails in time to start a summit bid. Instead, armed with a convenience store picnic lunch, I moped around Seogwipo for the day, lazily following a coastal Olle trail to several local points of interest, including a couple waterfalls (one of which boasts being the only one in Asia to fall straight into the sea) and some nice seaside lookouts.

At this small seaside tent, haenyo (freediving fisherwomen) sell their wares.

Note the stanger photobomb. It was really hard to get a picture of these falls without people in them.

A stop at a local cafe to work on postcards and a closer examination of an arty street I'd blown past on the way to the market the day before made for a nice low-key afternoon.

That evening, for dinner, I returned to the market with a self-assigned mission to make things interesting: instead of just pointing at things and using single, child-like words to get what I wanted, I would practice some actual full (if still short) sentences and order like a normal person. Seeing a popular, bright-pink stall selling black pork buns made up to look like little pigs, I walked up and put on my brave face:

Me: 삼 인분, 추세요. / Please give me three servings.
Stall owner: *삼* 인분?!! / *Three* servings?!! [points to sign that says "1 인분 = 4개" / 1 serving = 4 (dumplings)]
Me: [aghast] 안이, 안이! 일 인분 추세요!! / No, no! Just one serving, please.
Her: [incredibly long very fast sentence]
Me: [stares blankly looking apologetic]
Her: [laughing a little] Spicy or no spicy?

After that, embarassed, I went back to sublingual gruntish to communicate.

The piggy dumplings I almost ordered twelve of.

Some handmade tteok (sweet chewy rice cakes filled with red beans, kind of like mochi) which I got myself as a consolation.

[INTERLUDE: VOX POPS]

For your amusement and consideration, a selection of interactions I have had with locals:

1. An ahjussi on the Seoul subway greeted me and asked me where I was from. After explaining I wasn't an English teacher (as in TEFL) but rather an English student of science fiction literature, he excitedly asked me for book recommendations. I told him to read Ursula Le Guin. He asked me to spell it and I suddenly realized I had no idea what Korean letters are called versus the sounds they make.

2. Trying in vain to interpret a timetable at a bus stop in Seogwipo, I was pointed in the right direction by another ahjussi who went on to make some small talk. While it was slow going at first, we eventually both pulled out our phones and loaded up the Papago app, which translated back and forth for us as we spoke. It ended up being a pretty natural conversation - technology is neat!

3. At the visitor's center at the base of Hallasan, I walked into the women's restroom only to be greeted by gasps from a group of shocked ahjummas. "This is not the men's room!" said one in Korean; when this had no effect on me, she began to simply repeat "여자" (woman). I quicky realized what was up and replied "하지만 여자 입니다!" (roughly "but I am a woman!) Upon realizing her mistake, she apologized profusely and, pointing to her head, explained that she had been confused by the short hair.

[PART TWO: HIKING HALLASAN]

Yes, it happened! On my second full day in on Jeju, as if by magic, the rainclouds parted, and by the green hour of 7am I was walking across Seogwipo to catch a bus to the trailhead. Changing the day of my hike came with a few consequences; because I was transferring to a new hostel on the eastern coast that day, I did not have the luxury of leaving my large carry-on backpack behind and hiking with only a small daypack, so I had literally everything I brought with me for this trip (about 20 pounds of gear) on my back for the whole hike. As a follow-on consequence, I decided to skip the shorter but much, much steeper Gwangneumsa Trail for the longer but more gradually sloping Seongpanak Trail. Either way, it would be a tough hike - roughly equivalent to Mt. Washington for the Northeastern US folks among you, the summit sits at over 6000 feet, and even the shortest path there would run about 9 kilometers (about 5.5 miles) one way. But I figured after Seongpanak I might still have knees at least.

Starting your Hallasan hike as early in the morning as you can bear to is essential, as access to the mountain is strictly controlled and only those who make it to a certain checkpoint on the trail by 1:00pm are allowed to continue to the summit. Everyone has to leave the summit and start their descent by 2:30pm as well, meaning the later you get started, the less time you have to enjoy the fruits of your quite extensive labor. After some minor bus snafus (oh Jeju bus system, why can't we be friends?) I managed to reach the trailhead by 9am - a bit late, but still doable. As I headed for the trail, a park ranger flagged me down to give me a map and reiterate the rules about timing. Then I was on my way.

The trail to Hallasan is well-maintained, although this doesn't make it easy walking by any means. Though some sections are covered in slip-proof woven matting or have sturdy wooden stairways built over treacherous bits, most of the trail consists of wooden steps with uneven collections of volcanic rock for treads. Volcanic rock is three things: porous (so it can break easily with the application of weight), slippery when wet, and sharp (so it can scrape you up pretty good if you, say, slip on a wet rock and fall). As someone who has managed to sprain their ankle while walking down a totally even city sidewalk, I was more than a little nervous about these conditions. One wrong step could lead to a sprain or even a break, force me to call mountain rescue, and throw a wrench in the rest of my trip if not end it outright.

Seemingly innocuous, but the bane of weak ankles.

With this in mind, knowing I would need to be twice as surefooted on the way down as on the way up, I decided to all but sprint up the mountain in hopes of taking my sweet time coming down. Though the ranger had warned the trek usually took about 4 hours one way, I didn't quite believe that for the first 4km of the trail, which were so flat and easy to power through I honestly started to think these estimates were based on your average person and not someone with prior hiking experience and started to gloat about reaching the top by noon. We all know, however, what pride cometh before...

Not a literal fall, luckily - both my ankles remain encouragingly intact, despite my best efforts to destroy them - but right about the time the trail started to quite literally ramp up the difficulty with a steeper incline and less certain ledges, I realized a few very important things. First, I had probably not brought enough water for this trip. Perhaps foolishly but without room in my pack for any more, I had brought just two fairly small bottles, hoping to refill them along the way at the water spouts both my guidebook and the trail signs promised were dotted along the trail. In reality, however, these "spouts" were in fact natural streams which, without the heavy rains of later summer, were pretty much bone dry, and I'm not sure I would have used them anyway without purification tablets or some such. Second, I had probably not brought enough food for this trip. Though, again, I packed some convenience store snacks - gimbap, some cheese, a little fruit - I had been counting on a little shop halfway up the mountain which my guidebook promised would sell water, gimbap, and other small snacks. And I'm sure it does... later in the season, when both tourism and hiking are in full swing for the year. At this time, however, the shop was shuttered, and looked like it had been since last season.

This was going to be difficult, I realized.

I pushed myself to ascend even more urgently, tackling rocky scrambles and wooden staircases alike with gusto. Though I tried to stick close to other groups of hikers in case of an accident, I see med to fall somewhere in between group paces, too fast for the families hiking with little ones and too slow to keep up with seasoned local climbers takjng the stairs two at a time. At some point, what sounded like gushing, running water turned out to be a tiny tram on a rail hidden just a few feet into the woods beside the trail; as the little car, holding two park rangers and some supplies, shuttled easily past us, a group of ahjummas huffing and puffing in front of me started calling out something like "take us with you!" in a tone that seemed only half-joking. Eventually, at the steepest part of the trail, the tree cover fell away to reveal breathtaking views of the island below, partly hidden by massive cloud drifts but beautiful where they peeked through.

A beautiful view...

...but still a ways to go!

By this point my feet were singing, my shoulders were aching, and it was all I could do not to just sit down right in the middle of the trail and take a load off. But no, I had a deadline, and it was fast approaching. Gratifyingly, I hit the checkpoint shelter just after noon - a respectable three hours from trailhead to within 2.5km of the summit. Being able to see exactly where I was headed - a stretch of stairs which trailed coyly around the summit and out of sight - helped spur me on through the final push, as did my truly fierce hiking playlist featuring Janelle Monae, Ed Sheeran, and certain inspiring selections from the Yuri on Ice soundtrack. So did my trailmates; seeing me faltering, an experienced-looking climber coming the other way hailed me and gave me a fist pump and a cheerful "화이팅!" (literally "fighting!", meaning "keep it up!" or "you can do it!).

Almost... there...

Around 1:30pm, I finally crested the mountain's final dome and reached the summit. The first thing I saw there, besides unreal panoramic views of the entire island? An orderly line of people waiting to take selfies with the summit marker. I decided to skip out on that and instead selfie it with the natural lake that iconically marks Hallasan's summit.

The line for summit selfies.

No line required!

Though I wanted nothing more than to take an extended rest at the top, and I had the luxury of time having summitted relatively early, I was quickly driven back down the trail by a truly gross deterrent - giant swarms of flies and mosquitoes which harangued anyone at the top foolish enough to sit or stand still at all. In an effort to avoid the insect feeding frenzy, I stayed only about a half an hour at the summit before starting back down.

My descent from Hallasan was not one of my finer accomplishments. By the time I was back down to the relatively flat final 4km, I was all but stumbling down the trail, having run out of water about halfway down and having foolishly consumed all of my food less than halfway up. While I had passed countless hikers on the way up, easily able to outpace them, I was the one being passed on the way down, a kind of lame duck slowly picking my way down treacherous stretches of volcanic rock while halmonis and little kids scooted by me.

Here, have a picture of a deer I spotted on the way down to make this part of the story less whiny and depressing.

What had taken me four hours going up took over five coming down, dumping me out at the visitor's center a little after 6pm. Tired, hungry, and dehydrated, I was still hugely satisfied. I had done it. I had survived Hallasan.

*shakes fist at distant peak* HALLASAAAAAAAAAAAN!!

[EPILOGUE: SUNGSAN, WHERE ART THOU?]

Though I didn't know it at the time, the hardest part of my day began when I finished descending Hallasan. My seemingly simple mission? Use the recently streamlined and updated Jeju bus system to get from Seongpanak trailhead to the eastern port city of Sungsan, where my next hostel was located. Result? Almost an hour and a half of waiting around at rural bus stops trying to make the necessary transfers. Everything about Jeju's buses is just slightly confusing in ways that may seem silly in retrospect, but which acutally gave me a lot of trouble compared to the so-streamlined-you-could-launch-it-into-space Seoul subway. On Naver maps and the Jeju tourism online trunkline map, what's referred to as the 110-1 and 110-2 buses are in fact the 111 and 112 buses. Not knowing this, I let two go by in quick succession and had to wait almost an hour for the next one after realizing my mistake. Lines that are marked in electric blue on the tourism map are actually serviced by red buses, while the electric blue buses will in fact take you in the opposite direction. Stops are labelled three completely different things, even in Korean, between Naver, the tourism trunkline map, and the stop signs themselves, making it extra confusing to try to find information about which buses would be arriving soon at any given place. And to top it all off, buses don't always stop at rural stops unless someone is getting off there - bus drivers don't exactly bend over backwards to check if someone is waiting to get on. At some point, I broke down and decided to call the Korean tourism helpline (1330) for interpretation services to hire a taxi to come take me the rest of the way, only to find that my phone plan won't put the call through, instead giving me an error message.

Ruh roh.

What little time I was going to have to explore Sungsan and its surrounds was whittled away by these ridiculous logisitical shenanigans. By the time I got a worried email from my hostel host, asking if I was okay and would I be arriving soon, I had just barely managed to catch my final necessary bus and still had a one-hour ride ahead of me. As if to taunt me, playing in a constant loop on the bus TV was a flashy, sing-songy PSA about how the whole Jeju bus system was recently revamped to make it simpler, cheaper, and easier to use. Good lord, I don't even want to think about what it must have been like before this...

When I finally rolled into Sungsan Port around 8:30pm, all the restaurants were closed, leaving me to construct a post-hiking victory feast (the first food I'd had since my snack at noon) from my friendly local GS25.

I may have gone a bit overboard.
I also took this opportunity to try some makgeolli, effervescent, milky white liquor with a strong orange flavor, supposedly made from Jeju tangerines.

When I finally passed out around 9:30, I did so knowing that tomorrow would be one of the most beautiful days of my life, and my breakfast would taste better than any before.

* * *

Here's me signing off again from bustling Busan! I'll le you know what I get up to.