Our final day on Jeju Island was better than we could have hoped for
DAY 4
Day 4 of our Jeju trip went exactly not as planned. It was way better than we had planned. We had another late starts, knowing it was our last day, but despite the cloudy skies, we wanted to go somewhere. Marley told us about Sewha Beach/세화해변, which is a popular beach spot, so we decided to go for it. We hopped back on that city bus and took the trip to the beach.
To get to the beach, you have to first walk through a super movie-set-like small town. There were little, old people all over the place: selling fish, vegetables, chattering away with each other as they sold and bought food and other things. Run-down, abandoned buildings mixed in with older apartment complexes, and small houses that looked no bigger than the standard American bedroom abounded.
What I loved about that little town though was that you could smell the ocean from wherever you were walking in that town. The ocean breeze followed us around as we made our way through the town heading towards the beach.
We walked through a warehouse-like market filled with stalls full of different foods and other random items for sale. You could get tourist-y t-shirts, aprons, fans, and more visors than you could ever possibly want or need. Honestly, you'll never see as many visors as you do on the older generations of South Koreans. They use them to keep the sun off their faces, but many of them have extensions that lengthen the visor so that your whole face is covered. It kind of looks like some kind of Daft Punk look.
Jenni and I stayed back a ways from the two boys to make use of the money we'd brought with us. We filled our stomachs with delicious deokbokki/떡벆이 and red bean-filled donuts/찹쌀도넛 from a little corner stall. Amazing. I think about them every day. Warm donuts covered with sugar and filled with sweetened red bean filling that is also used on bingsu. Perfect combination. (Jenni wasn't as huge a fan of them as I was. I finished her donut for her.)
The experience eating at that stall felt like something straight from a movie. Really, all of Day 4 on Jeju Island felt like a movie experience. The two ladies running the food stall were yapping it up with each other, with the locals, and even with Jenni and I, asking how we liked the food. There were a couple tables (top left of the photo below) that some of these little, old locals were sitting at enjoying food and loudly chattering away.
Originally, we were going to go to a restaurant or cafe that Marley had heard about, but when we found it, it turns out the couple that own the place were out of town for an extended period of time. The restaurant was closed, and all that was there was to see was a retro RV sitting at the front of the property (pictured above).
Hungry, we wandered around looking for something else. We eventually found something. We picked some kind of pasta/pizza place that was direct across the street from the beach. The view was stunning despite the gloomy sky. We were eating at a really great time since most people were either already down at the beach or just heading towards the beach from wherever they were staying. The gloomy sky was keeping a lot of people away at first, which actually worked in our favor.
We were the only ones in the restaurant, but I remember the two guys working there taking special care of us and going extensively over the menu and answering all of my 19379353 ingredient-related questions. Such is the life of someone with seafood allergies on an island famous for its seafood island.
Food photos are my favorite travel photos, honestly. Okay, maybe not my favorite, but they're definitely up there. The only drawback to photos of good food from other countries is that you can't eat it. Not that pasta or pizza are Korean delicacies.
We got two types of pasta and two pizzas to share among the four of us. I stuck to the pizza since, you know. The food was pretty great. The view made it even better. It was actually a really great time sitting in the small restaurant, relaxing, and eating good food. We'd spent the first three days on Jeju dashing about the city in between long naps (aka Andy's long naps, ahem), so it was nice to just sit. And eat. And just enjoy.
As we finished eating, the sun very quickly appeared and the gloomy clouds dissipated. We were suddenly blessed with a perfect, blue sky and warm sun. The ocean suddenly looked bright blue instead of gray and the water was clean and clear. Unlike Lake Erie, which is brown and maybe blue-y looking on a good day.
The sudden change in the weather reminded me a lot of being in Ireland, where the weather changes every five minutes: sunshine for five minutes, then rain for the next five. However, unlike Ireland, the sun on Jeju Island that day was determined to stay. And stay it did. It stuck around for the rest of our time at Sewha Beach.
After we pranced about the beach for a few hours, the tide started to come in, quickly covering up the small island of sand that was visible when we first went down to the beach. We grabbed our stuff and rushed out before everything got covered in water. Cameras and water don't mix well. In case you didn't already know that.
Gedas joined us a bit later as we relaxed outside a small cafe that was also right across from the beach, though a little bit further down. The cafe, turns out, was right across from a very popular photo spot, especially for couples. It's a small table with flowers on it and two small chairs stationed on a short wall with the ocean as the backdrop. It truly is an incredible photo opportunity. Sitting down, we got a nice view of all the lovely couples, young and old, setting up tripods, pulling out selfie sticks, or other such devices to help them achieve the perfect photo.
This was our last full day in Jeju. It was a lovely one too. The weather was perfect that afternoon and evening, and it truly made the end of the trip that much better. When we left the next morning to go back to Seoul, it was gloomy again, which made the previous day feel sort of like a dream. But, the photos tell us otherwise.
"Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times"
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