Jeju City views plus

We had a challenging start to the day when I suddenly realised that our flight turned out to be an hour earlier than I had thought (something to do with our clocks going back and me putting it in the diary incorrectly) and we had to rush from our Gwangu hotel to the airport in a taxi. The thing about Korean traffic lights is that they NEVER change: one can be waiting five minutes for the lights to change and everyone has gone to sleep. Nobody hoots but instead we sit there patiently until they finally drive off by which time the lights have changed again. So stressful!

Anyway, we made it to the airport on time to check in for our swift flight to Jeju Island (at take-off, we all had to have the blinds down in the plane while fighter jets flew overhead), and our even swifter collection of our hire car.

Jeju is Korea’s number one holiday destination, particularly for Korean honeymooners, and while Jeju City (today’s stop) is highly urban and busy, the rest of the island is much lower-key, volcanic and home to a matriarchal and distinctive local culture.

We arrived in Jeju with what seemed like the rest of Asia – apparently, the hour-long trip between Seoul Gimpo and Jeju is the busiest flight route in the world, with 178 flights a day. (We came from Gwangu and the flight was packed!).

We checked in to our hotel and were given a room on the 27th floor with the most stunning views of the city, the sea and the planes coming in to land or taking off every few minutes:

We went to visit the pool on the eighth floor which we had spied from our room and were smitten with the bling of it all:

Are these not the blingiest toilets you have every seen?

And as the sun set, we found it difficult to tear ourselves away from the view:

But we needed to eat so we went in search of crab as Jeju is famed for its seafood. We found a restaurant – we knew we had the right one because it was abundantly clear outside:

But then they told us the price – and we decided we didn’t want to spend upwards of £200 for crab, so we left in search of Jeju’s other famous product, the black pig.

Our barbecue of black pig parts (some sounding too disgusting to repeat here) was terrific, with young people cooking our meat for us, and chopping it up into chopstick-friendly portions:

The barbecue bit doesn’t look very clear here, so here’s a more elegant photo of the contraption they use which sucks up all the smoke and keeps the fire going:

We returned to our glamorous hotel (with a Casino on the second floor) and took the lift back to the 27th floor and our view, accompanied by these splendid women who were very happy for me to take their photo:

And now we’re back to watching the view and contemplating a very different Jeju-experience tomorrow. We promise much more nature – finally!