Below: Cheonjiyeon Pokpo. Here be dragons, or legend has it.
The last time round, we ruled Jeju out having been turned off by what seemed like exorbitant airfares from Seoul. It turned out I searched incorrectly for fares from Incheon International Airport, which were invariably higher than the many flights that operate from Gimpo. Checking in that Sunday afternoon at Gimpo for our Eastarjet flight a full two and a half hours before departure, we were moved to one due to take off in 25 minutes, the airport staff citing a delay in the original flight. It meant, theoretically, an earlier arrival in Seogwipo, and more time to find dinner. But after eight on a Sunday evening, most eateries were already winding down. There weren't a lot of options apart from the usual Korean fare, which the lack of both English menus and gastronomic adventurism prevented us from fully embracing.
Early spring bestowed upon us the perfect sightseeing ingredients - tolerably cool temperature and mild sunshine. Seogwipo is Jeju's second city, much smaller than the provincial capital Jeju-si, but with a very pleasant natural setting boosting a hulking (extinct) volcano on the landward horizon, dramatic basalt coastlines and two waterfalls on either end of town (you may guess why I'm here already).
Our first day's foraging led us to the Seogwipo Daily Olle Market. It could just as well have been a trip to the aquarium and open-air museum, as we sated more our curiosity (the inedible variant) than our hunger. Tanks - carpeted by flatfish, plastered with shellfish, swarming with eels, squirming and pulsing like octopus tentacles long after they have been severed - lined the crowded aisles. Their former inhabitants, gutted, scaled and decapitated, were piled in basins, baskets and pails, losers in the lottery of life played out constantly in these fateful corridors. All of this hinted at Seogwipo's humble beginnings as a fishing village, and the boatloads of fresh seafood it still receives every day.
Above (top to bottom): the Seogwipo Daily Olle Market, trolleys are obtained separately; many restaurants sold their food live in tanks outside. Hunger really is a matter of life and death.
Below: Winners (if only for a little while) and losers in the lottery of life, some in peace, some in pieces. You get to choose.
Fortunately, things were not all flesh, as the heaps of strawberries and oranges elsewhere in the market attest. Groves of Jeju's famed Hallabong mandarin oranges blanket the fertile lower slopes of Hallasan further inland. Long grown as kingly gifts for the monarchs on the mainland, cultivation expanded dramatically from the 1960s as the government sought to stimulate the local economy. The sweet seedless mandarin, named after Jeju's highest peak to which the knob (some have described this by naughtier alternatives) atop the fruit bears an uncanny resemblance, has since become a local staple. The strawberries - large and tantalizingly red - were a welcome distraction.
Below (top to bottom): It wasn't all flesh at the market. Jeju's famed seedless and succulently sweet Hallabong mandarins were named for the knob atop the fruit, and were found in heaps (literally) throughout the market; Mary's mother stepped into an open-air museum, and was fascinated by the many different stalls. Here she stands before a dazzling array of kimchi.
Once we tore ourselves from the market, we rambled on towards the harbour, and towards the waterfalls. We hadn't a map, but the harbour wasn't hard to find. In Seogwipo (and also in a Jeju-si, we later learnt), the rule of thumb was that downhill generally led to the sea, while uphill led after some determined perambulation to the top of Hallasan (at 1,950 metres above sea level).
We passed artist Lee Joong Seop's former residence, built on a very pretty spot overlooking the harbour and the three islets which guard its approaches. His life was a tidy microcosm of twentieth-century Korean history. Born in 1916 in what is today North Korean territory, Lee studied art in Japan, where he met his wife (a marriage frowned upon given the dynamics of Japanese-Korean relationship then). As the Korean War loomed large, he and his family sought refuge in Jeju. Refuge was short-lived, however. The Lees led a hard life in Seogwipo. Lee's wife returned to Japan soon after with their two sons. Like many other talented artists, Lee's fire burned twice as bright and only half as long, before being extinguished by loneliness and alcohol at the grand old age of 40.
Below: Admiring the simple tranquility of Lee Joong Seop's former residence. Yet simplicity is no substitute for comfort, as his wife left for Japan shortly after arriving here with their two sons.
From Lee's former residence, it wasn't far to Cheonjiyeon Pokpo. Cheonjiyeon flows into a wooded gorge, where shady boulevards convey an endless stream of tourists to and from the falls. Jeongbang empties into the sea, and witnessed one of the darkest episodes in the island's history. In the strife-torn, winner-takes-all days just after the Second World War, the South Korean military brutally put down a local uprising in a series of killings known as the 4-3 Massacre. The rising's origins were many and complex - islander resentment against the collaborationist establishment under the Japanese, boiling over when it seemed their new American overseers sanctioned the partition of Korea by enforcing elections in the American-occupied areas, the involvement of Communist agitators and the subsequent American intransigence it provoked, in short a civil war which cannot be distangled from the conflagration known as the Korean War. When Kim Il-sung's forces crossed the 38th Parallel, the Seoul regime ordered the preemptive arrest and elimination of those elements in Jeju whose loyalty was questionable. At Jeongbang, these people were shot and their bodies dumped over the falls.
Above: More of Cheonjiyeon Pokpo; "Why don't you help them?" Mary said, referring to the couple in the third photograph who attempted an awkward we-fie with their baby strapped to the husband's back. I did, and realized afterwards it took some coordination to remove a baby from a carrier. The acrobatics were worth the family photograph, though.
Below: Jeongbang Pokpo falls into the sea. At one time nearly seventy years ago, other things also fell over the cliff, nor was it only the falls which thundered. The two waterfalls described here, together with Cheonjeyeon (yes, spot the difference) Pokpo in Jungmun, constituted Jeju's three famous waterfalls. But for Mary putting her foot down (feet in this case; she refused to budge), we would have visited all three. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
We were ushered out of the Jeongbang compound by the patient caretaker who locked up shortly afterwards. Contrary to popular presumptions, the personal attention was more the result of our late arrival than to any dallying indulgence on my part. Famished from an entire day's sightseeing (actually we only left the hostel at one), we settled for a typical Korean seafood hotpot dinner. My strategic decision not to join the feast paid off. Mary and her mother enjoyed their dinner tremendously, in fact so much that Mary was put off seafood for the rest of the trip.
Below: 37,000 won and a pot full of roiling seafood - what it took to get my wife off crustaceans and molluscs for a good week.
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