Korea – Day 8: Jeju Island and Seoul – Cheonjeyeon Falls, Yongdaum Rock

We tried to get an early start for our last day in Jeju. We had Korean breakfast which was abalone porridge with kimchi. It sort of tasted like a really bland, savory, warm rice pudding. I kind of liked it.

There was one last waterfall I wanted to see. It didn’t seem to be all that popular, but our guidebook said it was kind of impressive and it was pretty close by, so that was our first stop for the day. We got a little lost looking for it and instead stumbled upon a viewpoint for the Seonim Bidge. The bridge has seven nymphs carved on it on both sides and is a striking attraction.

Once we finally found Cheonjeyeon Falls, it was an easy walk to the first view point. Cheonjeyeon Falls is actually made up of three waterfalls, but the first one does flow unless it’s been really rainy. The second one is smaller, but you are pretty far away from it at the view point. It was seemingly rather disappointing. There was a small temple that we wandered through for a while though.

If you keep walking though, you find signs for a long path down to the third waterfall. The lookout point still isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. I’m not sure it was completely worth the hike, but I know if we hadn’t gone I would have been wondering, so I’m glad we took the time.

After the waterfall we went to what is straight us one of those weird tourist attractions that you find anywhere. It’s a small road called “Mysterious Road”. What’s so weird about is that it looks like you are going uphill, but if you put your car in neutral it appears as though you rolling uphill. It has something to do with the landscape that makes downhill look like uphill or something. It took us a few tries to figure it out, but once we did, it was super weird. I took a short video, but I’m not sure you can really understand the sensation from it.

Our last stop in Jeju before heading to the airport was to Yongdaum Rock (or Dragon Head Rock) on the northern part of the island. One legend is that there was a dragon sent down to steal jade from the mountain and was caught and shot down by an arrow by a mountain god. Now the dragon is stuck with only his head above water. To be perfectly honest, neither Andrew nor I could entirely figure out which way the head is supposed to be facing. I think it’s facing away from the shore?

After that we headed to the airport to fly back to Seoul. It was a quick and easy flight. We decided to stay at the same hotel we had stayed at during the first part of our trip which made things easy. They were able to store our large suitcases for us while we were gone and we knew exactly where we were going when we got back.

We only had moments to drop our stuff off before we headed back out. Dr. Henry wanted us to meet him at Moran Market which is a traditional Korean market. Unfortunately we got there just as they were closing up so we didn’t get to see a ton. There were still a few shops open selling spices and other things though.

We walked down a street that sold hand pressed sesame oil. There were half a dozen shops set up to bottle sesame oil and the whole street smelled amazing. I sort of wish we had gotten some, but it was late and we didn’t have a lot of time.

For dinner Dr. Henry took us a to a place that served the Korean fried pork cutlet. He ordered for us and Andrew got the super spicy sweet variety. Mine was a little more savory and not spicy at all. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it and I think it had a lot to do with it being pretty different from most of what we were eating.

Our time away went by fast and there’s not so much time left in Seoul. It doesn’t look like our busy trip is slowing down anytime soon.