Trip Report, Day 5: Exploring Seogwipo

Hi, everyone!  As I said in the previous post, the conference ended today, and to celebrate I decided to get out and explore Seogwipo, the larger city to the east of Jungmun, the small town my hotel is located in.  You may remember this city as the place I traveled to Sunday morning to attend Easter mass.  Because I needed to take the bus to get there, I had to refill my T-Money Card, a universal card that stores money to use on public transit in South Korea.  I went to 7/11 to buy throat lozenges and banana milk and put money on my T-Money Card.  I handed the woman my card and said man, which means 10,000, the amount of won I wanted put on my card.  I either wasn't loud enough, a possibility since I pretty much have lost my voice thanks to my scratchy throat, or she didn't understand what I meant, because she used the money stored on my T-Money Card to pay for my lozenges and banana milk.  Apparently the T-Money Card can be used as a debit card at convenience stores.  I had no idea how to tell the woman that I wanted money on the card, so I left with even less money on my card than when I walked in.  Later, I went to a different convenience store and gave the cashier my T-Money Card and 10,000 won in cash, since I figured there was no way that could be construed as anything other than wanting to put money on the card, and I was successful in recharging my card.

I took the bus to Seogwipo and decided to take a long walk to a small island just off the coast of the main island.  I walked down this road, which was very steep, and felt even more so when I had to walk back up it.  Not pictured are the cutest momma and puppy playing with each other.  I was tempted to take a picture, but I didn't want to potentially get bitten by a dog.

Wait, did I just say "take a walk" to an island?  Well, 새섬, Saeseom used to only be accessible in low tide until a bridge was built joining it with the main Jeju island.

In these pictures you can see how coastal Seogwipo looks.  There are many fishing boats, and you can see why seafood is so popular here.  If you look carefully in a couple of those pictures, you can see the cathedral I went to for Easter Mass.  Saeseom had one trail that hugged it's rugged coastal cliffs, and while there were some details in English, I forgot them (should've taken pictures, I guess).  Saeseom and two other nearby islands, is apparently formed by rock different than the rock that formed Jeju.  Saeseom is a lush island with rare vegetation.

Overall this was a very nice walk.  It was completely free, although walking around the island probably took me all of 20 minutes.  Going off-path is explicitly forbidden, although many people didn't really care about this rule.  However, these people typically went outwards on the rocks, rather than inwards towards the rare vegetation, so that's somewhat of a relief.  These islands are home to coral reefs and ocean caves, and the entrance to Saeseom was a staging ground for yacht and submarine tours.

I am still in the market for some gifts, so I decided to go the Seogwipo All-Day Olle Market, an indoor market that takes up about 4 square blocks and even has some outdoor runoff.  I didn't find much that struck my eye in the way of gifts, or at least not anything that I could be sure would make it through customs, but this market was amazing.

I liked this market because there were enough people to warrant a lot of variety, but it wasn't too crowded to be uncomfortable.  Most of what was sold here was food or food-related, in all stages of preparedness.  Vendors sold fresh veggies, fresh (and live) seafood, dried seafood, fresh pork, desserts, drinks, homemade oils and sauces, cooked foods, and kitchen wares.  A lot of the vendors had the same set of gift-worthy things, but I already had those types of gifts and was mostly interested in non-food gifts.  Not having had lunch, I was very hungry and wanted to get some food.  The hardest part about getting food in Korea is that I can't even transliterate the menu to Google what the menu item is, although my ability to transliterate Korean is improving.  Having English text is the most useful, although I could probably get by with just a picture.  Otherwise, I'm just pointing at a menu item and hoping in most cases.  I walked by a stand where a woman was making freshly boiled stuffed dumplings, and thought this was the perfect snack to tide me over until dinner.  This woman was very kind, and it was easy to order two kimchi-stuffed dumplings, which were, dare I say, heavenly.  Also, they were only 1000 won a piece, or about $1 USD (the exchange rate is actually a little closer to 1000 won = $0.88).

Now, I decided to get actual dinner, although, truthfully, those two dumplings were more filling than they look.  I'll make a confession now: I'm kind of tired of Korean food.  That's not to say Korean food is bad, but imagine if you went out for Italian food four days in a row.  Would you be tired of Italian food by then?  Well, I found a blog with a post about the author's opinion of 10 great restaurants in Seogwipo.  Two options caught my eye: a restaurant that serves kimchi jjin, a kimchi and pork stew that sounded like it would soothe my sore throat, and a restaurant that serves Korean fried pork cutlet.  By the time I got to this area (by the way, I saw more than a few restaurants with dog meat stew on the menu), it was only 5:00 pm, and the kimchi jjin restaurant didn't open for dinner until 5:30, so my mind was made up to have pork cutlet.  The restaurant I went to was called 체얌, che-yam, and it was a quaint 6-table restaurant run by a husband-wife duo complete with young child coming home from school.  I ordered the hire cassu, per the blog's recommendation, and I got a delicious tray of food.

Pictured are the breaded pork cutlets, noodles in broth, rice, kimchi, a ketchup-like sauce, and what I think is cabbage.  This meal was exactly what I wanted.  It was Western-influenced Korean, meaning I could get my break from traditional Korean while still eating Korean food.  Also, the soup eased my throat.  This meal also came with what I am pretty sure was an apple-based sauce, really rounding out the breaded pork cutlet vibe.  Apparently, Korean breaded pork cutlet has its roots in Japanese breaded pork cutlet, which was "invented in Japan in 1899 at a restaurant called Rengatei in Tokyo.^[3][4][5] It was originally considered a type of yōshoku—Japanese versions of European cuisine invented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—and was called katsuretsu (cutlet) or simply katsu." - Wikipedia.

I was stuffed after eating just one cutlet, but I didn't want to be rude so I ate the second.  I figured I had earned it after walking around so much.  I took the bus back to the hotel, and right now I am relaxing and celebrating with a bottle of Udo peanut maekgeolli.  This drink sounded so odd that I kind of got obsessed with getting some after reading about it last night.  Maekgeolli is a sake-like Korean wine, although it seems to be lower ABV, and in Korea the local brands are flavored with local produce, which, for Jeju, is mandarins and peanuts.  Peanut flavored rice wine sounded too funky to pass up (plus I'm nursing a couple bad canker sores, so I have been steering clear of citrus) so I bought two bottles: one for myself and one to take home.  It smells like a peanut butter smoothie and kind of tastes like a peanut butter smoothie spiked with sake.  It's an odd taste, but I honestly think I like it, and while it's about 1000 won more expensive than soju it is much easier to drink.

Well, thank you for reading.  I'm happy that, with a little more free time, I was able to do more worthy of writing about today.  Tomorrow my plans are somewhat up in the air.  I've definitively ruled out hiking up Hallasan.  I am still nursing my sickness, and the top of the mountain has only been visible for about 3 hours combined since I've been here.  It is something I probably would do if I were healthy, but I don't know if I have an 8 hour hike in me right now.  I will probably go east to see Sunrise Peak, and from there I can either go to the Hanwha Aqua Planet, which is virtually next door, or take the ferry to Udo Island for the Seashell Festival.