Diary: Friday 01 April from JEJU to YEOSU
It is a beautiful day and the weather is glorious.
It is a day made for doing nothing except for sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean and listening to birdsong.
After a week of travelling and sightseeing we definitely need to slow down. This evening we catch a flight to Yeosu to meet up with our Korean friends and we know the pace picks up again.
I do worry about my voice. I have forgotten what it sounds like. At least in Disney’s Little Mermaid, because the wicked sea witch has captured Ariel’s voice, you still get to hear it even if it is not through the mermaid herself.
Before we leave, a few thoughts of the Hyatt Regency Jeju which is located at the very end of the Jungmun Resort development. This means you get the whole ocean view to yourself and in fact, the whole beach. The service is excellent and the food is good. In fact one of the reasons we returned was for their version of jajangmyeon, made with Jeju black pork.
The downside is that the resort is 31 years old. It is now that I am leaving that I realise the bathroom decor is almost identical to the one in the Phoenix Hotel in Singapore, which was the first country I travelled to outside of Malaysia, in the 1970s. It was the retractable washing line above the bath tub that triggered this particular memory.
The upside is that the atrium in the centre of the hotel makes the hotel lobby spacious and airy. Even the fish in the oversize pond get a good deal.
Lunch is in Paris Baguette in Jungmun town (as opposed to the resort) which has a very long high street lined with beautiful cherry blossom trees. In fact, you will find stretches of cherry blossom trees around the whole of the island.
As soon as we arrive in Yeosu we pick up our rental car and drive to the Hidden Bay Hotel to meet our friends. They whisk us to a local seafood restaurant where there were so many dishes I could hardly keep up with everything: the food, conversation and plans for the next day.
There is talk of seeing another doctor as my condition has not improved (by Korean standards) as much as expected. Having no voice I could hardly protest but I did eat lots of seaweed. I humoured myself with the thought that that’s what a mermaid would do. So I ate the local seaweed, all slimy and briny and so resembling fine green moss I didn’t take a photo.
Addresses for all the places featured above will be listed separately at the end of the holiday. Jeju information here.
Finally, as it is unlikely that we will return to Jeju in the near future here is a photo of the hotel for the record. I have my own souvenirs of pine cones, an abalone shell, some volcanic rock and a piece of driftwood all from the island.
