In the high level plan made many months ago, I allowed a day in Jeju for swimming at the beach and/or diving. The weather is hardly conducive … it is cool and drizzly.
I didn’t feel the urge to go to the city centre (it will be like any other Korean town) or to the southern coast (where it would be the same plus they grow mandarins and there are places you can go diving).
You get the feeling that I’m a big jaded? Jeju has proved to be more built-up than I expected even though the population is only 500,000 through the island (and 400,000 in the city). I suppose that excludes buildings to house the hordes that visit daily from the mainland … there’s about a flight from Seoul every 15 minutes and some of them are widebodies.
Then I found out that there’s a big swimming pool a block away from the hostel. It turns out to be Olympic length … so after purchasing a mandatory swim cap, it was time to do laps.
So, I did fit in some swimming after all … but in a 50m pool instead of the sea.
This is a “grandfather” statue which has become the symbol of Jeju. No one knows why or how it has come about.