Tips no one told you about Jeju 🙌

South Korea Jeju-si

Just let me preface this by saying my friend and I had a wonderful time in Jeju! The seafood was fresh, we felt so healed by the nature all around us and the scenery was breathtaking~

BUT there were some things which, if I went back to Jeju, I would definitely redo:

1️⃣ Not ensuring that your hotel phone is working

The first night we stayed at our Jeju (and it was a pretty decent hotel btw, located at the city centre with 24/7 concierge), we were just chilling in our beds at around 10pm when suddenly someone slammed loudly on our door and STARTED aggressively shaking our door handle to enter our room!!

My friend and I were absolutely stunned and our first thoughts were “This is definitely not room service at this timing” and “call the freaking concierge to help us”.

So we attempted to call the concierge but the phone was DEADDDD and let me tell you, the panic was real 😭

Plus, if you don’t have a Korean phone number and can’t speak Korean well (aka us), I honestly don’t know how you can communicate clearly to the Jeju policemen about a stranger potentially trying to break into your hotel room ☠️

(We ended up just praying the guy went away and he did, tho we didn’t tell our parents what happened cause we didn’t want them to worry and feel helpless but tbh this is not the wisest decision LMAO)

The next day when we told the concierge about the incident, she shared with us that it may have been a drunk person who thought that our room was their’s, which was not an uncommon occurrence but still 😤

She also suggested that it could have been someone from the Chinese tour group that all stayed at the same floor as us but still reassured us that they’ll monitor the situation.

She was probably right as the subsequent nights, there wasn’t any randos trying to scare the living shit out of us......

‼️ PRO-TIP‼️: Ensure that you have a Korean handphone number (in the event you need to make calls to emergency hotlines) OR that the landline phone in your hotel room is working!

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2️⃣ Travelling LATE AT NIGHT via public transportation

Let me tell you, though the bus stops themselves are well-lit at night, they were like beacons of light on longgggg stretches of pure dark countryside 😱

Intervals between each bus arrival can be up to an hour or longer (and sometimes even the estimated arrival time on Naver is not a hundred percent accurate)

So imagine yourself (especially if you’re a girl like me) sitting at a bus-stop by yourself with your surroundings being pitch-black darkness, not knowing when your next bus will arrive or whether the bus will just be you and the bus driver RIP

Sounds like a potential crime scene to me 😬😰

‼️PRO-TIP‼️: If you want to use public transportation at night in Jeju, best to do that at the city centre where it’s more crowded and the streets are well-lit!

You could also take a taxi via Kakao T, cause at least the app tracks where the taxi is going and it’s tagged to your Kakao ID, and by extension your own country's handphone number~

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3️⃣ Not knowing a few useful words in Korean

Though you can definitely get by without knowing Korean in Jeju, I feel that the locals’ attitude warms up significantly when they know you’ve made the effort to learn at least a few phrases in Korean haha

Especially the cranky ahjussis LOLS

‼️PRO-TIP‼️: Time to take Duolingo lessons? 😂

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4️⃣ NOT checking what time your restaurant closes (for dinner)

We were surprised to find that quite a few restaurants (even the ones popular amongst tourists) tend to close for the day quite early i.e. before the usual dinner time of 5.30pm!

So we often found ourselves randomly walking the streets and entering whatever restaurant we felt looked good for dinner HAHA

But of course, before you do that, remember to check what time that restaurant closes because you don’t want to end up rushing through your dinner!

‼️PRO-TIP‼️: Naver map is your best friend (though FYI sometimes the owners can be closed randomly and they don’t update their listing on Naver 🥹)

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