Johnnie and Angela

Ulleungdo Island - Part 2/3

Having our own rental car gave us the freedom to explore the island at our own leisure. We could stop whenever and wherever to look around and take pictures. We were also free to explore the steep little side roads that went nowhere and drive out onto the precarious-looking piers. Our rental car was small, yet fairly powerful, which was perfect for getting around the island. We filled the tank with gas when we first got it and managed to empty it again within the 48 hours we were on the island!

There is one road that almost goes the entire circumference of the island. The missing section is a path that is in the process of becoming a road. The road mostly follows the coastline, is very curvy, and goes through a lot of tunnels. There are "Danger: Falling Rock" signs everywhere and evidence along the road that they do indeed fall. Driving on the island isn't the easiest thing to do because of the narrow roads, falling rocks, and the strong temptation to look at the scenery.

Some sections of the road have been recently remade and are great for driving on. They are comfortably wide enough for two lanes, free of potholes, and have solid cement guardrails.

Some other sections of the road are in serious need of repair. They are narrow enough to make you hold your breath when you pass another vehicle, they're bumpy from multiple patch jobs, and have low crumbling guardrails.

There are many tunnels, one lane wide, on the road. There are traffic lights to control the cars going through to avoid collisions.

There were a few "natural" tunnels like this one.

The coastline was gorgeous to drive along. There were jagged rock formations jutting out of the water all around the island.

Elephant Rock

Giant cement jacks were stacked along parts of the coast to prevent erosion.

We decided to drive out onto a pier because we saw another car there. There was a great view but there were also steep drop-offs on both sides! Thank goodness our car was small with a tight turning radius!

We also ventured up many steep side streets we drove past just to see where they went. Most of the them didn't go anywhere except to people's houses. We did find a few that took us to higher ground where we should've had some great views. Unfortunately, the rainy weather meant low clouds so we didn't get to see much.

what we were supposed to see vs what we actually saw:

We did get one cool view from up high!

Related Posts:

Donghae

Ulleungdo Island - Part 1 of 3

Ulleungdo Island - Part 3 of 3

*******

"Weather is a great metaphor for life:

sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad,

and there's nothing much you can

do about it except carry an umbrella."

~Terri Guillemets

Ulleungdo Island - Part 1/3

After spending the night in Danghae, we woke early the next morning to catch the speedboat ferry to Ulleungdo Island. Ulleungdo is a remote island 84 miles off the east coast of South Korea and it claims to be one of the country's best kept secrets. This circular island is the top of a stratovolcano that last erupted over 9,000 years ago. The island is breathtaking with high mountains, steep cliffs, jagged rocks, an abundance of green trees and plants, and small villages nestled here and there along the coast. The island prides itself on having no thieves, no pollution, and no snakes.

The speedboat ferry ride took about 3 hours and wasn't cheap but the trip was well worth the price. The upper deck of the ferry (the deluxe seats) were only a few dollars extra and were more spacious and comfortable.

The ferry docked at Ulleungdo

http://maps.google.com coordinates: 37.5021,130.859528

Views from the ferry as we neared the island:

New walking trails being carved into the side of the cliff.

My traveling partner, Ashley, did an amazing job of coordinating this trip for us. We had the ferry, rental car, and lodging all reserved ahead of time. The rental car man said that he'd meet us when we got off the ferry and sure enough, we could hear him yelling "Ash-uh-lee!" before we saw him. Of course being the only non-Asian people on the ferry, we were easy to pick out from the crowd.

The rental car place was right next to the pier. It was a small trailer! We crawled inside to pay, get the keys, and a map. The only information the man took from us was a name and phone number! Of course on an island that is only 28 square miles in area with one road, there wasn't a need for any more than that. He said he'd see us around the island and sure enough we did run into him about four times in the 48 hours we were on the island :) There are some buses and taxis on the island but I highly recommend renting a car to anyone coming here. It was inexpensive and allowed us to explore wherever we wanted and at our own pace.

The one main road goes almost the entire way around the island. It shouldn't be much longer before they have it all connected. The road is very curvy and very narrow in parts with a rock wall on one side and the sea on the other. The village streets were tricky to drive through with parked cars, traffic, and pedestrians to watch out for.

We stopped at a store to ask directions to the gas station and

this young man actually got in his truck and led us there!

We stayed for two nights at the Chusan Ilga Pension, a small inn located on the edge of a cliff with amazing views. The reason we stayed here is because we've seen it pictured in front of the tall Mt. Songgatsan in many books and brochures of South Korea. It was a cozy place to stay. There are many other hotels and even a new resort on the island as well.

There was a moveable shower head attached by a hose to the sink. That's it. You shower in the middle of the bathroom and the water runs into the drain on the floor!

We could climb out the large sliding windows to the balcony.

Beautiful despite the gray clouds :)

The famous view that brought us here :)

Related Posts:

Donghae

Ulleungdo Island - Part 2 of 3

Ulleungdo Island - Part 3 of 3

*******

"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment."

~Hilaire Belloc

Donghae

Last month I took a trip with a friend to Ulleungdo Island off the east coast of South Korea. It was a great adventure to a beautiful place. I haven't blogged about it yet because I took many photos on the island with the intent of stitching them together to create panoramas and wide angle views. We recently switched from a PC to an iMac so I've been without Photoshop for six months (I know, how did I survive?!) Now that we have Photoshop again (yay!), I can finally stitch together those photos and show the world :)

To start our trip, we drove across the country (literally) to get to the east coast. We chose to take the scenic backroads instead of the highways which added a few hours but was well worth it. South Korea is a gorgeous country with high mountains, lush forests, abundant farmland, a rugged coastline, and over 4,000 islands off its shore. It was raining all day while we drove and continued to rain throughout most of our trip.

We arrived in the evening at the coastal town of Donghae. This is where we would catch a ferry the next morning to Ulleungdo Island. We stayed at the Hotel New Donghae which was nice, clean, and relatively inexpensive. The "Grand Open" banner is for the restaurant inside; Koreans always leave off the "ing" from Opening.

Before catching the ferry the next morning, we drove through Donghae to explore and stopped on a street lined with seafood stores and a large fish market. It was early morning so we saw fishermen resetting their nets and vendors arranging their displays of freshly caught fish, crabs, octopus, and shellfish.

There were dozens of stores by the fish market that were filled with every type of dried seafood and seaweed you can imagine. It's hard to imagine that people actually eat all of that stuff - or how they eat some of it!

Dried squid anyone?