Jeju: Seafood Soup and More

When we arrived for a tour of the Korean island of Jeju, the first thing we did--straight off of the plane--was to take a taxi to a recommended seafood restaurant.

"We have to go there," one of my Korean friends said, "it's supposed to be the best."

And, indeed, it was crowded,

all of the tables filled up with people sitting asian-style on the floor.  We soon joined them and ordered the special: seafood soup.  It wasn't not just any seafood soup, but rather a larger cooking pot piled high with, well, seafood.

If you don't like to know where your food comes from or how it is prepared, then you probably wouldn't  enjoy being served this soup.

Once the burner under the pot was turned on the cooking got started, and then . . .

. . . it was ready to eat.

After lunch, we took a taxi to a few tourist sites.  We walked by, but didn't enter, this one:

I don't know if it's a "real" tourist site or just a "wanna be" . . . there are a lot of museums in this part (SE) of Jeju that I have the same question about, and we didn't really have the chance to visit any of them.  I was surprised to see a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" museum on a corner, even though it was next to a Starbuck's.

We visited a "real" beach (there didn't seem to be many in this part of the island, but then we weren't thinking much about beaches, what with the cold weather) and saw our first "harubangs" or protection/fertility statues, for which the island is famous (in addition to tangerines/oranges)).