More Than Pretty Pictures: The Truth About My Jeju Photography Tour

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It’s Monday morning around 5 am, and my husband and I are headed to Daegu International Airport to meet Angela, my Korean bestie, for our 3-day photo tour of Jeju Island. We don’t know each other very well, so I expect she is as anxious as I am. But this is what I wanted – a deeper, more committed relationship with Korea and its people, and a girls’ trip is a great start. So I’m ready to see Jeju from a different perspective – with my Korean bestie and the end of my camera lens. To read the first part one of the Jeju photography tour, Click Here.

Table of Contents

• Jeju Photography Tour
• What I Hope This Trip Accomplishes
• Day 1: Early Flight to Jeju
• Playing Telephone in Jeju
• Day 2: Forests, Fields, and Miscommunication
• Equipment Miscommunication
• Sunsets & Sunrises
• Coffee Times
• What We Ate
• Angela’s House
• The Experience of Staying in a Traditional Korean Home
• Day 3
• Final Thoughts

What I Hope This Trip Accomplishes

You may remember from my last post about my photography trip to Jeju with Angela. We had already had a few problems communicating with each other before we even left for Jeju. I was sure we would have more, and I was right. We had a few issues. But we also had a lot of fun too. Here are some of the things I hoped to accomplish over the next 3-days:

• Better friendship with Angela
• Improved Korean Language skills & communication
• Insight into the culture I wouldn’t normally see on my own
• The experience of staying in a traditional Korean home
• Foods I wouldn’t normally eat
• Some fun in the sun, nature & beach
• How to use my camera better, including long exposures and night shooting
• Some great photographs & memories

Day 1: Early Flight to Jeju

This was the first time I used my Alien Registration Card instead of my passport to board a flight. I brought my passport just in case, but I never needed it. The return flight was a different story, but I’ll get to that later.

I met Angela at the gate. We weren’t seated together, which I didn’t mind. We were about to spend three full days together—some solo flight time was fine by me.

*Tip: I usually prefer a window seat. But in Asia, I’ve learned to choose an aisle near the front. It makes getting off the plane faster. I chose seat 6C both ways. Angela sat in row 33 and had to wait for the fifth bus to the terminal. I was on the first.

The flight to Jeju took only 40 minutes and landed more than 10 minutes early. That’s always a win when the seats are on the smaller side. Mr. Kim, our photographer and guide—who’s one year older than me (a big deal in Korea)—was already waiting when we arrived at 7:45 a.m.

Our first stop was Starbucks. I needed coffee. Conveniently, it was also our first photo location—directly under the flight path, which made for a dramatic first shot.

The rest of Day 1 was pretty quiet. Mr. Kim asked Angela how old I was, then forgot my name. That set the tone. It became clear I wouldn’t get much direct instruction. Angela would get coaching. I’d be following along, trying to read the room, and hoping for the best. We just couldn’t communicate well enough to do more than that.

Day 2: Forests, Fields, and Miscommunication

We never received an itinerary—not before or during the trip. I think Mr. Kim didn’t want to share exact locations. That’s fair, but frustrating. My Instagram captions turned into guesses like “pretty field” or “forest near Swiss Village.”

We went to Jeolmul Forest and another smaller one. We practiced wide and narrow compositions, and then headed to three different fields: buckwheat, hay, and green tea.

The buckwheat field was my favorite. I could’ve stayed there all day, but we arrived when the light was too harsh. The hayfield was forgettable, and I’ve seen better tea fields elsewhere.

At the tea field, Angela mentioned I needed a remote shutter. I had one—but I’d never used it. I missed out on long exposures and other techniques they spent hours on. So I wandered off with my camera and made the best of it. Later, I learned Koreans sometimes see that as rude.

Equipment Miscommunication

The tea field is also where I realized Angela wanted me to have a remote shutter release with a timer. I brought a remote shutter release. Unfortunately, I had never done long exposures before. I should have at least Googled it. This was the first of many times when I was excluded from participating because I did not have the proper equipment. Some of the photographs that Angela and Mr. Kim took took an hour to create.

So I did what I do best: entertained myself. I wandered around taking photos and videos of things I thought were more interesting. I found out later that Koreans can find that offensive.

The Best Things to do in Jeju

Sunsets & Sunrises

We finished each day shooting sunsets. My favorite photography spots in Jeju were the coastlines at sunrise and the waterfalls at dusk. The light is magical. It’s nearly impossible to take a bad picture if you have a decent subject and the slightest bit of imagination. Everyone looks beautiful in this light. Add a pretty sunset, the reflection from a ripple-less pool of water, and a great view of Hallasan Mountain – that’s the recipe for the perfect picture.

I am glad we got the chance to spend time taking pictures with each other without timed shutter release buttons, long exposures, pointing at anything, or photography rules of any kind. We just had fun. And that exposure goes a long way to becoming good friends.

Sunrises were rough because they started early. We left the house by 3:30 am to be set up. Mr. Kim was nothing but on time both mornings. As a matter of fact, he had to wait for more than 20 minutes because he was so early. If I had coffee, maybe this would be acceptable, but no coffee shops are open this early.

Both shooting locations were 2 hours from Angela’s house. We shot at two iconic locations: the sun rising between Sanbangsan Mountain and the Hyeongjeseom Islet (also called the Brothers’ Mountains). We returned to Seongsan Ilchulbong. This time we viewed it from the opposite direction from the previous day.

Coffee Times

Every afternoon, we rested at a nice cafe for a coffee. On day 1 we sat by the ocean. On day 2 we visited friends of Mr. Kim’s at the Swiss Village. And Day 3, we got it to go because we were moving, trying to get it all in before our flight back to Daegu.

I want to push pause on our day two coffee time because something significant occurred. The cafe was pretty, and we all enjoyed the view of the ocean when Angela turned to Mr. Kim and asked him a question. He answers. Then she asked another. He answered. I asked, what are you guys talking about?

She just looked at me and kept talking. Not once did she offer to translate a single word he said. I knew they were talking about photography because he picked up her camera several times to show her something specific.

This went on for 30-40 minutes. I was getting upset because I was being ignored. This tour wasn’t cheap, and I was paying half the fee. This included the coffee he was sipping on as he talked. So I finished my coffee, grabbed my camera, and said I was going to the shore.

Thirty minutes later, Angela joined me. She was concerned that either she or Mr. Kim had offended me. Why else would I spend so much time alone? When I reminded her of the earlier events, she seemed genuinely apologetic—and promised to do her best to translate everything from that point forward. But that promise was broken less than two hours later, and again the following day.

Honestly, if not for my husband, I would probably never travel with Angela again. I called him to vent, and he calmed me down, reminding me that when it’s just Angela and me, we speak more English than Korean.

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What We Ate

I politely reminded Angela that I didn’t eat pork, which is near sacrilegious on Jeju because the island is famous for its black pork. And Mr. Kim almost put his foot through the brake pedal when she told him I would not eat raw fish. I like Japanese sushi, I just don’t like Korean sashimi. The fish seems too tough and chewy in my humble opinion. Or as Mr. Kim informed me, not fresh, which is fine with me.

I gathered, not from my knowledge of Korean, but mostly from his facial expression, that he is a huge fan of raw fish. I immediately understood his disappointment. However, I figured he’d recover since I’d be paying for his meals for the next 3 days.

Ultimately, my new photographer friend got the last laugh, because, for the next 3 days, almost everything I ate was fish–fried, broiled, steamed, stewed, souped, and dried. The only raw fish I saw in Jeju was in a tank, or the ones that swam right by me.

We had three non-fish meals. The first was chicken soup called samgyetang, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The second was a flat sesame noodle soup, similar to dumplings, but without any flavor, called Baek-kalguksu. And I think the final non-fish meal, burgers, was selected for me. Unfortunately, it was not a Western hamburger. It had both apple and pineapple slices, and some sticky-sweet teriyaki sauce on it. The meat was the consistency of a Salisbury steak, and it was drowned in that sauce, the consistency of jam. I would have been much happier with the spicy braised fish dish from day one.

Angela’s House

The Experience of Staying in a Traditional Korean Home

We didn’t get back to Angela’s house until around 10 pm every night. And we left before the sun rose, so I didn’t get any house pictures. But the house was so cute! It was small, but it had everything you needed in a vacation home. If you remember, I was concerned about sleeping arrangements and the bathroom.

Turned out that I had nothing to worry about. I did sleep on the floor, but it was pretty comfortable because the mat was thick. Angela slept in the loft. The bathroom was a Korean-style wet bathroom on the ground floor.

We bought a few snacks, but honestly, I was so tired when we got back. All I felt like doing was showering and charging my gear, so I’d be ready when Mr. Kim arrived at 3 am. In addition, although I enjoyed seeing where Angela lived, driving back to her house each evening took a lot of time. I think it might have been more convenient to share a hotel room instead.

Day 3: Going With the Flow

Day 3 started at 3 am, but there was no instruction. Mr. Kim was just our driver. He didn’t say too much, and he rarely got out of the car. We went to a lot of places: Dodu-Dong Rainbow Coastal Road, Iho Taewoo Beach, and Jusangjeolli Cliff.

One of the things I regret most about the photography tour in Jeju is that I didn’t check the photos he took of me. He emailed me the pictures when I returned home, and more than a few of them were terrible because he did not light me correctly. I was so dark, you couldn’t see my face, and I could not fix them in post editing. Here are a few of them and my attempts to correct them.

Ironically, day 3 ended up being my favorite photography day on Jeju. I enjoyed the less structured approach, which is how I attack life in general. If I could change anything, I would have selected many of the same photography locations for our last day in Jeju. Here are a few things I would have changed if I could:

• Require an itinerary
• Insist on having some input into the itinerary
• Ask for an equipment list
• Book local hotels
• Hire a professional photographer who speaks some English

In hindsight, I don’t think the language or culture barrier had anything to do with the issues we had. I think we don’t know each other very well. That takes time.

Final Thoughts

The problems we had weren’t really about language or culture. We didn’t know each other that well. And that takes time. The Jeju photography tour was amazing. Complicated, but beautiful. Every time I look at my photographs, I remember how I felt. I returned with better camera skills, a few regrets, and a few moments I’ll never forget.

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_{This post, Three Days in Jeju: Photography, Friendship, and Figuring Both Out is sponsored and/or contains affiliate links, from which I earn a commission at no extra cost to the reader. I appreciate your support and know that all the views expressed are my own.}

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