Hi! I want to share another story from my trip with friends—specifically, something I’d like to highlight about the island we visited.
Today, I’ll tell you about three symbols of the amazing Jeju Island! There are actually more symbols, but I’ll mention the ones that stood out to me the most and the ones I managed to capture in photos! A few days ago, I also told you about the Haenyeo women, who are another important symbol of the island!
Stone Grandfather Hareubang
First, the Stone Grandfather Harubang (if I’m not mistaken).
He is a symbol of the island and is believed to protect homes from evil spirits. He has a very unusual nose and wears a small hat on his head. You can see these grandfathers all over the island. They are made of volcanic lava because the entire island is of volcanic origin!
Horses
The second symbol of Jeju Island is horses. I didn’t know that horse meat was eaten in Korea, but during my trip, I found out that there are cafés on the island that serve horse meat dishes. To answer your question in advance—we didn’t visit those cafés and didn’t try horse meat. However, what’s even more popular than horse meat on the island is black pork.
Why is it called black pork? Is it because it comes from black pigs? Well, not exactly. The pigs are indeed black, but what makes them unique is that they used to be fed with manure. However, according to the café staff, they no longer do that. We didn’t try to verify this information, but we did eat the pork and enjoyed it a lot! Why didn’t I include black pork as one of the island’s symbols? Because I was too busy eating and completely forgot to take pictures! And I won’t even mention that we went to eat it more than once…
Mandarins
And the third symbol of the island—especially in winter—is mandarins! The island is full of vast Mandarin orchards! We wanted to visit one and pick mandarins ourselves, but unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance. However, we were treated to some in one of the cafés where we ate black pork. The café had its own mandarin orchard. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having my own mandarin orchard! The mandarins were incredibly delicious and seedless!
I fell in love with this island, and I really want to visit it again in a few months!
Before going back home we went to the seaside to enjoy the sunset.
The last photo I took was from the plane, but the windows were foggy, so the picture didn’t turn out very well. But still, the island is beautiful!
Thank you!
Iris