Korean BBQ in Korea

My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

May 2024

My first opportunity to go ashore on the Diamond Princess was in Seogwipo (or as someone on the ship nicknamed it, Soggy Poo) on the island of Jeju, in the Republic of Korea (I later learned on the internet that South Korea doesn’t even want to acknowledge North Korea as a country, so they call themselves the Republic of Korea – the only Korea). I didn’t know anyone well enough to make plans so I set off on my own. I had had Korean BBQ with my friend Amanda in Baltimore, so since I found myself unexpectedly in Korea, it seemed obvious that I should seek out the real thing.

I took the shuttle into town and figured I would wander around and retrace my steps back to the shuttle stop. My wanderings took me to a market which is always something I am happy to find. There was lots of fish.

It also had this very nice feature through the center of the aisle with running water between the benches. Jeju specializes in oranges so there were a couple of stalls selling everything orange – from juice to actual oranges to orange souvenirs. I got hungry enough that I bought a cheese bun to hold me over until I could find a BBQ place.

I wandered into a convenience store, and there on the shelf was Kelly Beer!

I wandered around the market, of course running into some guests, until finally I found a BBQ place.

I remembered the little snacks from when I had Korean BBQ before, but otherwise, I didn’t really know what I was doing. The food was delicious, and since they had Kelly Beer, I had to try it.

They even advertised it on the water bottles!

Unfortunately, Kelly Beer isn’t Korean – it’s from Denmark, so it isn’t quite local, but I am happy to see it all over the place.

I ate more than my fill of meat that had been grilled right in front of me, rice, vegetables and unfamiliar but delicious spices and returned to the market to try to find my way out to the shuttle stop. I was pleasantly surprised to find not only real toilets (I had been warned that there might only be squatty potties) but that the bathrooms were immaculate.

Back in the market I was all turned around. I had been down every alley so all of it seemed familiar and I couldn’t remember which one I entered from. I found some guests, but they were there on a tour so they would be returning to their tour bus rather than the shuttle. I tried to calm myself down from a brewing panic and trust that the universe would help me find my way home. I found some crew from the rooms division and asked them if they knew where the shuttle bus was, but they had come by taxi. They said I could go back with them, but they wanted to buy some souvenirs first. As they made their purchases, we rendezvous’d with some crew from the casino who knew where the shuttle bus stop was, and I was able to return to the ship on the shuttle, grateful to be relieved of my panic of being lost in Korea. I made a resolution to have a better plan for finding the shuttle stop next time.