The Road to 40 Day 335/365: Extra Jeju Day

We were set to head back to Seoul this day, but God had other plans for us.

The alarm went off at around 6:30am, so Che and I started moving. Most of our stuff were already in the bag, so it was just a matter of loading it up in the car.

We got Vino to get up a little before heading off, as he just needed to change his clothes and ride the car.

It was about a 40-minute drive to the car rental place. Initially, we said we’d bring the car back by 8am, but we asked to extend it a bit as we miscalculated our departure time.

On the way to the airport, we got a message that our flight was cancelled. The weather was indeed pretty bad, but we didn’t think the flight was going to get cancelled.

We returned the car and still headed off to the airport despite being dumbfounded about what we’re supposed to do next.

The airport was a mess, with tons of people just standing around not knowing what they’re supposed to do. We were told that there was nothing the airlines could do with the weather conditions, and they could not arrange a place for us to stay.

It was unlikely that we could be moved to a later flight as there are none available in the afternoon.

We decided to head back to Somerset and try to book the same room that we just checked out of. Instead of renting a car, we opted to ride a cab all the way there.

Through all this, Vino was giddy. He said he prayed for us to have one more day in Jeju so that he could stay in Somerset for another day.

While he was graced with an answered prayer, it was Che who had to pay for the extra night. As we Filipinos say, “nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa.”

Luckily, we were still able to get the exact same room after they did a bit of cleaning. The hotel is set up in a way where we’re in different buildings, so it was difficult to move around without a car. There was also no room service available, so we asked for a shuttle to take us to the mall.

It was pouring and super windy, but we tried to get a table at the seafood restaurant. Unfortunately, they were closed. We reckoned they didn’t have fresh seafood delivery because of the weather.

Instead, we went to the barbecue pork restaurant I saw the other night, which boasts of cooking their meat in straw instead of charcoal.

As luck would have it, that wasn’t available as well. We settled for other items we could order, as we were already there and famished. We got a beef rib soup for Vino, a mackerel for Che, while I got cold spicy noodles.

Food was fine, wouldn’t call it exceptional. It didn’t help that we were expecting a different type of food when we got there.

We decided to buy convenience store food to take back to the unit so we didn’t have to go out later for dinner.

We walked to the reception of Marriott, as we were told that’s where we could ask for a ride back to our unit. However, because of the weather, all the service units were suspended. So we were once again stranded because of the heavy rain.

After about half an hour, we tried our luck to get a car, and luckily, they took us back to the unit.

We spent the rest of the day in the room, watching a new K-Drama, Boyfriend On Demand, while waiting for updates on our rescheduled flight.

Later in the news, we found out that a total of 246 flights to and from Jeju were cancelled due to the weather, including 12 international flights, while 83 were delayed.

Given the circumstances, it was kinda amazing to see that there were no fights breaking out at ticket counters and everyone was pretty chill. I would imagine riots happening in Manila if this happened there.

I guess it helps that Jeju is such an amazing place, and a lot of people, including us, have travel insurance we can lean on for an extreme case like this.

By 8pm, we got a rescheduled flight in the morning, so we started cleaning up, getting ready, and booking an Uber in advance.

We’re hoping for clear skies tomorrow, because while we’ve enjoyed Jeju, we do have plans back in Seoul for the next few days.

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