Jeju island - Fire festival
If your trip is lucky enough to coincide with the Jeju Fire Festival, you must go! It happens around early March and is a three day festival which is all about FIRE! The ceremony is about burning away bad luck or something and each day, wooden and hay structures are built and then subsequently burnt. So basically, you can legitimately explore your inner pyromaniac, all while being cultural.
Aside from the burning, the festival includes a big musical parade, tug-o-war events, stone lifting contests, dances, great food (although a little pricey), torchlight processions and loads of stalls. I had a great time there and the stalls were so much fun. Some stalls teach you how to play the drums, others teach you how to write in Korean. Made some Jeju keychains in another stall and this one stall just kept giving me free soju, which really wasn’t a fascinating combination when playing with fire. Check out the most recent Fire Festival program.
It’s a really well organised event, though it can be hard to get info. My hostel didn’t have any brochures about it even though when you get to the event, they’ve got nothing but brochures. Even the Fire Festival website is a bit vague. Gah! But as a heads up, there is probably free transport to the venue.
Aside from the burning, the festival includes a big musical parade, tug-o-war events, stone lifting contests, dances, great food (although a little pricey), torchlight processions and loads of stalls. I had a great time there and the stalls were so much fun. Some stalls teach you how to play the drums, others teach you how to write in Korean. Made some Jeju keychains in another stall and this one stall just kept giving me free soju, which really wasn’t a fascinating combination when playing with fire. Check out the most recent Fire Festival program.
It’s a really well organised event, though it can be hard to get info. My hostel didn’t have any brochures about it even though when you get to the event, they’ve got nothing but brochures. Even the Fire Festival website is a bit vague. Gah! But as a heads up, there is probably free transport to the venue.
Getting there might change
Every year, there's probably new things happening at the festival but when I went in 2013, there was free transport to the venue. The festival is held in the middle of nowhere, sort of near the centre of the island, just west of Hallasan. Shuttle buses run regularly (every 15-30mins) from the Sports Stadium (which is near the bus terminal) to the event. As it's a giant sports stadium, you might have trouble finding the exact bus stop the first time. Take a taxi there and hopefully they will drop you off at the exact spot (unlike for me where they dropped me off sort of near it but not really...) The trip takes about 30minutes. Once you’re there, everything is easy to follow. Several information tents, super clean toilets, free soju; can’t complain really.
