Ulluengo lacks three things: thieves, snakes and something else undesirable. It certainly lacked thieves, for I left my Kindle on the ferry over and it was returned to me on my way back. I had not expected this and was downcast as it was quite new and the most expensive model, bought perforce fecause it had both physical buttons and a light.
Ulluengdo jutted out of the ocean almost vertically up. We saw only one non-Korean there, an American teenager who seemed to be visiting with a Korean-American friend. Koreans go there for Dokdo, on a nationalist pilgrimage, but we didn’t bother. Instead we stayed in a bed and breakfast on the far side of the island from the rest of civilisation – it seemed a mistake to begin with but turned out to work very well, as we took the bus to the main town and then walked over the volcano to cross the island back to our rooms. That was a cold, wet day, very foggy and atmospheric. It was colder than anywhere else we’d been in Korea especially the first day when the wind and waves and rain left the Gentleman Friend a bit seasick. That and the fact that we didn’t find anything to eat except a fortuitous 1kg box of Korean raspberries bought from the market in Pohang the previous day. On our final day we were taking the bus towards the ferry port when a woman whom we’d briefly chatted to at dinner told us we were fools and instead we should got to another small island with walking trails, which was open to the public today. So we did and it was a lovely stroll before travelling, over cliffs hundreds of feet above the water, with seagulls screeching all around.
But Ulluengdo seemed to be on its way up, with roadbuilding everywhere. Once more I was impressed by the subsidised entry to museums and parks: the island walk must cost a great deal to maintain (including an entire suspension bridge leading to Ulluengdo) but the entrance fee was minimal.