한담해변

Handam Beach, on the western side of Jeju, is counted among the finest places to watch a sunset and a hot spot where distinctive cafes, select shops, and good restaurants line the shore. Word spread about a cafe opened by a well-known entertainer, and visitors began flocking to this quiet fishing village. A traditional Jeju house also sits midway along the cafe street. It is the birthplace of Jang Han-cheol, a scholar of the Joseon period. At twenty-nine, on his way to sit the state examination, his boat drifted off course and carried him as far as an uninhabited island near present-day Okinawa; rescued by a Vietnamese merchant ship, he passed through several countries and did not return for half a year. Remarkably, he left a meticulous record of the entire journey. That record is no simple castaway's diary. It captures the sea routes and currents of eighteenth-century East Asia, the customs of unfamiliar islands, and even the waverings of a human mind at the threshold of death, and it is recognized as a valuable source in both maritime history and literature. So the walking route along Handam Beach was named the Jang Han-cheol Coastal Trail. It runs about 1.2 kilometers to Gwakji Beach, forms part of Jeju Olle Route 15, and is one of the 31 Hidden Scenic Spots recommended by Jeju City. The path was originally the route the haenyeo used to and from their dives. These women divers descend ten meters into the sea with no equipment. The sound of the breath they release as they surface is called sumbisori, and it is sometimes described as the boundary between life and death. In this way, the path holds the hard, resilient lives of the Jeju women who have made their living treating the sea as a field. Walk on and black rocks and stones run endlessly along the sea. They are the traces of the volcanic island's birth. This is basalt, formed when lava that flowed from erupting volcanoes tens of thousands of years ago cooled in seawater and hardened. Holes riddle it where gas escaped from the lava, and it is black and rough, no two pieces alike. Waves breaking against this basalt ring unusually loud and long. It is a sound you will hardly hear on another shore, a sound that belongs to Jeju.