Sunday, June 9, 2019

Jeju City Lights: Iho Tewoo Beach and Jeju Light Art Festa

What's there to do in Jeju City when the sun goes down?

Iho Tewoo Beach
이호테우해수욕장
20 Dori-ro, Jeju City

Head on to Iho Tewoo Beach for a night swim. Just kidding. I don't even know if that's allowed. And even if it was, it was too cold to do in spring. But we went to Iho Tewoo anyway to see the sun go down behind two horse-shaped lighthouses.


Family time at Iho Tewoo Beach


Horse-shaped lighthouses






A tip: If you're coming from Jeju City center, catch the bus to Iho Tewoo an hour and a half to two hours before sundown...because the beach is a 30-minute bus ride from Jeju City. This will also give you enough time to explore the beach (which we weren't able to do because by the time we arrived, the sun was fast approaching the horizon, and the lighthouses were still about 300 meters from the beach).

115-1 Seongyo-ro, Jocheon-eup , Jeju City
9AM to 11PM
Admission fee 12,000 won

Jeju Light Art Festa, Jeju LAF for short, is a cultural space with a cafe and restaurant, shop, foot spa, zipline, and art installations. The art installations are best appreciated at night, for most of these installations are made of lights (thus the name Light Art Festa). It was precisely the art installations that lured us in this dark corner of Jeju City.

There were 14 art installations spread throughout Jeju LAF's grounds, most of them in open-air. The first one we saw reminded me of DNA, except this art installation was purple and was slowly twirling, as if attempting to hypnotize whoever was looking. This, entitled Radiosome, was by Jason Krugman. He had a couple more art installations scattered in LAF.

In a cave-like area, where there was a restaurant, were Jason Krugman's Coral (which, to me, looked like mini trees) and Urchins (like half-buried, colorful, cute sea urchins), Jean Pigozzi's Limo Land (cute creatures lurking everywhere), and, hanging from the ceiling, Lee Byung Chan's Urban Creature (which looked like jellyfish slowly moving gracefully with the water current). All these art installations (except for Limo Land) made me feel like I was in an underwater cave.


Limo Land by Jean Pigozzi


Left: Limo Land by Jean Pigozzi
Right: Coral by Jason Krugman


On the ground are creatures from Limo Land by Jean Pigozzi
and hanging above is Urban Creature by Lee Byung Chan.

Out in the open area were beautiful works by Bruce Munro called Water Towers and Field of LightThe Hut by Tom Fruin (which looked like a colorful glass house floating in a pond); The Pool by Jen Lewin (this was a fun interactive one...the color changes on the area you step on); and three of Jason Krugman's works: Particle Mass (this made me miss watching fireflies), Diatom Cluster (somehow reminded me of a playground), and Digital Geology (the changing colors of these installations were mesmerizing).

Digital Geology by Jason Krugman


Water Towers by Bruce Munro


Diatom Cluster by Jason Krugman


The Hut by Tom Fruin


Field by Bruce Munro


The Pool by Jen Lewin

Every art installation in Jeju LAF glowed more as the night grew deeper (and colder) and I wished we could have stayed (and endured the cold) longer, but, as they say, all good things must come to an end and we soon had to leave, lest we get stranded there!

A tip: Though Jeju LAF is part of Jeju City, it requires two bus rides from Jeju City center and the total travel time would be an hour. With this in mind, do not wait until Jeju LAF's closing time to catch the bus as it might be too late to catch your transfer, or worse, there might not be any buses passing by Jeju LAF by 11PM! (We left Jeju LAF around 9PM and the transfer was at some quiet, sparsely populated area—and the waiting shed in the bus stop didn't have any lights! According to the printed schedule posted in the dark waiting area, the bus we were waiting for was the second to the last one for the day. If we missed that one, or should I say, if the bus driver missed to spot us and would not stop to pick us up, we'd have to try our luck for the next and last bus. Hailing a taxi was impossible—no taxi passed us at all!)


This article is now available as a mobile app. Go to GPSmyCity to download the app for GPS-assisted travel directions to the attractions featured in this article.


Jeju and Busan, April 2019
Jeju Accommodation: Jeju R Hotel & Guesthouse
Traveling Around Jeju by Bus Plus KakaoMap (2019)
Eats from Jeju City Restaurants I Can't Read the Names Of
Jeju City Lights: Iho Tewoo Beach and Jeju Light Art Festa (you're here!)
Geomun Oreum and Manjanggul Lava Tube
Art and Nature in Seogwipo City
Jeju Olle: Udo Island
Jeju Olle: Gapado Island
Busan Accommodation: One Way Guesthouse
Where and What We Ate in Busan

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