No pork imports!

Yes, Jeju Island of South Korea has successfully kept its borders closed to pork from without, all these years,  to be able to preserve the purity of its prized BLACK pork breed. The island province also managed to do creative marketing by giving black pig a status as the “black pork” to be had at any tourist restaurant. It, after all, entertains 30,000 domestic tourists and 5,000 international tourists a day – yes, every single day.

Blessed with many wonders of nature, Jeju has famous oranges and tea for tourists to try and maybe also take home. The oranges are called hallabong after the word “halla” which means mountain. They also have the popular department stores and supermarkets you find in other major cities like Seoul and Busan, but with prices surprisingly a little cheaper. So think Korea at a good price and value for money.

Jeju boasts of four distinct UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cutural Organization) designations: World Natural Heritage Site and one of the few in the world with the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Global Geopark and Intangible Cultural Heritage. How can a province do this? A lot of political will is the answer. Jeju is bigger than Seoul and Busan, three times the size of Singapore yet only lists 600,000 people as its population. There, indeed, is a lot of room to breathe and take in Nature. The different sections can be reached by car in two hours (one end of the island to another, for example) but there are so many tourist places, you will need a day or two to go and visit the main attractions.

That is exactly how we planned to explore the eastern side and the southwestern side. Allocate two days for being a simple tourist and leave a day or two to explore the city. And on all days, discover local fare – pork barbecue, of course, and different kinds of side dishes called ban chan. These appetizers and palate cleansers can range from steamed vegetables to preserved kimchi and sometimes also served with a potato salad, steamed egg and seaweed soup. If you do not eat much pork and skip the meat choices, try the stewed kimchi with mackerel. Every restaurant has their daily offer of ban chan and with the vegetable choices, the possibilities are endless. If you crave for fish, Jeju boasts of two fish choices – the red tilefish or okdom which we had plainly grilled and the hairtail or cutlassfish called galchi, about a meter long which is similar to our espada or swordfish.

I have to share a new discovery, a Jeju specialty which is like a bubbling anchovy sauce served with the barbecue pork slices. You dip the grilled pork in this sauce, which is a cross between patis and bagoong balayan. It also has garlic and chili and some say mixed with some soju (Korean wine). Whatever the house recipe is, it complements the grilled black pork freshly-cut (with scissors) into dainty pieces which makes it so easy to eat, with fresh lettuce leaves, pickled radish slices and shredded green onions. Another extra feature of the black pork set meal is how the fat drips onto kimchi on the barbecue pan (one restaurant had a closed pan for the grill, instead of a grate), now drenched in liquid pork fat. The taste is glorious and worth coming back for. So that is another lesson to remember: grilling can be done on a closed pan.

I went around the fish sauce section of the biggest supermarket to find this sauce to bring home but realized every restaurant had their house version. Nothing compares to eating it in Jeju itself. Further, they have a street called “Black Pork Street” where each restaurant serves only this Jeju specialty – black pig or its meat, black pork.

Another indulgence I did not expect to have is abalone. Women divers, now famous as they have become a tourist attraction, dive in shallow waters without scuba gear and harvest these mollusks for their livelihood. These free divers called haenyeo can go to depths of 10-20 meters without oxygen tanks to harvest abalone, sea urchins and octopus. They, however, come up every two to three minutes to catch some air and then go down again. Most if not all are over 60 years old and sadly, none of their children have followed suit. So this special occupation will soon disappear as one of Jeju’s interesting tourist attractions.

The abalone, which is quite a pricey seafood, can be had in Jeju for a song. I had porridge with abalone, bibimbap with abalone and many soups and hot pots come with an assortment of seafood that includes this specialty. You can say I had my fill of the various fish and shell fish while in Jeju. To balance your caloric intake, you can have grilled pork at lunch and fish for dinner.

For snacks one can have their fill of fruits from the Dongmun market. Jeju takes pride in growing Hallabong and Cheonghyehyang oranges, mangoes and all kinds of berries, too.

The tour we took also brought us to fields of green tea run by the O’sulloc tea company and a tea museum where you will need to stop yourself from buying everything – there is matcha tea, green tea and many other products for health and beauty.

What I enjoyed is being able to eat a variety of vegetables, fruits and meat which are mostly probiotic, healthy and offers a balanced meal at all times. Even when we were told we would have a vegetarian buffet, there was cutlass fish and boiled pork for the non-vegetarians.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a new destination in Jeju. It is visa-free for Filipinos, though the effort is in connecting flights as there is no direct flight to the island from Manila. Other than that minor drawback, it remains a beautiful option for those who love Nature, Korean food and everything natural and eco-friendly.