Manjang cave 만장굴

A while back it was teacher's day, and just like children's day, we had the day off. Unfortunately I wasn't told about it until almost the day before, so I couldn't really take advantage to make any elaborate plans for the three-day weekend it gave most of teachers here on the island. Some people had to teach, so I guess I shouldn't complain so much.

I met up with Brian early friday morning, as we were meeting with Prof. Kim at The Jeju Weekly office to discuss new assignments for the paper. After some discussion, Brian and I decided to go to the Manjang cave, or 만장굴 (Manjanggul). The cave was on my list of things to do while I was here, so covering it for the newspaper was an added bonus.

My assignment was to write an article about the cave and other lava tube systems for the upcoming paper, which was targeting more international concerns because of the ASEAN conference in town. Manjanggul, along with the other Geomunoreum lava tube systems, are among some of UNESCO's World Natural Heritage Sites here on Jeju.

Once Brian grabbed his camera from his apartment, we took a cab from the Jeju city bus terminal to the cave. It's about a 20,000 won cab ride, but there are alternatives, however, being pressed for time we decided to go with the more direct route.

When we arrived we made our way to the ticket booth where we presented our Jeju residence cards and got in for free. On the wall of the booth is a large chart of all the various lava systems: Bengdwigul, Dangcheomuldonggul, Gimnyeonggul, and Yongcheondonggul; most of them are closed to the public.



We began our descent into the cave:



I took a minute to investigate the entrance while waiting for Brian to catch up.



The cave gets pretty cool quickly as well as damp, bringing along a long sleeve shirt and some good walking shoes is recommended. There are lights along the path so you don't get lost, but you can see almost everything once your eyes adapt.



The lighting was more than my camera can capture, but Brian managed to get some great shots by adjusting his aperture.


We spent maybe 45 minutes trying out different angles and techniques; it was a rather artistic production on both our parts. There were lots of other tourists walking through, at first we tried to shoot around them, but eventually used it to our advantage, creating some really unique effects.



The cave's length is almost 10 kilometers by some measurements, but the public access ends at the first kilometer. Further in there are lots of collapsed areas and strange rock forms distorted by the lava.



Near the end of the tour is a large platform with blue lights, resembling some sort of space like operation. Climbing up the stairs and following the path will lead you to the most impressive sight in the cave, the lava pillar:



Many tourists stop here for the cliche picture in front of the rock, or just a shot of the formation itself. It's quite impressive and is probably one of the only spots in the world where you will see such a molten creation. The lava tube systems here on Jeju are one of the biggest and best preserved systems in existence.



Using a variant light source from all the flashes of tourist cameras going off, Brian came out with yet another impressive shot:


Brian's got quite the artistic eye, and we both managed to come away that afternoon with something productive.