← All articles · South Korea · 6 August 2023

Jeju, South Korea: Testing the Mysterious Road, where parked cars roll uphill

A week on Jeju in August 2023: the Mysterious Road illusion, an ivy-covered garden hideout, a proper Jeju City lunch and sunset from a sea-view balcony.

We spent a week on Jeju in August 2023, and the island turned out to be exactly as strange and generous as everyone promises: optical-illusion roads, gardens you can hide inside, tables that vanish under side dishes, and sunsets served to your balcony.

Dileep pointing at the brown Mysterious Road sign written in Korean, Chinese and English on Jeju — The famous Mysterious Road, where parked cars appear to roll uphill. We tested it. They do.

Inga and Dileep sitting inside a small stone dome hut covered in ivy in a lush green garden — We found this ivy-covered stone dome in a garden nearby and immediately moved in. Rent negotiations are ongoing.

Dileep at a wooden table in a traditional Korean restaurant, earthenware pots, savoury pancakes and banchan in front of him — Lunch in a traditional restaurant in Jeju City: earthenware pots, savoury pancakes and more banchan than table.

Cooking on stage at NANTA

NANTA is Korea's long-running non-verbal comedy, set in a restaurant kitchen and played out in knives, drums and chopping boards. Partway through, the cast pulls someone out of the audience for an improvised cooking section, and on this particular evening that someone was Dileep. He can report that being handed a knife in front of a full theatre focuses the mind.

A lobby screen at the Jeju NANTA theatre showing the five cast members of the day's Cookin NANTA performance with their character names — Cast board at NANTA Jeju, the non-verbal kitchen show. The characters include a Manager, a Head Chef, a Hot Sauce and, officially, a Sexy Guy.

Dileep with three of the NANTA cast members outside the Jeju theatre after the show, all grinning with thumbs up — Afterwards we caught the cast coming out of the theatre, and they were happy to pose. Thumbs up all round, apparently including for the cooking.

Inga and Dileep in white Ramada Plaza bathrobes holding coffee cups on a balcony as the sun sets over the sea — Bathrobes, coffee and a Jeju sunset from the balcony of the Ramada Plaza. Checkout was a genuinely sad event.

Jeju rewards the slow lane: rent a car, follow the coast, and stop whenever a sign promises something mysterious. It usually delivers. For more of Korea, start with our Seoul and Busan stories.

We stayed at Hotel Nanta Jeju, which is named after the show and is exactly as on-brand as that sounds.