In 1653, Jeju met its first foreigner. It came in the form of a shipwrecked Dutchman named Hendrick Hamel. The local community must not have liked what they saw, as they immediately shipped Hamel and his crew off the island to live in captivity in Seoul. It took Hamel and a handful of crewmates nearly 13 years to escape.
Nowadays, Jeju is far more hospitable to its foreign guests. The island attracts an eclectic group of foreigners who have come to live here for wildly different reasons. …