Jeju trips blog posts recovery

*2. Gimpo -> Jeju-do 

 Monday Sept 17th 2012 published

Finally settled down yesterday. I arranged my room to the style I wanted and was deeply satisfied with it. I thoroughly cleaned up my room, as I had to switch my study desk position and found a lot of dust. Good gracious! Then I went with Zijing to Daiso which was 3 levels of stores big, and got some of our essentials. Came back and I still have to settle my clothes shelves, and there was still a problem. Supposedly to have two shelving, but then I only had one shelf. I still need ahjumma to settle when I come back I guess. Still a lot to settle when I come back from Jeju, but at least the room was okay to sleep in for the night already.

Then today! Headed with Zijing to Myeong Dong first to exchange monies. The rates were quite reasonable. But its better to exchange with the bank, which bank was it? I couldn't remember. Shinhan perhaps? The rates were pretty okay.

Then we were off to Jeju. Little did we know that the typhoon had hit Jeju. Which meant a lot of activities couldn't be done. And Jeju is well known for outdoor activities. Sharks.

 Literally it means espresso milk red tea. Hmmm so so.

Travelled by the subway and changed to the airport express train.

 We boarded by Jeju Air.

Touched down at 4 plus. I rented a phone and we took the limousine bus number 600 off to Seogwipo town. Note that this limousine number 600, actually will stop by some of the famous spots, like Lotte hotel, the Shilla, and the tourism places like Teddy bear museum and all the others situated around in the vicinity.

Dropped off at the Sunbeach Hotel, and a 5 minutes walk will reach our hostel Jeju Hiking Inn. Had a scrumptious dinner at the host's recommendation and the wind was quite chilly.

Very tasty fish that is quite famous in Jeju. The fish meat was so tender.

 Steamed egg! Niceeee.

This was sesame seed leaf. Has a nice fragrance to it.

I seriously don't really know what to do for this trip due to the lack of time. Hadn't had anything planned at all. The host was kind enough to introduce some places for us to head to, but he said it in such a way so fast that I couldn't really catch all. Even if I could have caught it all, a night's sleep would have made my brain forget it all.

Went to Cheon Ji Yeon water fall, but we didn't manage to go to see the proper one (the picture above was a small one only), because it was too dark, but I guess it should be quite lovely for couples since the lighting was so romantic. Heh.

On the way back, we bought this to try eating. Similar to cuttlefish, its delicious.

Go with what of course? Meishu. Ume Plum alco! Kyaaaa~

Its my first time travelling without a plan and I think I would just go along with the flow, what to do for the day. The typhoon was also something unexpected.

See how it goes!

*3. Korea Tourism Board vicinity in Jeju 

Tuesday, Sept 18th 2012 published

16th Sept 2012, Sunday

The weather wasn't getting any better, in fact it got worse, it was raining for the whole day since morning. Not a choice given though. We just decided to head to museums, the indoor activities to avoid the rain. Took the limousine bus 600 back to the Korea tourism board area, and chocolate factory was our first stop.

Breakky for this morning was.. Kimchi Jjiggae. Note that for it here, they assume if you are taking two servings, then they will serve you with a bigger portion of the side dishes and the main dish.

My Chocolate, Woohoo~ LOL.

Chocolate Land: First Stop. To be honest there is nothing much in the chocolate factory, except the interesting part was to make our own chocolate. In which we melt the chocolate and then pour it into the plastic mould and then when it hardens, its done! Pretty easy actually. I think the Cadbury factory in Australia would be more interesting.

Add captionAfter that we headed to Ripley's believe it or not. Quite okay, since this was their first outlet I had been to. After that we headed to the Korea tourism board office and asked for directions. According to them, Monday would be quite bad to travel around due to the typhoon. And the weather being like this, it was really difficult.

Went to the alive museum, oooh, this was really interesting! I think a lot of tourism companies bring their guests here. Saw quite a lot of photos on this. Hahaha some were really funny.

It was raining very heavily, plus my shoe had wear and tear; it was all wet.
Sigh, days like this how I hoped I had a good pair of walking shoes with me, that would never get wet.

Will only be posting some of the pictures, obviously its crazy to post it all.. there are so many paintings! The rest.. go visit it yourself!! ^^

This is supposed to depict Provence. Is it the same? I LONG TO GO TO PROVENCE. BADLY. In future of course. ;) Skies started to darken. Winds were getting stronger. My umbrella broke due to the sudden gusts of wind. My original umbrella was lost in the bus. I took it out because I thought it was raining outside and we would need to use it, but then in the end I left it in the bus when we reached and moved our bags outside.

Went to the Emart to get our dinner fixed and then bought some food to prepare for tomorrow's hibernation... Night time the winds were so gusty. Could totally feel the typhoon. 

What's going to be like tomorrow??

 Hallasan, Jeju

Tuesday, Oct 2nd, 2012

18th Sept 2012, Tuesday

The typhoon was gone, in fact monday afternoon it was already gone. So our plans continued, either we go hallasan today, or we shall walk one of the olle trails. Final decision was to hike Hallasan.

 

Took a bus 516 from Seogwipo bus terminal to Seongpanak, which was the starting point to hike to the peak.
Bus ride took about 1 hour.

The whole course takes about 6 - 8 hours to finish. Its better if we reach earlier so we won't be so tired. And there are time limits to reach certain points, therefore its kinda better to start hiking early.

Proper footwear is highly recommended for these hiking courses, and obviously my shoe wasn't a proper hiking shoe. OMG and my shoes has holes in the soles, so I was afraid that it would get wet, and tried to avoid those muddy areas. Aigoo. The course after the typhoon was wet and more slippery to hike.

After two hours of constant hiking, I reached this spot where we could either walk towards the crater or go to the summit of Hallasan. I decided that my body could not hold on longer, I hadn't did any exercise back in SG and was terribly energy drained. I chose the crater route instead. Now to come think of it, perhaps I should have tried to go to the summit. Its all about the will and sheer determination, isn't it. But I figured out that I really need to have the energy to come down. My friend who frequently did marathons and jogging back in sg, went all the way to the summit!! Really gooood for her! But for the next week she couldn't walk at all..

It was a pity for me that the crater was flooded due to the typhoon and I could not progress through, it not it would have been an amazing experience.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the process of the hike. The water was so cold.

It was really flooded heavily and one of the uncles wanted to move through, but others were telling him, no there is no way you can pull it through!
See the middle wooden plank, its almost 80% flooded, meaning you will be covered in the icy water in no time.

Spring water on the way for us to fill up. It was sweet and refreshing to drink.

First sights of orange leaves.

A nice view of the routes. I like routes like this as compared to the rocks... Why don't they have routes like this all the way? Hahaha. But my friend said this route was relatively easier to hike as compared to other routes. She said that at least she could see the routes clearly ahead for her to hike.
There was once she hiked Mt Sorak and she couldn't even see the route in front! And she gave up because it was so difficult. I took the crater route in the end and thus was able to finish my course faster. I finished the hike in 4 hours, my friend who went to the summit, took 8 hours to complete. By the time she came down, she was so utterly tired. The next day her leg pained so much, she really couldn't walk. Plus she had frequent exercise, I thought to myself what if its me, I don't think I would be able to walk at all...... >.<

But all in all, it was a good hike. Just that I really need to have more exercise to keep myself fit. The aunties and uncles were so fit. It could be due to their country climate and geographical location, there are so many hills to walk up and down. They walked a lot, in general. And they like to hike too. We lacked exercise, to be honest.

Something to reward us for the night, since we hiked so much... grilled chicken! And Jajjangmyun. Yum.

 Back to Seoul from Jeju

Wednesday, Oct 3rd, 2012

19th Sept 2012, Wednesday

We still agreed that the jeong shik (traditional korean dish, with lots of side dish, another term they call it baek ban) at this restaurant was better than the rest.
And thus we headed back here for breakfast again. It was near also, so Zijing won't have to walk so much.

I went out to walk a little outside after breakfast and Zijing went back to the hostel to rest.

Just to post where this bus goes to. It practically goes to the touristy places. And so we flew back to Gimpo International Airport at noon, and on the way back to Sinchon, I suggested to travel by the train instead of the subway, as I saw the Sinchon station by Gyeonggui train line was so much nearer to our boarding house as compared to the Sinchon subway station. Therefore, from Gimpo, we took the express airport train to Digital Media City station. From there we changed to the Gyeongui train line, which would fetch us straight to Sinchon. Little did I know that such a short distance would cause us so much inconvenience.

 

So when we have such bags like these.. be prepared to carry it up and down the stairs~ Backpacks are so much convenient to travel around in Korea.

Sg should implement this, this works two way.

When you near the exit, they sense it and blocks you until you tap your card.

The airport train was really fast. But do take note that not all Korea subway and train stations have escalators. For train stations, they still do not have escalators, even they do have, it may not be moving upwards, and could be downwards. All the way, stairs stairs and stairs. Walkways walkways and more walkways to come. So I dragged my luggage upwards and downwards, using up all my strength. I guess its also the reason why people take the coach bus from airport to their respective places because taking the subway is not as convenient. To take to Sinchon, its more recommended to take coach bus or change to subway, which would be the Honggik university and change to Sinchon.

Also the frequency of the train station is very slow, only 1 train per hour, so if we miss one timing, we would have to wait for the next hour to arrive. Not advisable to change to the train. Subways frequencies are so much faster.

 

* Some other photos, on one of the days.