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REMINISCING KOREA - A JOURNEY MADE A YEAR AGO PART 3
Sunday, September 22, 2013 |Comment(s)

Fredfredtan says...

Be ready for a long post! :D

July 6, 2012 Korea- Jeju

Within walking distance of Jeju Hiking Inn was this little eatery that we passed by everyday to get to the Bus terminal. But it was always closed when we came back for dinner. So after the very tiring day of scaling Hallasan, we decided to sleep in more and start our day later, hence giving us an opportunity to try this humble eatery!


It was an stir-fry octopus with vermicelli store! 


While waiting for our food! :D I was actually watching Immortal Song on the TV. I vaguely remember it was my favourite season because of Jay Park.


The side dishes! And a complementary bowl of hot soup!


TADAH! The main highligh! It was so delicious! :D


We order the set for two and it was so HUGE! 

And after the scrumptious meal, we made our way to the Manjanggul Lava Tube which was a cave with all the stalagmite and stalactite. The bus stopped at this junction, and Manjanggul was actually located quite a distance in, so we hop onto a cab (FOR THE FIRST TIME THE ENTIRE TRIP) to reach our destination!


This was the only picture over there. We couldn't take pictures in the cave because it was so dark and dingy. And I remember that we weren't allowed to use flash. I think it was for safety reasons though because it was rather dark inside, and the flash maybe too blinding. It was rather wet and slippery too. I remember everyone trying to take picture with this huge ass stalagmite (or was it a stalactite). But we gave up taking picture with it, because we were put off by the crowd, we will definitely get photobombed, and we will look eerily ghostly beside the huge rock.

We were just enjoying each other's company and trying not to slip and fall on the slippery floor. Happiness was just so simple. 

When leaving Manjanggul, we decided to take a slow walk out to the Maze park which was within walking distance. I was allowed the student price ticket but not B though. Haha. #foreveryoung


At the entrance of the maze! I think this photo was hilarious because it looked like such a badly photoshop picture. But I assure you that this picture is as real as it gets! I kept laughing at this picture!


Us, at the entrance. We were pretty excited about it and decided to chuck the map aside and simply find our way around the maze. The goal was to locate the bell in the middle of the maze. We met a lot of people in the maze. And we even tried the "use your right hand to guide you through" theory, but it failed too! Haha But nonetheless, we had lots of fun!






The arrow sign looking like a Toki! (Bunny)






And we made it to the bell! :D






 And after leaving the maze park,we decided to make our way out to the junction again to take the Bus to the city area of Jeju. As there weren't any cab in sight, we started making our way out on foot. Oh boy, it was such a long walk! We were munching on Pepero sticks and Dr You energy bars to keep us going as our tummies were already protesting by the time we left the Maze Park.

And that was when we tried to hitch hike again! Hahah. Yay to being 2nd time lucky! A mum with two lovely daughters stopped to pick us up. She was actually a Korean visiting Jeju over the weekends and was equally clueless on how to go about in the area. We guided her to the junction and thank her for the ride out. She was such a lovely woman and her two daughters were so pretty and shy! It was actually her daughters who asked her to stop to give us a lift. Such sweet girls! I offered to throw their empty yogurt cups as I alighted. :)

Then, we took the bus to Jeju city! Our first goal- fill our tummies with yummilicious food! Just like any other Singaporeans, we let the crowd decide where should we head for dinner. As we were walking around, we saw a lot of people going into this BBQ place, so we headed in just like everyone else! :D


Tadah, look at the amount of side dishes we had while waiting for our food. We had a hard time trying to communicate. As mentioned, the Jeju natives were used to speaking their own dialect and so they had trouble translating to modern Korean as well. We were trying to find out what meat were available, but apparently they only served one type of meat. So we tried asking if it was pork, chicken or even beef. But it was none of the above. We were getting quite scared at that point of time, because we didn't want to end up eating some rat/fox/dog or whatever exotic meat you can think of! I was scanning through my Korean dictionary list and practically naming whatever there was, then I saw "Duck" which was "Oli". Thank goodness, upon hearing Oli, the ahjumma (aunty) broke into a smile and kept nodding her head saying yes.




Generous helping of meat and Kimchi! The large white "burger" shape looking were onions! Haha. I was so happy. And the food was really yummy! The plate was tilted so the oil can drip off the side. The owners - the Ahjumma and Ahjussi kept coming over to help us, and we were really touched. They tried to guide us verbally but we couldn't understand and could only smile back, so they decided to just take over the cooking. :D No extra charges for their personal service!


So many people bonding over food and soju! Really like the boisterous crowd that night! And you can see there is a drawn picture of a Duck! Hahah. :D

Such a satisfying meal. After stuffing ourselves silly with all the meat, we were so full, our tummies were bursting with goodness! Just then, the owners came over, and started gesturing to us that they want to remove our BBQ tray. We readily agreed because we couldn't take in anymore food. BUT, to our surprise, they actually came with a big pot of duck soup!


This is probably the nicest duck soup I have ever drank. Despite us having bursting tummies, we actually polished off the entire pot of soup because it was so yummy! Plus it was on the house! We don't know if the soup were given to every table though.



July 7, 2012 Korea- Jeju

Rise and shine! On our 6th day in Jeju, we decided to head over to Sunrise peak and Udo Island! :D We wanted to visit Sunrise peak since Day 2, but there were a bout of rainy mornings so we chose to travel to other places first. As the name suggest, Sunrise Peak is the best location to see the sunrise in Jeju. However, there are no public transport to get us there. So we just woke up early to catch an early bus to Sunrise peak. 


Even the cute doggie was enjoying the bright and sunny day! :D It was such a cutie!


And the sun rise peak!




Such a pretty coastline!


A long way up the peak! Let's go!






I think this rock looks like the Proboscis Monkey! Hahaha. Go google it and complain. Heheh









Up on the peak, which was surprisingly not as scenic as the way up! Hahaha



The thin strip that connects the 2 small islands was called a Tombolo. And we kept laughing at the cute name. (Some inside joke! HAHA)


After descending Sunrise Peak, we set off to Udo Island. We had to get to the Seogwipo Terminal to catch the ferry to Udo Island. It was approximately 11000Won for two.



On board the ferry! There were cars on the ferry too!





So many people. We bought a bag of prawn cracker on the ferry. There weren't any store owners around. All we did was grab a bag of ships and put the money into the large cardboard box beside. If you need change, you will just take it from the box as well. It was based entirely on trust! I was so amazed, because everyone was doing that.


Hello Udo Island! The Island that I loved the most! :D

Upon reaching Udo Island, we decided to rent the ATV to explore the island. It was approximately 20,000won for 2 hours. You will need a driver's license to be able to rent one. We decided to just rent one for the 2 of us. So B would be the driver while I would be the one guiding him with the island's map! 2 hours was definitely enough to explore the island on the ATV. 






The excited me taking all the pictures while enjoying my ride on the ATV! Woohoo. The sun was really hot that day but so I was really glad we got the ATV to travel around!






Two silly kids on the ATV! Hehehe


The image from my very first Blog post!




I was secretly snapping a picture of the Ahjummas. They were part of the group of Ahjummas who were trained divers to collect fresh seafood from the sea. It was said that ladies have a higher fat content than guys, so they can stay warm longer in the open sea than the guys. Hence, they made up the group of early divers to collect fresh seafood for a living. You have to pay to watch them dive in Jeju island actually, but we managed to catch them diving in U-do Island open waters, but was too far to get a good shot. We got scolded after that for taking this photo of them! Hahaha. I think they were shy actually.

And we passed by this cute little cafe! Wanted to stop to take picture, but we decided to return back later for drinks.


And I took over the wheels for a short while! I was rather terrified of driving it because I had such poor hand-foot coordination! So for the safety of the both of us, I was relegated back to being the pillion rider.




Driver of the day! :D



See those painting on their easels! It was such a cute site! 


And we reached the lighthouse on the island! It was such a small little lighthouse! Everyone parked their ATVs to get a photo, so we did too! Such a touristy thing to do! Hahaha





Remember the group of Ahjumma divers I mentioned earlier! This time round, we saw them again at a much closer range! :D Hahaha.


And we stopped by a blindspot mirror to take a picture! 



Stopped by a beach to get a photo with the Ahjumma Diver sculpture! Look at the clear waters behind us!



And we asked a group of young boys to help us take a picture. And looked at what happened! T^T

A slightly better version. We actually took like 5 pictures in total, with the other 3 being so badly photobombed by random strangers walking into our photos. T^T








Another group of Ahjummas out in the sea! 


And... We made our way back to the nice little cafe we passed by earlier on! They were really nice, the store owners. They helped us to take couple pictures and even told us how to pose and where to get a good picture! Haha. Do visit them if you are visiting Udo Island.




Cute little furball in the cafe!





You can leave a note in the cafe too!



And I really like the area outside the cafe! Look at how they decorated the area! With windmills and small little tables and stools! I wouldn't mind just staying here, overlooking the coastline everyday!



And we decided to take a series of self shots! I was placing my camera on top of our two helmets and set a timer to it. So I was running back to my seat after pressing the shutter button each time. But it was worth it, seeing how well the photos turned out to be! 




After returning our ATVs, we decided to take a walk to a nearby beach. I actually prepared 2 straw mats too. You can easily get those small foldable ones from Giant which are really light and portable!


Some really cute buildings that we came across near the beach!


Such a handsome dog.


Such a nice shop, but it was closed when we reached. Such  a waste!

But we entered another shop with all the cute little trinkets and fluffy soft toys!



And one beach shot!


We didn't get to spend a long time on the beach. The water was so clear and pretty but the sand was so painful with all those small corals and shells lying around. I was like "ouch ouch, so ouch nice!" Haha. And the sky decided to cry at that moment too. So retreated to a small little cafe- Latte King to seek shelter!


We got adventurous and decided to try their Salt Latte. Bad choice. It was so weird! Should have just ordered a normal latte!

And we made our way back to Jeju Island after the eventful day!


Upon reaching Jeju Island, the real horror came. T^T The bus took forever to come. We waited for close to 2hours for our bus. I was trying to be optimistic and kept talking/singing to B. But we were both getting really impatient because we were so tired and hungry after everything. Plus B had a bout of gastric too. And there weren't other options for us, no cabs in sight as well, and none of the buses that stopped by was our bus. It was really quite scary too, since we were the only one at the bus stop, we waited till night falls, the place was so dark AND we didn't know the place well nor speak their language. I practically squeal when I saw our bus came at last. We had a simple dinner that night at an eatery near the bus terminal and had an early rest.

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