Day 1 and 2
It isn't a good start for us on Day 1.
We experienced air turbulence during the flight that the plane was shaking. In addition, there were long queues at the immigration counters when we arrived. It took us about 1 hour to exit the arrival hall. By then, we need to catch on the last train, which brought us to Digital Media City Station.
We met a few kind souls in Korea that night too. As the train has stopped operations, we need to alight from the station and take cab to our location. The first guy helped us to communicate to the Korean driver about the guesthouse address and even helped us to carry our luggage to the car.
Apparently, the driver could only locate the area and not the exact place. So, he went to ask a young guy, who was out there going to smoke, to help us with the directions. We went around in circles and realised later that it was just next to the place where we were dropped off.
There's a saying, "one obstacle comes another obstacle". Thanks to the help of one guest, we managed to contact the guesthouse owner. BUT he didn't check his expedia account online and didn't see our reservation. Plus, there were no more available room. So in the end, he suggested to refund us fully and even brought us to jimjilbang to stay for the night. We appreciated his thoughts but, jimjilbang is not really a good place to go at night when you see naked people walking around the changing place and the whole place is flooded with sleepers.
The three of us couldn't sleep well for the night and we left the jjimjilbang at 7.30am KST.
Day 2 seemed to pass very quickly as we spent half the day travelling to the airport, waiting for the flight and flying to Jeju Island. It was pouring when we arrived, so we couldn't do much sightseeing. We stayed in our hotel room for 2 hour plus till dinner time. It was a pleasant surprise to have our first official meal at a seafood restaurant. For the price of 33,000 won, we ate two seafood soups and grilled mackerel. It was really a good deal and we were lucky to went there before 8pm KST (closing time).
We experienced air turbulence during the flight that the plane was shaking. In addition, there were long queues at the immigration counters when we arrived. It took us about 1 hour to exit the arrival hall. By then, we need to catch on the last train, which brought us to Digital Media City Station.
We met a few kind souls in Korea that night too. As the train has stopped operations, we need to alight from the station and take cab to our location. The first guy helped us to communicate to the Korean driver about the guesthouse address and even helped us to carry our luggage to the car.
Apparently, the driver could only locate the area and not the exact place. So, he went to ask a young guy, who was out there going to smoke, to help us with the directions. We went around in circles and realised later that it was just next to the place where we were dropped off.
There's a saying, "one obstacle comes another obstacle". Thanks to the help of one guest, we managed to contact the guesthouse owner. BUT he didn't check his expedia account online and didn't see our reservation. Plus, there were no more available room. So in the end, he suggested to refund us fully and even brought us to jimjilbang to stay for the night. We appreciated his thoughts but, jimjilbang is not really a good place to go at night when you see naked people walking around the changing place and the whole place is flooded with sleepers.
The three of us couldn't sleep well for the night and we left the jjimjilbang at 7.30am KST.
Day 2 seemed to pass very quickly as we spent half the day travelling to the airport, waiting for the flight and flying to Jeju Island. It was pouring when we arrived, so we couldn't do much sightseeing. We stayed in our hotel room for 2 hour plus till dinner time. It was a pleasant surprise to have our first official meal at a seafood restaurant. For the price of 33,000 won, we ate two seafood soups and grilled mackerel. It was really a good deal and we were lucky to went there before 8pm KST (closing time).
Day 3 to Day 5
Yeha West Course Tour (Hyupjae Beach - Hallim Park - Suweolbong Trekking - Lunch - Spirited Garden - ALTHR Airfield - Mt. Sanbang - Teddy Bear Museum)
I would have to say that this day tour can be missed because the
schedule is too packed and too little time to enjoy every scenery. For people
who wants to explore the west area in one day, I would recommend Hallim Park,
Suweolbong trekking and Teddy Bear Museum. In that case, you will have much
more pleasure spending 2h in each places instead of 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Seongsan Ilchubong (sunrise) - Seopjikoji - Udo - Maze Land
My goal in Jeju is to watch the sunrise at Seongsan Ilchubong and so
thankful that my friends were willing to watch the sunrise with me. We woke up
at 3am that day to prepare and hailed the cab outside our hotel. We were a
little scared when a drunk passenger in the taxi came out and asked us to go
inside the taxi.
The journey took us about 50 minutes to get there. Along the way, the
road was so empty that it felt like we own the road. When we reach there, the
whole place was so dark and cold. We walked to Paris baguette as it was the
only store that seemed to be open. The chef was so kind to let us in before the
official operating hours.
An hour before the sunrise, we proceeded to Seongsan Ilchubong to hike.
I'm not too sure is it because we were too early or what, we just hiked without
paying the entrance fee. There were at least five groups of people hiking. It
was very healing when we reach to the peak, listening to the sounds of magpies.
It was a pity that we can't fully see the sunrise due to the fog. Nevertheless,
it was a great way to start the day.
The next stop was to Seopjikoji. Koreans were really friendly to help;
as we couldn't hail a cab, an old man (maybe owner?) outside the restaurant
offered help to call the taxi for us. Thanks to him, we successfully reached to
Seopjikoji. It was beautiful, but too many tourists. :( And I realised that
rapeseed flowers, or what we know as canola flower, don't smell as good as it
looks.
By the time we had finished touring around Seopjikoji, we were so tired
that we thought of going back to hotel and take a nap. But no, we had already
went from North to the East of Jeju. So we decided to continue our journey to
Udo.
At Seongsan Harbour, we would need to fill up two forms to purchase
round trip tickets. One thing fun about taking the ferry to Udo is to see
people feeding seagulls prawn crackers. My friends, who have seasick, also
joined in the fun to feed seagulls. It was a pity that we are not able to rent
scooters there as we did not have international driving licenses. In the end,
we bought the bus tickets which we can freely hop in and out of the bus. The
scenery was beautiful but the three of us kept dozing off and did not enjoy the
place to the fullest.
We headed back earlier to Jeju, and proceeded to Maze Land. Maze Land
was so huge and there were at least three mazes that you can challenge. We made
a bet to see who came out first and because I did not know I took the easiest
route, I came out the earliest and had to wait for them to come out. There was
one maze that is the hardest to get out of the maze due to its scale. If you
like adventures, this may be the place to go.
Jejumok-Gwana - Yongyeon Bridge - Yongduam Rock – Soingook Theme Park
I always thought I would not enjoy impromptu schedule, but after this
trip, I started to enjoy more about making impromptu decisions. Because it was
the last day in Jeju, we decided to go to places (i.e Yongduam Rock) that we
did not went during the first day.
Jejumok-Gwana is one of the more underrated place to visit in Jeju. When
we were there, it felt like we own the whole place as we were the only few tourists
there and the admission ticket only costed us 800 won per youth (~SGD$1). You
can explore this historical place and experience traditional archery, traditional
seesaw and even the ancient punishment site.
We then walked from Jejumok-gwana to Yongduam Rock. Along the way, we
walked past Yongyeon Bridge and it was one of the prettiest place I have ever
been. The atmosphere made me felt like I am in Japan, surrounding by all the
pretty cherry blossoms. It is definitely a very good place to spam photos
there.
As a comparison, Yongduam Rock is a bit overrated. Though people will
recommend going to Yongduam Rock if you go to Jeju, there is not much to see
but take photos of the rock (that resembles the dragon). There were also a lot
of local and foreign tourists there, so if possible, choose a timing when there
are fewer tourists.
For the last stop, we went to Soingook Theme Park. We finally took the
local bus to the venue and I was actually scared that we missed the last
admission time or missed the stop. In the end, I did not slept during the
journey while my two friends just dozed off the entire journey until I woke
them up. I was also thankful to the bus driver because he drove us to the
entrance of the theme park, when in fact, he could have just stopped us at the
bus stop. We were so happy that we made it on time, but the heavy rain and the
limited time caused us to rush through our exploration at that place.
Nevertheless, it was quite fun because I don’t think I would have this kind of
experience in Singapore. And because of the heavy rain, we got our excuse to
buy new shoes since our shoes are super wet from the soaking.
Additional
Our stay in Jeju was unexpectedly good. As compared to the horrible incident on the 1st night
(referred to the previous post), the hotel that we booked is cheap, clean and has efficient service.
During our 4-night stay, it costed us $380.52. The hosts were very friendly,
greeting us when we came and even brought us to the hotel’s art gallery when we
were waiting for the room to be cleaned. The hotel is also near to Dongmun
Market that we went there almost every night in Jeju.
DAEDONG HOTEL
6, GWANDEOK-RO 15-GIL, JEJU, 690836 SOUTH KOREA
TEL: 82 (10) 94582785
