We left the hotel at 8:00 am. We arrived at the pier about 20 mins later to have our breakfast.
People fishing on an early Sunday!
Large boulders (don't know what you call it)
More boulders
Boat with large lamps to attract those blur sotongs XD
We had abalone porridge!
The abalone porridge with seaweed was delicious eventhough abalones are shreded into very tiny pieces which only can be seen using a microscope XD~ Now you guys should have noticed that with any meal (either breakfast, lunch or dinner), there will be some side dishes. These side dishes include Kimchi, salted tauhu, ikan bilis, fish cakes shredded into pieces, seaweed soup, etc.
Kimchi is a must for the Koreans! Kimchi represents Korea's best known food and few Koreans can last more than a few days before cravings get the better of them. Kimchi is made of cabbages and with other spicy spices. For me, it tastes spicy, sour and salty. Doesn't taste good with rice, but with porridge it's not bad.
Oh yeah, Koreans use metal chopsticks. I'm still puzzled at this. Why do they use metal chopsticks? Wood is plenty around ler... Are the metal chopsticks more easier to wash, easier to pick up, more clean or look more sophisticated?
After breakfast we left for Sungshan Sunrise Park which is filiming site for the Korean drama "Loving You". Haven't seen any other Korean dramas yet. Just watched Shiri and a few episodes of Stairway to Heaven =) The filming site is located on the east of Jeju Island. The journey took close to an hour. For the journey, Michael enterntained us with his jokes and gave us some info about Jeju Island.
Jeju Island is Korea's largest island, covering 1,845 sq. km in area (latitude of 73km longitude of 41km). With its mystique scenic beauty and the well-preserved cultural traditions, Jeju is both a universal vacation spot and an important international meeting place that has hosted summit conferences, such as the Korean-Japanese and Korean-American talks. Jeju was created entirely by a volcanic eruption and is covered with dark volcanic rocks and clay.
It is surrounded by water on all four sides and the entire seashore takes pride in its natural beauty of oddly-shaped rocks, waterfalls, the white sandy beach, and islands, etc. It's also one of the favourite to go for honey-mooners.
Michael also mentioned that all the stuffs on Jeju Island is expensive because most of the products are from mainland Korea. Jeju is famous for 3 things:
1. Tangerine (small mandarin orange)
2. Honey
3. Seafood
Also the Tolharubang figurines (the guardian god of Jeju) which you can get only in Jeju and the figurines is not available in the Korean mainland.
Michael also taught us some basic Korean:
agassi - miss
agossi - mr
an yong ha sae yo - welcome / how are you?
ajuma - auntie
ol ma ye yo? - how much is it?
ipoyo - pretty
mugi mugi ipoyo - very pretty
kam sa ha mi da - thank you
an yong - good bye
After about an hour later, we arrived at the Sungshan Sunrise Park. The Sungshan Sunrise Peak is the best place to watch the sunrise and sunset on Jeju Island. Also, it was a valcano thousand of years ago. Now, it's a ded volcano.
View of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
Nearer view of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
Hiking up Sungshan Sunrise Peak
There were speakers hidden in the background while hiking up. They are playing all those oldies from the 60's and 70's to give us the motivation. Clever idea... hehehe.... Hiking up took us about half an hour. It's tiring but worth all the effort! The scenery was fantastic and it was very windy too.
View from the top of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
Another view from the top of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
The volcano crater is now covered with grass
Another view from the top of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
After taking photos and enjoying the beautiful scenery, we proceeded to the beachside.
The beachside of Sungshan Sunrise Peak
Anyone for Pony rides? Caught this pic while coming down from the Sungshan Sunrise Peak.
After beachside, we arrived at the bottom of the peak. There were a lot of souvenir shops around. Good place to get some souvenirs here. Things to get here are tangerines and the many type of Tolharubang figurines.
After that, we left for our next destination which is the Sungeup Folk Village. On our way, we saw lots of flowers and asked the bus driver to stop so that we can take some photos with flowers. According to Michael, there are seasons for these flowers to bloom and they will dissapear within a few weeks. Lucky for us to have caught these photos. ^_^
Flowers everywhere
More flowers
After a short while, we arrived at the Sungeup Folk Village and was greeted by a Jeju lady wearing their traditional clothes. She showed us how Jeju people live in the olden times. She showed us their gate with has 3 poles, how they make their natural toilet without any doors, how to collect water from a tree using a jug, string and a frog, the structure of their house which can withstand strong winds and time, how they rock their baby to sleep (using their specially designed cradle) so that they are immune to seasick, etc. She also sang their one of their traditional songs for us to hear. Sweet!
Jeju lady in tradiontional clothes
Collecting water from a tree using a jug, string and a frog!
Jeju traditional house which can withstand strong winds and time (this house was built more than 200 years ago)
Statue of a lady carrying a basket
Since Jeju have more females than males (because most of the men died in the sea), male are the prefered gender and is treated very highly of. The males do not do any work at home. All the work is done by the females accept catching fishes.
We then provided inside one of the houses. She starts about explaining about the honey from Jeju, how they harvest and what are the benefits. After that, the Jeju lady turns violent. She starts stuffing a spoon of honey into everyone's mouth. Not once but twice! (there two different types of honey - white honey for morning and dark honey for nite time) Basically doing her sales pitch =P They would also pack it for us for us for easy transporting around. She also demonstrated that their packing is so good that eventhough they throw the package on the floor, the honey would not be damaged (meaning that the airport staff who rough handle those packages, there is not going to be a problem). Finally, some of us bought the special honey.
Jeju lady pitching us their honey
After honey shopping, we had lunch. We're gonna have roast pork. Errr... I don't take pork ler... I opted for a vegetarian meal. =P We noticed that Michael always drinks Coke and we asked him why is it so. He said it taste good! Really ar? We asked him, can we try some Korean Coke. Then he started openning Cokes for everyone and he paid for all the Cokes under his own expense! Thanks Michael! What do ya know... the Coke tasted the same as Malaysian Coke XD~~~ only thing special is the Coke is packaged in a 600ml glass bottle.
Roast pork
Vegetarian meal with lots of mushrooms and cucumber
Next we headed to the Chongjiyeon Waterfall. The waterwall is not very magnificent but there are lots of people taking photos here. Things to buy here are their Cactus Taffy. Didn't find it at any other place.
A lady presenting the Chongjiyeon Waterfall =P
Closer view of the Chongjiyeon Waterfall
2 stuffed toy machine on the roadside O_o o_O
Next, we headed for the Oedolgae (King Stone). The name came from a legend that General Cheoeyeoung disguised the rock to appear like a giant military general to scare off Mongolian soldiers who wanted to conquer Korea. The enemy soldiers were so terrified that they all committed suicide. The scenery here is very bootifol! The Oedolgae has one of the best scenery on Jeju Island. Oedolgae is a MUST VISIT!
Signboard to the Oedolgae
The Oedolgae
Another view of the Oedolgae
View from the hill near the Oedolgae
Another view from the hill near the Oedolgae
Another view from the hill near the Oedolgae (One of the best photo shot I've taken for the whole trip!) ^_^
Next we headed to windmills next to Lotte Hotel Cheju, which is a filmming site for another Korean Drama "All In" (Haven't watch this drama yet). Lotte Hotel Cheju is renowed as the best and most expensive hotel in Korea, it is often called a "palace of romance and dreams". Behind the hotel there is 3 windmills and some ponds.
On the way we passed the Jeju World Cup Stadium. This stadium was built especially for the World Cup in 2002. This stadium was damaged by typhoon and the government did not want to spend the money repairing it. So, it's closed to the public as for now.
Jeju World Cup Stadium
Windmill - View from the top
Windmill
Double Windmills
"All In" Filming Site - Caught a Hong Kong couple doing the famous pose from "All In"
Lotte Hotel Cheju (Korea's most expensive hotel) - Looks majestic and abit like our Golden Horses Palace at The Mines
It's about 5:30 and the sky is already getting dark. We headed to a restaurant near our hotel (1 hour to get back to the hotel -_-). We had korean seafood steamboat for dinner XD~
Korean seafood steamboat
After the delicious dinner, we headed back to the hotel. Most of them went back to the hotel to rest but a few of us went to explore the nite market and the shops. Interesting to know that there are a lot FILA (sells sport stuff) shops everywhere. There are kuda gaming machines at their gaming shops. Their kuda gaming machines is very modern compared to ours =P
Cutti - Yup! I'm on cuti now =P
Caught the sotong pic, behind the restaurant. I've have not seen sotongs in aquariums in Malaysia. Immediately I shouted sotong and took a pic of those blur sotongs. After taking the pic, I noticed a boy standing next to the aquarium looking stunned and stoned. Oh yeah! Now I remember that sotong in Korean is vulgar language. I looked at the boy and quickly left and was laffing sillyly. Felt sorry for the boy though.
Sotong! =X
After buying some snacks from those 7-eleven type shops, we headed back to the hotel because most of the shops are closed.
Most shops are closed by 9:30pm
At the hotel, we watched some funny Korean movie about a gangster boss's son attending school. How he tried to have a low profile and will always get bullied. But he cannot hold it anymore and he unleashed his terror and was whacking all the school bullies. Had a good laugh and went to bed about 11:30pm. Zzzz.....
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