Jeju & Seoul (Nov-2009)

This is a continuation of our Korea trip writeup that i have been trying to complete. Long overdue but better than not. After completing our hike up Mount Hallasan (in another blog post), the next day was a full day self-drive in Jeju to visit some of the attractions. Weather was great for a morning start. We began a slow drive from our hotel, Seogwipo KAL hotel, all the towards the eastern side of the island to visit the famous Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrisk Peak) (성산일출봉), . From Seongwipo, we took highway 1131 heading north and switch to the eastern roads via 1119 which led all the way to Sunrise Peak. From a distance we got excited after seeing the peak from a distance, the way the morning mist created by the waves crashing on the rocks. Access road to the peak goes along a narrow strip of land that connects the peak and the rest of the island.

Seongsan Ilchulbong

Car parked just by the sea

Narrow strip of land linking Sunrise Peak.

We made a short detour to an un-mark scenic spot (as above) that showed the entire Sunrise peak with the sea between us. The morning sun and the green mosses on the rocks gave a natural photo shot that we took many pictures without getting the rush to get there. It took us another 15mins to reach the big open space car park right in front of the entrance to the Sunrise Peak park. It was still early and there were only a few cars and one or two tour buses only.

Tourist Shops at Sunrise Peak

Egg Sandwich

We went into one of the shops that served breakfast and of course lots of goodies from momentos to local produce, esp the orange chocolates. Could not recall the price of the ticket, but just how long it took us to reach the top. Guess it was about 25mins, lotsa steps to climb though. The day before, we were treking on snow at Mount Hallasan, and today cool and dry up the steps to the top of Sunrise Peak. Weather was good to us and we could see Mt Hallasan from a distance, recognizing the snow white peak. Well Mt Hallasan is the highest point in Jeju and the entire South Korea, so it would not be difficult to spot it anything in Jeju.

Summit of Sunrise Peak (early winter)

At the summit, the crater was brownish in colour, waiting for the coming of full winter. But with its proximity to the coast, weather on the coastal areas of Jeju will be mild when compared to mainland Korean penisula. As we made our descent back to the carpark, there were busloads of tourists making their way up the rocky path which I preferred it to be just cement or plain dirt path. The rounded small stone paths really make the walking difficult.

Tourists making their way up

A short visit to the shops to purchase some cone ice-cream before hopping into our car for the drive to our next destination, The Manjanggul Lava Tubes, another World Heritage Site. Driving around in Jeju is all about knowing where the main highway leads to. From Sunrise Peark, we took the same highway 1119 before switching to 1132 which leads runs towards the northern coastline. A left turn near Woljeong-ri (look out for english signboards) which run southwards to the Lava Tube site. Before we arrived, we took a detour to see the windmill dotted coastline and chance upon a off the beaten track location. We took time off from driving and enjoyed the seabreeze.

Windmills by the sea

Statue of the mermaids of jeju. Haenyeo (woman diver)

 
Around noon time, we reached the Manjanggul Lava Tube. Parking was free, so we just have to pay for the ticket to go into the caves. It was dark and cool. The entire cave runs about 13km long, but only 1km is open to tourists. The pictures shown below were taken using long exposure. It is quite dark inside and took us some time to adjust to the dim lighting.

Description of the Lave Tubes

Inside the lava tube

The "turtle" statue at the end of the lava tube

At the end of the path was a so called stone-turtle rock structure (lava stalagmites). Not something was overly impressive but at least something different and you wont see it along the entire tube. It took us about an hour and half to complete the walk.

BingBingBak

Lunch was settled at the nearby restaurant. As it was not peak season, crowd was only 2 families and we had the time luxury to slowly choose our lunch. Being a tourist place, menus comes in English version as well.

It was already 2pm after we had our lunch at the Manjanggul Lava Tube location. Time for to head back south, but we decided to visit some of the other attractions along the way. They were the O'Sulloc tea museum, the Sex Museum, Glass Museum and the Teddy Bear Museum. Didn't sound possible but we managed to cover them all. Only to have our dinner settle around 8pm when we were driving back along a highway to Seogwipo.

O'Sulloc Tea Museum

Infront of the tea plantation

We didn't spent too much time at the O'Sulloc tea museum. Saw the rows of tea leaves plantation, and the museum shop which has demostration on tea making, preparation and of course the art of making tea. Price of the teas were well "expensive" for a non-tea junkie like myself. I like tea, but not to the extent of indulging myself to expensive teas. Again a quick stop at O'Sulloc (after a long 2 hour drive from lava tube), and off to our next destination, the Glass Museum.

Jeju Glass Art Museum

Part of the exhibits at the Glass Art Museum

The Glass Museum, resembles that of the Glass Museum in Hakone, Japan, but on a smaller scale. We had some hesitation but in the end just got the tickets and explored the place. Maybe we were in a rush, so couldn't really enjoy the place slowly. But honestly, the area was not big and so it was a one hour affair and we were on the road again.


Next was a visit to the sex museum. As we drove into the car park, it was obvious we were at the right place. There are giants statues of genital parts decorating the garden area and the entrance to the museum. If you just want to see the statues that dotted the outside of the museum, then stick to that. Not quite worth the money to pay to see olden days sex tools, and toys, or simply porn on one of their "video" exhibits.

At the entrance

The big book at the entrance

One of the exhibits

Last visit of the day was to the Teddy bear Museum. Again this is the place where the bulk of tour groups visit. We happened to come across our own countryman from some of the tour groups. If you like the cute stuff about bears, then you should come to this place. But if you are from all grown up man group, guess you would have better place to visit.

Decorative Windmills at Lotte Hotel @ Jeju

Parking in Jeju was surprisingly to be free. We park at the Lotte hotel and walked around to see the windmill that the hotel use as decorations. We left the area around 8pm and started the drive back to our hotel at Seogwipo without settling out dinner. In the end we spotted a big supermarket chain near a intercity bus terminal, hoping to buy some snacks or cup noddles in case everything was closed. Luckily they have a cafeteria which serves our favorite Japanese food. Well, it has been days tasting Kim-Chi and was very refreshing going non-Korean.Surprisingly the food tasted great and we shopped around the supermarket for some snacks to munch for the night drive back to Seogwipo.


It was only a few hours of sleep before we woke up at 3:30am to pack our bags and checked out of the hotel. The hotel reception staff woke up from his dreamy sleep and attended to us while we did the check out. Maybe he was wondering why the hell these two fellows woke up at such timing. Well we had a morning 7am flight to catch to head back to Seoul. The roads were quiet and it was raining lightly. We drove up the same mountain road heading north that cuts across Mt Hallasan hiking trail carpark. There are times when the fog was very thick and I had to slow down to 30km/h. It was not that dangerous as incoming cars will be easily spotted by their headlights in total darkness. My concern back then was to stay on the road and not exceeding the barrier at the side. We reached safely at the Jeju airport around 6am. We checked in our bags and went back to sleep in the car while waiting for the rental car company staff to arrive for work.

Within 2 hours of departure from Jeju, we were back at Gimpo Domestic Airport. Before goign to our next stop,Yong Pyong Ski Resort, 200km east of Seoul, we spent some time taking our long awaited breakfast cum lunch at the airport fast food.

Lotteria Fast Food, can be found almost everywhere in Seoul

There are a few ways to get to Yong Pyong Resort. One way is to take the express bus service that departs from Seoul at the Jamsil Station exit #4 near Jamsil Lotte Mart. Advance booking is required as it can get pretty crowded esp during the ski season. Another way is to travel on the public express bus to the town of Hwenggye or Gangnung and from there take their free shuttle bus. But do check with the resort if the shuttle service are running. It didn't for our case after we took a 4hr bus ride from Gimpo Airport to Gangnung. When we got to Gangnung, there was no trace of any bus stop sign that offer the free shuttle service. No one speaks English at the bus terminal but luckily there was a tourist infromation booth and the staff there was helpful using her limited english to communicate with us. She made a few phone calls and the resort told her the shutle bus only runs from Gangnung next month. We were mad at the ressort giving us wrong instructions. We went back to the bus terminal frantically and ask for bus tickets to Hwenggye. The tourist information staff wrote the station Hwenggye in Korean so that we would not end up at the wrong place. A different stroke of the Korean character can send to you a totally different place.

7:45pm at the Ski Field

We were starting to miss the convenience of self-drive. The bus took only 20mins to reach Hwenggye from Gangnung. We alighted at a small bus terminal besides a petrol station and walked to the nearby post office where we were suppose to wait for the free shuttle bus. A bus with big Yong Pyong Resort sign came along and finally, we knew we were going to reach our destination. It was a tiring day of travelling, waking up 3am in the morning tyo drive over misty mountain road and lugging our luggages on planes and buses. We got a nice room with a view of the ski field. The sight of the snow white ski slopes made the traveling worth it.

Yong Pyong Resort Hotel

Western Food, Pizza

We had dinner at a pizza restaurant, ordering pizzas and soft drinks to go along. After dinner, we took a stroll on the ski field, staying close to the edge of the field and meddling with the ice. We had enough of snow fun while hiking up Mt Hallasan just days ago. We turned to our beds earlier than usual as we were dead tired.

Breakfast at the hotel restaurant

Morning crowd at the ski filed

The next morning we woke up to the sounds of chirping birds in winter. We went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast which was western ham and toast with egg and orange juice. Like the ambience and window view of the morning ski field while enjoying hot breakfast. It was only a while before the clouds came and again back to gloomy weather we had before. Today we saw the crowds of skiers renting gears and crowding the restaurants during lunch time. We had our lunch over japanese ramen with gyoza. Don't ask me why we kept going for non-Korean food, maybe it was too much of that while at Jeju.

Hot Ramen for lunch

We took the cable car up to Dragon peak, which is also the summit of Mt Balwang. Mt Balwang is 1458m high and is the 13th highest mountain in South Korea. As the cable car went higher, it began to snow and when we reach the swiss like building structure at the top, it was almost like going out into a blizzard. The wind was strong and visibility was only about 10 meters. Still we wrapped ourselves up and brace the blizzard to venture into the sky garden. IN winter, really could not tell it was a garden, except that there are benches and well guided path. There were still traces of autumn left behind to welcome the winter.

Outside the Phoenix Peak building, at the garden

Signs of autumn leaving and winter coming

Back at the base of the ski field, the weather was calm as seen in the photo below. The clouds were still enshrouding the dragon peak behind us. It was only until night time that we rented ourselves some ski gear and had some fun balancing ourselves down the gentle ski fields.

Skiing for the first time.

We booked the bus tickets for the direct bus service from Yong Pyong to Seoul for the next day. We thought that since we had made the reserve booking, we did not have to go the bus counter earlier. But when we were there 20mins before departure, the bus was almost full. Many local uncles are taking up seats on the aisle blocking standing passengers from taking the seat. And they were not embarrassed of not sharing the seat. It was only when the staff came up and talk to them nicely that they standup to allow us to seat. We did ask politely in english which i didn't think they understand, but is was the body language to them we like to take the inside seat. This could be the culture that the elder folks still hold on to even in these modern times. The bus journey took about 3hours and the air inside the bus was stuffy as no one bothered to open the windows. Yes I knew it was approaching winter, but there just wasn't enough air inside the crowded bus. How I wished back then to take the public express bus instead.


The bus stopped at the Jamil Station exit near Lotte Mart. We took the metro train service to Seoul central centre and walk to our accommodation for 3 nights at the Fraser Serviced apartment. It was the best accommodation we have in our Korea trip.

Streets of MyeongDong

Colourful lights of MyeongDong

First night at the city of Seoul, we were transform from mountain trekers to city dwellers, getting ourselves aquainted to the shopping district of Myeongdong. The crowded streets of shoppers and locals getting their shooping done with bags and bags of purchases reminded us of the Ginza in tokyo, and the XiMengDing of Taipei. Christmas decorations were spotted along the shopping district and many were flocking into shops to look at goods or stay away from the cold outside. It was about close to 5 degree out on the streets. There were many shops like Uniclo, GAP, ZARA, Envisu, etc. Quite similar to those found in Japan.


Day trip to Seonggeoksan

Entering the Seonggeoksan park

Today was a day trip to Seoraksan National Park. Initially planned to stay at Sokcho-si near the park, but due to fully book for those that has english booking service, we decided on a day trip from Seoul to the park. We woke up earlier in the morning, caught the metro train to the Dong Seoul Bus Terminal for the express bus to Sokcho Intercity Bus Terminal. The duration of the journey took about 3hours including a break stop along some highway. we took the 830am bus from Dong Seoul Bus terminal and reached Sokcho around 12 noon. Without wasting much time, we had our lunch at an authentic local korean shop besides the bus terminal which has english menu. From there, we took a taxi all the way to the Seoraksan National Park. It was really crowded as the traffic was heavy and the taxi driver was good enough to let us alight to walk to the entrance instead of waiting in the taxi with the meter running. There is a bus service (7 or 7-1) that runs from the bus stop along the main road of the Sokcho bus terminal to the Seoraksan National Park.

Statue of Budhha

One of the old buildings (like monastery)

 

Wishes were written on roof-like tiles placed near the monastery.

Cable car up tp Gwongeumseong

At the park there is a large Buddha statue which caught our attention. There are also quite many old temples and buildings that looked very old but in good condition. There was the cable car which ferry tourists all the way up to Gwongeumseong. It was early winter and yet the crowd was quite horrible as in crowded. We wait an hour plus for our queue to enter just to queue again. It was about 3:30pm when we reached the top. They are not much place to walk, maybe the area was closed, but many visitors would just take the 20mins hike to Gwongeumseong to get a bird-eye view of Socho city , the beach and the East Sea.

At the Gwongeumseong sign board

At the open area at the end of the walking trail from the cable car station.

There was a big open area (sloped) and many tourists were spreading themselves out to take pictures. A few adventurous one will scale the narrow rock path up to the peak. For me with my proper hiking shoe, no problem (besides waiting for the human traffic to clear) getting to the top but at times i have stood at a precarious angle to allow people to come down. It was a 5 mins climb to the top, and it was actually climbing on all fours.

Me standing on a small rock area waiting for human traffic to clear.

At the top, there was a small makeshift souvenir stall selling momentos for those who climbed to the summit there.

Makeshift stall selling summit medals

View from the summit. East Sea in background

We took the cable car down and left the park. At the park entrance, we took the public bus to the Sokcho city centre. It was about 6pm and we were walking the street deciding on what to have for dinner. In the end, yes you might have guess, non-korean food, we chose a pub that sells fried finger food and order a small glass of beer.

Finger food for dinner plus ice cold beer

We were quite hungry after a day of long travel from Seoul. Knowing that we still have to catch the evening bus service, time was consciously on my mind. We took the public bus back around 7:30pm to the Sokcho Intercity Bus Terminal. The skies looked as if it was already 10pm and the bus terminal only has a few passengers waiting for their buses. Due to a toilet break, we missed the 8pm bus to Seoul and had to wait for the next bus which left at 9pm. Once the bus came, we boarded the bus dozed off to sleep only to wake up for the toilet break stop. Finally we arrived at Seoul around 11:30pm and we were just trying out luck on the metro train which was still running. We alighted at Seoul central station and walked back to our serviced apartment.

Entrance of Changdeokgung

Today was our last full day in Seoul and it was a palace visiting day. We started the morning with a visit to Changdeokgung, one of the UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage List attraction. We took the metro (or subway) to Angik Station and walk over to the entrance of Donhuamun gate. There were tour groups waiting at the gate as they wait for their translator guide provided by the Changdeokgung staff. It was a Singapore tour group, so being a singaporean myself, we tag along and hear some of the information in english. Halfway through we walked at our own pace and left the group behind.

Guard ceremony at Gyeongbokgung

Inside Gyeongbokgung

After leaving Changdeokgung, we made our way via the subway to Gyeongbokgung (Northern Palace), just in time for the guard changing ceremony. The guards were all dresses up like ancient times going through the ceremony back in the olden days. It was a big area to go sight seeing and at the southern Heungnyemun gate, there is the National Palace Museum of Korea and also the National Folk Museum, all paid for from the single ticket we purchased to enter Gyeongbokgung.

Exhibits at the Folk Museum

 
After lunch we took the subway back to Seoul Central station and walked over to Cheonggyecheon Stream. It was said that walking along this restored stream at night will be very romantic and cozy. Too bad we did not came back at night, as we spent the night time shopping at Myeongdong.

Cheonggyecheon stream running through Seoul

Looks like stone tofu

Nam Dae Mun Market

Nam Dae Mun Market

We also wandered ourselves to DongDaeMun and NamDaeMun market. DongDaeMun is more like wholesale market selling bulk clothings, clothes and kitchen wares. NamDaeMun is more happening with lotsa local stores and shops. You will see mainly locals shop around these areas only with bare minimum tourist count.

Wholesale shop for Christmas decorations at Nam Dae Mun Market

Kimchi mixed rice rolls

The streets at night drop to zero degree and we were going in and out of boutique shops to warm ourselves up and as the same time do some shopping. Dinner was settled in a Korean restaurant where we ordered rice cakes mixed with kimchi sauce. We ended the night earlier so that we could pack our bags for the next morning flight home.