Private Tour in Jeju - Day 3

Finally onto the last day of the private tour in Jeju! We stayed overnight on this day and flew to Seoul the next day! Here's the itinerary.

Day 3: 
1. Hallim Park
Halim park is a pretty big park. It's more like a botanical garden that provides insight to different plants around the world. What's unique is there are two caves in the park where you can learn about cave formation and structures.

Map of Hallim Park

Inside cactus garden

One of the bonsai!

A story featured in one of the caves

Parrot that says an-yeo-ha-sae-yo!

Maple tree!

Waterfall in the park, I think it's man-made

And a peacock! There's also a bird sanctuary in the park

2. Hyupjae Beach
Hyupjae beach is just another beach near Hallim Park - nothing much to do there, I'm not sure why we went there. It was windy and we didn't spend time at the beach, so no photos here!

3. Mount Sabang & Suweolbong
This is the place where we had nice seafood lunch, and then watch the hanyeo show and climbed the sunrise peak. It's a pity that it was cloudy and foggy that day, however, the peak proved to be worth the climb nonetheless.

At the bay where the hanyeo show took place

Hanyeo getting ready to enter the water

Starting the climb after hanyeo show

Midway up sunrise peak

At the sunrise peak - it's actually a caldera, and despite the fog, we could still see the base of the caldera! It was super windy and thought we like to stay up there a while we decided to descend.

And the descend is literally down a flight of steps!

4. O’sulloc Green tea Museum
Being a fan of green tea, we went to the green tea museum!

Here's the green tea field!

And so this concludes the Jeju tour! When in Jeju, remember to take the seafood, pork BBQ and try their local restaurants (without the tour guide). We had 4 days (including the first day when we landed mid-day), and it was a little too much, so you can consider having three full days to cover Jeju! Nonetheless we appreciated the relaxing pace :)

Private Tour in Jeju - Day 2

Here's the itinerary we had for Day 2:

Day 2:
1. Woljeongli beach
After setting off from the guesthouse, we passed by this beach. When we asked our tour guide why this beach is so famous, she said it's just because it's popular with tourists. I have no idea that this beach is popular with tourists. After some google search, this link turned up.

The sand is really white, and the beach is dotted with cafés. Heavy winds though!~

Inside one of the cafés, almost all cafés have some theme of sort.

So this spot is good if you have spare time and just want to chill out and relax. I would stay here for a few hours, until lunch, and laze around for the day. Actually it gives people inspiration to do things. This is a very creative place.

2. U-do
U-do, or Cow's Island, is named as such because when viewed from the air, the island shapes like a cow. While the guide told us we only need two hours on the island, IT'S NOT TRUE. We spent 4 hours on the island and when we returned to the main island, she thought we were lost.

The reason why we needed four hours is because the shuttle bus which brings us around the island takes off every half an hour, and it takes an hour to go around the island. There are four stops in total, so if you were to visit all stops, you'll need 6 hours minimum, and 8 hours if you want a comfortable trip. But we were only interested in the peanut ice-cream so we didn't miss anything much.

Outcrop on U-do

From the outcrop overlooking the island. U-do is mainly an agricultural island

Clear waters on the island

Okay, the peanut ice-cream wasn't anything spectacular, I'm not a fan of peanuts. But this biscuit is nice:)

3. Seongsan illchulbong peak & Women diver show
U-do island is really near the Seongsan illchulbong peak (Sunrise Peak), so that's the consolation we have. If there's one thing to improve on this day's itinerary, it's to skip U-do and spend more time at the beach and this peak.

We were a bit disappointed with the weather that day! It was cloudy and raining. But don't mind the weather, it's still worthwhile to make a visit!

Went into the attraction and down these steps to watch the Hanyeo show!

Yes, the hanyeo show is within the sunrise peak attraction, so when you go into the sunrise peak, be sure to enter at specific timing to catch the hanyeo show. The hanyeo is a dying trade in Korea. When men left the island many years ago to escape from hard work, women took up the responsibility of raising the family by diving into the sea and fishing for seafood.

The bay where hanyeo did their diving show; you don't see the fog ya?

Hanyeo doing the ritual before going into the water, the oldest among them is over 80

Halfway up the sunrise peak!

Finally at the top of the peak!

Though I admit the view would have been better if it was sunny, it's better than what we expected. You would still be able to see the depression and vegetation on the caldera left behind by the extinct volcano. The photo we had didn't do the view justice!

And the climb down is somewhat more straightforward, just a flight of stairs down the peak!

4. Seungup traditional village
And for the last point of our tour in Day 2, we went to a traditional village in Jeju. The houses in this village have purposely been left as they were since pre-war times. It's cherished by the government as a cultural heritage and the citizens receive subsidies to stay in the village and maintain their traditional way of living, for the purpose of tourism. This is also where the hanyeo lived.

This is how the traditional village looked like. They did filming for drama series here too!

Explaining the stuff around the village, and this mill that grinds horse bones :)

So that ends Day 2!

Private tour in Jeju - Day 1

Since there were five of us, we took a private tour in Jeju. We had done the tour booking through a travel agency, but found out that you can contact the tour guides directly to save you some middleman fees. However, these tour guides are not easy to find. If you understand Korean, you can visit naver.com, alternatively, you can contact me and I'll drop you a couple of tour guides contacts.

Anyways, here's a list of places we went. The private tour took three days in all, the itinerary we had was roughly easy. If you prefer a faster paced tour and like to add more places to it, it is possible to do so.

Day 1:
1. Mysterious road
It's a short stretch of road, about 200m where you appear to go downhill when in fact you are traveling uphill! A very confusing stretch of road.

When you're on this direction, it appears you're going downhill. But in actual fact you're travelling uphill!

This phenomen was discovered by a taxi driver when he parked his car on this stretch of road to take a break. When he returned from the toilet break the car was gone, it moved off on its own!

When you're on the road, you can pour some water on the road and see the water flowing "uphill". Or you can roll a bottle on the ground and see it go uphill!

And surprise! On the way out from Mysterious Road we saw some sakura! It was a pleasant surprise because we were supposed to miss the sakura!

2. Eoseungsaengak trail
This trail brings you up a hill top where you can see the whole of Jeju city (North of Jeju Island) and the peaks on Hallasan. The view at the top is amazing. There're many crows so I had fun imitating their crowing sounds! :)

At the base of the trail

On the top of the trail!

And surprise! Saw a halo rainbow at the top of the trail too!~

Won't spoil the view on the mid-way and up the top of the trail!

3. Teddy bear museum
Honestly, I'm not sure why I am here. It happens when you travel in a group and some folks want a visit. It's a small museum, but it's overflowing with teddy bears! Here's a few pictures to share!

Korean teddy bear

Life-sized teddy bears!

4. Jusangjeolli
This is a coastal area where naturally formed hexagonal columns. According to our tour guide, these rocks are naturally formed! I had tummy ache after teddy bear museum and most of the time at this attraction was spend in the loo. But nonetheless, we took some photos!!

Click on the photo to zoom in and see the hexagonal columns!

Nature's work that looks so human!

One more image to show it!

5. Yakcheon temple
So after going to the coast we went up a hill to visit a temple. Nothing much going on in here actually.

Orange trees lined up the road leading up to the temple!

Here's the temple!

Temple view from afar, where we parked before walking up!

6. Jeongbang waterfall
The unique thing about this waterfall is it leads directly into the sea!

You'll need to climb down some stairs and over some rocks to reach the waterfall!

Couldn't see the tourists from the above picture ya? Here they are! It's crowded!

Will continue Day 2 on the next post!

Day one at Jeju

We took train from Incheon to Gimpo airport. There are two options available - you can either take the express train or the all-stop train. There isn't much difference in the time needed between the two, and since the all-stop train is cheaper, we went for that option!

And Gimpo airport isn't exactly very small. There's both international and domestic parts to the airport. Beside the domestic airport, there's a car park and a Lotte Mall opposite it. If your transit time is long enough, you can consider shopping at the mall.



So we stayed at the airport and went off to Jeju! It's a nice one-hour flight. Budget airline nothing much to fuss over. We went to the hotel immediately on landing, and it was pretty easy to get a taxi.

We caught Nanta performance that night, it was superb, better than Jump! in my opinion! That concludes our first day in Jeju!

Night one at Incheon Airport, Seoul

So for this trip we'll be in Korea for eleven days and eleven nights. There was a promo on Singapore airlines, and we took it and got the flights for a reasonably affordable price! Good to keep a lookout here and there to get tickets for your trips!

The good thing about travelling on SQ is they offer excellent passenger service and their luggage allowance is 30kg per pax. However, I was still pretty sore about them overbooking and "kicking" me off a flight some years back.

There is a time difference of one hour between Singapore and Korea. We took a direct flight and went from Singapore to Seoul in about 6 hours. Overall the flight was pretty smooth and there were Korean air stewardess on board the flight! If you are taking Korean air, you must try their in flight Bibimbab. No such option on the SQ menu though. :)

When we landed it was 10pm (Seoul time), and I was hungry. So we went scouting for meals and tried food from a local fast food chain. Wild shrimp burger and meat burger was nice!

Then we wanted to go to the Spa on Air lounge (kind of like a semi-hotel spa and rest place at the airport) to stay over night before our morning transit and flight to Jeju Island. But the spa was full. You can call in advance to make booking but we didn't do that. So end up sleeping in public area. Second time for me, feeling's the same, just chill-lax and lazing on the sofas.

So the sun is rising and here I am posting, going to freshen up and continue flight into Jeju! More posts coming up!