Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Travelogue: Korea Winter Trip 2013: Day Four (Jeongbang Waterfall, Manjanggul Lava Tube, Seongsan Ichulbong, Columnar Joint)

Click here if you have missed out my day 3 post.



We woke up to snowing! It was so beautiful that I had to video it down to remember it.

From our suites' balcony.

After being fascinated about snow and snowing, I had a good breakfast that was provided by Jejueco Suites. Blueberry jam with toast, eggs, banana milk (which I bought the day before) and cereals.



Mr Koh came and pick us up at 9am and our 2nd day of Jeju trip kicks off!

First stop, Jeongbang Waterfall. You need to pay ₩2,000 entrance fee.







Here's a video of the waterfall. See if you can spot a tiny rainbow in the video.

After spending a short 30 minutes of photo taking and admiring the scenery, we took an hours' ride towards Manjanggul Lava Tube. As usual, I snoozed throughout the journey.

One shot before I snoozed. Hahahahaha.

When we arrived at Manjanggul, it was raining icicles (or ice droplets I don't know but I shall name them icicles) and the wind was very strong. I swear I hate these icicles and this isn't the last dealing with them just yet.


As stated entrance fee is ₩2,000 per adult.

It is recommended to go to the loo first before you embark on the Lava Tube journey because it'd take 1 hour plus for you to finish walking the entire tube. The entire tube is dark and damped and it's not as cold as it is compared to outside. There are bats sleeping inside, we didn't see any flying around though. It's rocky and uneven so becareful.




This reminded me of my recent ilummi run in Singapore.

When you see this, you're at the end of the trail. Then it's time to u-turn and walk back to exit.

After the very long walk, we set out for lunch. This time, we told Mr Koh that we want a cheap and good food place.

Before reaching our lunch destination, Mr Koh drove along the Pacific Ocean. It was a great view.



Honestly, I have no idea where did he brought us to. It was a random country side restaurant where we didn't see any English menu. Thankfully for Mr Koh, he settled the orders for us and even cooked for us. While we just watched on and waited to be fed.





And this is the must eat Jeju black pork!


Here's our Chef Koh at work.

Seeing this video makes me hungry..


He also taught us how to eat them in Korean style. Wrap it all up with the vegetables and put everything in  your mouth in 1 mouthful!

Love bean paste and bean paste soup!

Mr Koh explained that these smaller restaurants do not provide lunch for tour guides hence we have to pay for his share. In my opinion, I would rather have cheap and good food together with him then having to pay a lot more. Besides, how much can he eat? Some tour guides indicate that you need to pay their lunch, for Mr Koh it wasn't included for him. But because we requested to eat somewhere else, we agreed to pay for his lunch. And man, it was really good. Totally love Korean BBQ with bean paste sauce! (I always eat up at least 2 saucer portion worth of bean paste!) I forgot to mention, for 5 of us we each only had to pay about ₩18,000. It is very worth it.

After having a delicious BBQ meal we were all set to conquer Seongsan Ichulbong! Mr Koh prepared raincoats for us too! How thoughtful :)


So you see the orange trail? That's how you come back after climbing up. 

Mr Koh didn't join us for the climb but told us he will wait for us at the car park after 1 hour. (I don't think we made it on time, we definitely took longer then that) After taking some photos for us, he left us to climb...

The climb was pretty tough because of the strong wind and halfway we met with falling icicles from the sky and I tell you, when it slaps your face, man it hurts! Anyhow, we made it through up and down. Good job to us! Below are some shots I took along the way.


This is where the women divers would perform daily at 11am and 3:30pm. We didn't get to see the performance though.

The water is absolutely beautiful.

Can you spot another rainbow? The route behind us is just the beginning.

Here we go! The steps gradually gets rockier.


Taken at one of the pit stops.


At the end of the stairway, this is the view you'd see.

At the peak now.




And happy going down. The steps down are man made stairs. Those grey straps are 'stoppers' that help to prevent falls.

After the climb we went back to look for Mr Koh and he brought us to another location. And I snoozed another time... So shagged out from the climbing hahahhaa.

大長今 was big hit back in 2003 when it was first aired. I didn't watch the entire show though but I do know about this famous drama. So Mr Koh brought us to this place where they film this show. There's nothing much here except the beautiful scenery and the story of the stones.

So here we are!



Mr Koh shared with us that the sculpture with some grass growing on it is supposedly to look like the wife and there is another sculpture in front laying down which supposedly is the husband. The story goes that the husband is a fisherman while the wife stays at home. So one day the husband met an accident in the sea and died so the wife waited by the sea everyday for him to come back. So the wife sculpture should look like she is kneeling down and praying while the husband sculpture is just lying flat showing he is dead.



We enjoyed the scenery for awhile before heading off to the last location of the day. Anyway, it is super duper cold because of the wind.

Last sightseeing in Jeju ended at Jusang Jeollidae Columnar Jointed Lava in Jungmun. If I haven't forget, the entrance fee is ₩2,000 per adult to go in.


It's another beautiful scenery to enjoy and take photographs.





Here's our awesome photographer/driver/chef/tour guide for Jeju. He goes all out just to take the most beautiful picture for you. (He is all wrapped up because it's really cold there.)






After Columnar Joint, instead of sending us back to the suite, we asked Mr Koh to bring us to this place that he recommended for nice 炸醬麵. Before Mr Koh left us, he helped us order and made sure that the restaurant would help us call for a cab later for us to get home. We bid good bye to him and added him on Facebook. Hahhahahaa.





This was probably the cheaper meal so far in Korea that cost us ₩6,000 and the portion is too generous that I couldn't finish. Anyway, it's all seafood, not much meat.

As promised, the restaurant helped us in getting a cab back to our suite. Since it was the last night in Jeju, they all stayed up to watch some soccer, packing before heading to sleep.

Jeju is so beautiful. Most importantly, I saw my first snow, first icicle, first snowman here. I'd come back again someday and stay longer.

If you're on the way to Seoul, take some time off to Jeju and enjoy mother nature. It's good for us once in awhile.

***

Day 5 preview...



1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing, was there recently and brought back fond memories. Hope to be back someday!

    ReplyDelete