South Korea Trip Day 2: 10 February 2014, Monday - Jeju Island
韩国之旅第二天：2月10日2014年, 星期一 - 济州岛
Attractions for the day:
- Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak) 城山日出峰 [Google Maps Link]
- Seongeup Folk Village 城邑民俗村 [Google Maps Link]
- Trick Art Museum 幻觉艺术馆 [Google Maps Link]
- Jeju Glass Castle 玻璃城 [Google Maps Link]
- Osulloc Tea Museum 噢!雪绿茶博物馆 [Google Maps Link]
- Teddy Bear Museum 小熊博物馆 [Google Maps Link]
Accommodation for the day:
Jeju Oriental Hotel 济州东方酒店 [Google Maps Link]
It was the second day of our trip in Jeju, Korea. We had buffet breakfast at the hotel. Pretty good stuff and there was a wide variety of food.
Dear's favourites, waffles and cereals.
Dear seems to be really enjoying her breakfast.
It's gonna be a long day, so better eat up!
After breakfast, we boarded our coach and we were brought to our first attraction for the day - Seongsan Ilchulbong, or Sunrise Peak, (城山日出峰). It was around 10am and there were already plenty of tourists in the area. We alighted from our coach, which was parked at the designated parking area just outside the entrance of the Sunrise Peak area. There were also plenty of food and souvenir stores around the parking area. Our tour guide, Andy, gave us an hour to explore the whole of the attraction. Therefore we quickly entered the place and started taking pictures with the various displays near the entrance.
Our destination is right ahead.
Map of the area.
Taking a picture with the sundial.
It's a long trek to the top.
Seongsan Ilchulbong is one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.
The path leading to the foot of the tuff cone was kinda uneven at certain parts. But it became better once we reached the steps that led to the top of the tuff cone. The stairs were made of wood, set against the volcanic rocks of the tuff cone. How did the Koreans build such staircases along those rocks!? Halfway through our ascent, we stopped for a while to catch our breathe. The chilling wind blowing against our faces and other exposed areas was a stark contrast to the immense heat generated inside our bodies after climbing such heights. Really felt quite uncomfortable as we were sweating on the inside but our faces were freezing. Had to loosen our winter wear to let some cold air into our inner clothing to cool our bodies down. Along the way plenty of other tourists were making their way down, while many were going up as well.
Halfway to the top.
A few hundreds of steps to go!
After about 20 minutes of climbing, we finally reached the summit of Seongsan Ilchulbong! We've got a magnificent view of the surrounding town and sea. It was also freezing cold at the summit. But guess what? After the arduous climb, we were only 180m above sea level. I thought we were at least 500m or so above sea level lol. We spent some time at the top admiring the bird's eye view of the surrounding areas, while enduring the winter chill and taking quite a few pictures. Then we thought we should be heading back to the coach since there wasn't much time left. Going down was way easier of course and we made it back to the souvenir shop area near the entrance with lightning speed.
Yes we've reached the top!
Bird's eye view of the surrounding area. Everything became so small.
Tired but we are glad we finally made it to the top.
View of the town area.
There's not much at the top except some platforms and barren land.
Are you sure we're only 180m above sea level after that tiring climb!?
Momo Dear is the 8th Wonder of Nature lol.
We did not get any local products or souvenirs but quickly hopped onto our coach to rest our tired legs and to cool ourselves down, while warming our exposed areas with heat pack and drinking warm water. It really was a pretty bad way of getting ourselves sick by having different parts of our bodies experience extreme temperatures at the same time.
Next in our itinerary was the Song-up Folk Village. Our local guide specially from the village, was a lady who spoke in fluent Mandarin. It seemed like most of the people who made their livelihood in tourism had to learn to speak Mandarin, as most tourists in Korea, or any other countries in fact, are mainly Chinese. We were showed the various activities that the people in ancient times did in Korea. The structures within the folk village were all kept in their most original forms and to show tourists how the people in Korea lived back in the past.
A black pig here on display.
This pretty lady is our guide for the folk village tour.
This folk village was one of the places that the massively popular Korean drama, Dae Jang Geum, or 大长今, was filmed at.
The guide explained that the sticks were meant to poke the black pig if it came too near you when you're doing your business at the spot where the brick is at.
If all 3 poles are down, it means the owner is home and guests are welcome.
After the folk village tour, we were then brought to a small room where the guide started promoting their local products - honey, five flavour tea, and horse bone powder. My mother tasked me to buy some of the five flavour tea back, and so we did. I wouldn't even have thought of buying such stuff otherwise!
After the sales pitch, it was finally time for lunch! It was black pork BBQ. Nothing really fanciful, but still mouth-watering nonetheless. Couldn't really tell the difference between a normal pork and black pork lol. A few side dishes and seaweed soup to go along and it became a wonderful meal.
It's Korean black pork BBQ for lunch!
With plenty of veggies.
Right after lunch, we made a visit to the Trick Art Museum. There were so many trick art pieces on display that I had to write a dedicated post for it.
Visit this dedicated post of our Trick Art Museum experience.
Once we were done at the Trick Art Museum, our next destination was the Jeju Glass Castle, a glass-themed tourist attraction. I have also created a dedicated post for it since it was a really huge place with plenty of glass art pieces on display.
Visit this dedicated post of our Jeju Glass Castle experience.
After visiting two attractions with so many different art pieces, we were then brought to the Osulloc Tea Museum for some relaxation. The museum itself was surrounded by acres of tea plantations. There was also a cafe in the museum where visitors could have some snacks, as well as a store where plenty of souvenirs like teapots, tea, green tea facial products, accessories could be bought.
We did not really spend any time on any of the tea museum exhibits, but merely visiting the cafe to have some green tea Swiss roll and green tea ice-cream. The food was pretty good, while it was a nice way to relax ourselves sitting in the cafe enjoying these desserts. Dear then bought a green tea facial wash from the store. I think it's a pretty good product and washes off the oil and dirt on my face very cleanly. We would probably buy it again if we were ever there again.
We did not really spend any time on any of the tea museum exhibits, but merely visiting the cafe to have some green tea Swiss roll and green tea ice-cream. The food was pretty good, while it was a nice way to relax ourselves sitting in the cafe enjoying these desserts. Dear then bought a green tea facial wash from the store. I think it's a pretty good product and washes off the oil and dirt on my face very cleanly. We would probably buy it again if we were ever there again.
Osulloc Tea Museum, sure worth a visit.
We tried some green tea Swiss roll and some green tea ice-cream. They taste really good!
There was a lift near the entrance and we decided to check out what's on the upper floors. We actually found that it led to the top floor where one could see the surrounding landscape, with all the tea plantations and greenery that Jeju-do had to offer.
We can see plenty of green tea plantations all around the museum.
Momorange loves green tea.
A giant teacup made out of tea leaves and plants by the roadside.
For our next attraction, we visited the Teddy Bear Museum. This museum contained so many teddy bears that I could not actually take a picture of every single one of them. Even walking through the whole museum and actually looking at every single teddy bear on display could probably take the whole day. That being said, here's another dedicated post on the Teddy Bear Museum to share the many fascinating teddy bears being displayed at the museum.
Visit this dedicated post of our Teddy Bear Museum experience.
After we exited from the Teddy Bear Museum, the sun was setting and our next item would be dinner. But before we left, there was still a bit of time for us to explore these two strange-looking buildings right across the road. Those were buildings belonging to a Starbucks Coffee outlet, as well as another tourist attraction, Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Dear and I briefly went to check out the Starbucks outlet before boarding the coach.
The Starbucks and Ripley's Believe Or Not buildings right across the road seem to be made to have similarly weird designs.
These purple cabbage-like flowers outside the Teddy Bear Museum look gorgeous. Not sure what kind of flowers they were.
I love you! Found at the steps leading up to the Starbucks. There were many other words in various other languages.
A close-up shot of the Starbucks Coffee building with Momo Dear.
Found this metallic dinosaur between the Starbucks and Ripley's Believe It Or Not buildings.
Wonder what interesting things they have inside.
Along the way to dinner, we saw that the roads had started accumulating snow. Yes it started snowing! It was Dear's first sight of real snow. Got her pretty excited.
Snapped some pictures of the snowy roads while on board our coach.
Our dinner was at a restaurant serving some seafood steamboat dinner. Dear and I were not big fans of seafood but still pretty much enjoyed the dinner. There were prawns, mussels, amongst various other types of simple seafood.
Seafood steamboat dinner.
The side dishes to accompany our steamboat dinner.
The end of dinner also marked the end of our itinerary for the day. We were brought back to our hotel by 8pm. It was a really tiring day as we had visited so many attractions within one day. But that didn't stop us from exploring our hotel itself. We hadn't had a chance to see what facilities there were in our hotel so we decided to do a bit of exploration. We even visited the casino situated at the ground floor. It was a very small casino and it only took us one minute to walk one round inside it.
The Royal Palace Casino within the hotel.
A bar within our hotel.
There's even a man-made waterfall seen from the hotel lobby.
Spacious reception of our hotel.
Tiring day but after having been to so many attractions and experienced so many things in Jeju-do, it was well worth the effort and energy. It was our last day at Jeju-do and there were probably tonnes of other activities for us to try out. Definitely a good place to visit again in the future.
Jeju Oriental Hotel
Address: 47 Tapdong-ro, Samdo 2(i)-dong, Cheju, Jeju-do, South Korea
Tel: +82-64-752-8222
Website: http://www.oriental.co.kr
For a list of the hotels/resorts available for booking in Jeju via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Jeju Oriental Hotel, click here.
Links to our South Korea Trip 2014
Day 1 - Jeju Island 济州岛
Day 2 - Jeju Island - Trick Art Museum 济州岛 - 幻觉艺术博物馆
Day 2 - Jeju Island - Jeju Glass Castle 济州岛 - 玻璃城堡
Day 2 - Jeju Island - Teddy Bear Museum 济州岛 - 泰迪熊博物馆
Day 3 - Nami Island 南怡岛, Seorak Waterpia 韩华温泉水上乐园
Day 4 - Yongpyong Resort 龙平豪华度假村
Day 5 - Everland 爱宝乐园, Lotte World 乐天世界
Day 5 - Everland 爱宝乐园
Day 5 - Lotte World 乐天世界
Day 6 - Ice Gallery 冰雕艺术体验馆, Myeondong 明洞, Namdaemun 南大门, Jump Show JUMP 演出
Day 7 - Mapo Agricultural and Marine Products Market 麻浦农水产物市场
Souvenirs
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