Korea Trip Day 4-6: JEJU Island!

Day 4: To JEJU!

We headed over to Jeju island on our fourth day in Korea via a domestic flight. It's my first time on such a small tiny plane, so I was a little anxious lol.

Transportation
Public transportation within Jeju island is quite limited, so most people will either rent a car or rent a taxi. We chose to rent a car because I wasn't very comfortable with having a stranger tag along with us. I mean, what if it's awkward, and what if we just can't get along, language barrier problem etc...plus renting a car is so much cheaper. In the end i persuaded R to just go with car rental. He was quite nervous at first because it's been awhile since he last sat behind the steering wheel, and he needed time to get used to left-hand drive. Luckily everything went well! Didn't even leave a scratch on the car!

Navigation: You can always request for an English navigation system to guide you along. Make sure to take down the telephone number of the attraction because that's the most accurate thing to input into the navigation system (even more accurate than street address).

Car rental: KT Kumho (Join their free membership to get huge discounts on rental. 40% off if I'm not wrong).

Accommodation
We stayed at the Breakfast at Tiffany's Pension which is owned by a lovely couple! The owners spoke really good English and were of great help during our stay.

It started to rain once we reached our accommodation in the late afternoon, so we were pretty much trapped in our room. It's a good thing we selected a better accommodation, so still quite shiok la.

There's a little map in the room with information about dining places and mini marts within 5min driving distance from the pension, and we decided to head down to one of the restaurant for dinner after it stopped raining. 

We ordered kimchi soup and Jeju's famous abalone porridge!

This was so good, we went down again on our last night!

We called it a day after dinner and turned in pretty early in preparation for a full day of activity the next day!

Day 5: Cheonjiyeon Falls, Jusangjeolli Cliffs, Teddy Bear Museum!

The cherry blossoms were starting to bloom in Jeju and it was such a beautiful sight! <3

Our first stop was the Cheonjiyeon falls! In order to reach the waterfall, we had to walk along a trail, and thankfully the weather was wonderful that day...it's like walking through an air-conditioned park!

TADA~ The Cheonjiyeon falls~

Cheonjiyeon actually means "God’s pond," and legend has it that the seven fairies serving the King of Heaven came down to the pond on stairs of cloud and bathed in its clean waters. 

We settled our lunch at some small korean restaurant before heading over to the Jusangjeolli Cliffs.

The  Jusangjeolli Cliffs is another highly popular tourist spot. The cliffs were formed when Mt Hallasan erupted into the sea a few thousand years ago.

There's a viewing gallery on top of the cliff where you can see the waves crashing onto the pillars in full action. The viewing gallery was crowded with tourists, but the cliffs stretches over a long distance, which means you don't have to be on the view gallery to get a good view of the cliffs.

Heh heh, spotted a swing along the way.

We (actually I) discovered this cool little spot which was completely isolated. It's like a little secret beach hidden at the bottom of a tiny stairway. Hahaha, I love adventures.

I think we continued walking for about an hour or so before heading over to...the 

TEDDY BEAR MUSEUM!!!

We took ALOT of photos. I'm not a big fan of bears (I'm more of a cat person), but I don't think anyone can resist hugging these adorable, cuddly little (or big) toys><

Look! She's looking into the camera!

It's like they're alive...

This is one of my favourite sections!

The animated teddy bears! These bears are dressed according to different eras, and they can move too!

These are one of the oldest teddy bears in the world. Manufactured between 1901-1910. 

The Mona Lisa bear. 

The Goong teddy bears!

How adorable!!!

Lastly, paying our respect to the iconic figures at the museum.

We were supposed to go to the Jeju folk museum after this, but the fog got really bad, so we had to abort the plan and head back to our pension.

Day 5 will be our last full day in Jeju!

Day 5: Manjanggul Cave and Seongsan Ilchubong!

Woke up pretty late the next day. I wanted to visit 3 places originally, but I knew we had to make do with just 2 because there's simply not enough time (and Seongsan Ilchubong killed my legs).

We went straight to Manjanggul cave after our light breakfast! Bring an extra jacket if you're planning to visit the cave cos it's pretty chilly in there! Must have been like 10degc or something.

The cave is essentially a lava tunnel and you can see pretty interesting structures formed by pillars, stalagmites and stalactites. 

The stone turtle.

Walked about 1km to the end of the tunnel opened to public!

Seongsan Ilchulbong peak must be the most popular tourist spot in Jeju. We saw tons and tons of tourist buses, and it was really hard to drive up to the parking area because the lanes were jammed up by all the buses. The bus drivers were very aggressive too!

We managed to get up to the parking area after like 15-20min stuck behind and between buses. Luckily they had quite a big car park, so no trouble with parking.

We had to pay a nominal fee to enter, just like any other tourist spot in Jeju, and we were told that the round trip up and down the peak will take about 45min to 1hr. Now, I'm not a sporty/healthy person, but I thought it took us so long to get there, and if other tourists can do it, so can I!

And so it began, our trip up the peak.

It.was.so.hard.

I had to take a rest every 2-3min:(

See how steep it is?!!!!!

After what felt like eternity...we reached the peak!!!!!

This is the huge crater at the top of the peak. 

Just look at the view! I think it's worth it ><

One last selfie before we headed down. 

Going down wasn't as bad because they built another set of stairway which wasn't as steep as the one we climbed up with. I think I have some sort of irrational fear of going down long stairways. I can imagine/see myself going down the steps, but my legs just won't listen. My legs refuse to move fast and I have to hold on to the railings out of the fear of falling.

There was a Starbucks near the car park, so I grabbed a Cherry Blossom Latte after the epic hike. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Wheeee~

And that's the end of our trip to Jeju island!

We covered most of the places that we had planned to visit, except for Jeju Folk Village Museum, Udo Island and Mt Hallasan!

That's all for now and I'll be back with our trip to Busan and our last few days in Seoul!