Merry Christmas you beautiful people. I hope you had a joyful one. I’m going to write about places I visited in Jeju, including Jeju Trick Art Museum, Stone Park, Jungmun Beach, Teddy Bear Museum and many more. TL;DL: let’s go!!
Short stories:
My experience from Seoul to Jeju-do was not a pleasant one. I booked a two-day island tour from Explore Korea and the owner, Fiona was really really nice. She is really fast in responding our inquiry and everything was in control. We had our hotel booked at Ellui Hotel and our flight was also booked with K*re** A**l***s.
The thing is… our flight was cancelled due to bad weather. It was actually OK with my flight being cancelled because of bad weather because it’s safer to flight during clear weather. The thing is… the airlines made us wait in the airport without any explanation.
First, they said, it’s just delayed and other airlines were still in operation (just delayed). So we waited at the airport for 4 hours. Then they just cancelled the flight without any compensation, not even gave us another flight the next day, not even give us any food or drinks, not even think about us not having hotel for that night.
We got tickets for the next day only after we complained to the manager and it was not even the earliest flight. One day of the tour and hotel were wasted.
Luckily Fiona was really nice and she returned the 1-day payment, and thanks God we got a hotel for a night in Myeongdong area (and it was on discounted price).
…
The next day, our flight was delayed again for 3 hours. I arrived at Jeju-do around 3 PM-ish. Our hotel was located near the airport. It was in the middle of Jeju city. We did not have much time to explore the area, so we decided just to explore around the city.
First Stop: Jeju Stone Park (제주돌문화공원)
Jeju-do is the Southest island in Korea. It’s famous for the beach resorts and volcanic landscape. You can see the longest lava tube at Manjang cave or hike the dormant volcano, Halla-san.
It’s a vast walking area with beautiful sceneries. There’re 3 different routes you can take and you’ll be given a map when you paid the admission fee. Inside, there’s a museum explaining the volcano eruption and the history of Jeju-do. You can also see the famous Halla-san.
The fee to this park is 5000won for adults. The park is open from 9AM to 6PM. To go to this park, ride the bus bound for Namjo-ro (bus number #730) and get down at Jeju Stone Park. It takes around 45 mins from the airport.
This entire park is so huge, larger that what I imagine. It’s an open area and when I visited there, it was very windy that I was almost blown by the wind (I’m not exaggerating, for real).
There’s an indoor museum inside the park. The museum has a lot of rock collections. It was quite interesting. I did not take any picture because the lightning inside the museum is not that good.
And of course, you can see Jeju iconic statue – the stone grandfather (dolharubang) – with various expression.
Overall, the stone park is not really boring. The view is fascinating and it’s interesting to learn how the Jeju island was formed.
Second Stop: Seogwipo Area, Trick Art Museum
Before I continue, there’re 2 trick art museums in Seogwipo. The Jeju Trick Art Musum at Seong-eup and The Jeju Alive Museum at Jungmun Resort. I went to Alive Museum because according to my guide, that one is bigger and has more contents to enjoy.
The admission fee is 8000KRW and the museum opens from 9AM to 11PM. There’re so many attraction nearby such as Ripley’s believe it or not museum and Teddy Bear Museum.
Spare a lot of time here, there’re tons of fun and interesting illusions and you can’t stop taking pictures!
They have different kinds of trick art such as sculpture, digital arts, painting, object arts, etc.
The museum also has instruction about how to take picture from correct angle and everything is in English!
By far, this is the most interesting trick art and biggest trick art museum I’ve ever been to. I have tons of photos here but I can’t share every thing.
And they have some dolls house at the end of the museum.
To go there, go with the bus #600 from the airport. Get off at Yeomiji Botanical Garden and walk about 10 minutes from there.
Third Stop: Jungmun Beach
Jungmun beach has a brownish red sand and the air was so refreshing. You can see the hanyeo performance (lady who picks clam without any modern diving instrument) here (additional fee required).
Too bad I came after a strong storm and wind the previous night. There were so many dead fishes in the shore and they smelt quite bad..
The beach is still pretty. At the beach, you can find several food stands and they sell the hallabong orange. It’s called hallabong because the shape resembles the shape of Halla-san,
Nearby the beach, I found out this place with beautiful view. I think it is the part of Olle trails. I’m not going to write about Olle trails because I did not do it, but if you love trekking, be sure to check out the Olle trails. They’re really famous and they offer beautiful view.
I still have several places in Jeju that I’m going to write about them in my next post. Jeju is really amazing and I really wish I could fly back to Jeju right now.
So… that’s all for this post. See you at the next post. As usual, I’m waiting for your comments!