South Korea 2014 Day 1: Jeju

10/4/2014

My first trip in year 2014!

Itinerary:

10/4/2014 am - 14/4/2014 am Jeju Island
14/4/2014 pm - 19/4/2014 am Seoul

I took the night flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur on 9/4/2014, met up with a friend of mine and flew 1 am flight to Seoul, Incheon International Airport. As expected, couldn't really sleep well during the flight.

Initially, it was just me on a solo trip to South Korea, and then a friend tagged along. In the end, it became a 6pax group trip to Korea -.-'

Anyway, we reached Incheon Airport around 8.30 in the morning. It was warmer than what I was expecting.

I booked the 12.20 noon Jeju Air flight to Jeju from Gimpo Airport. Yesh, the domestic flight to Jeju Island has to be taken at Gimpo Airport, a few stations away from Incheon. Gave myself a short time allowance to have breakfast and travel from Incheon to Gimpo.

As we were unsure how long is the journey to Gimpo is gonna take by train (did not do our homework >.<), we decided to have our brekkie in Gimpo Airport (coz we saw there's a mall nearby).

Well, it was about 30 - 40 minutes away >.< Lucky we made the right decision.

Once we reached Gimpo Station, the airport is about 10 mins walk away. But worry not, there're travelators for the lazy people out there (me) :D

We were a little too early for check-in, so we had our breakfast in one of the cafes in the airport. Still not ready for Korean meals. (lol)

My first meal in Korea.

After checking in, we were told to wait for about 5 minutes for our luggages to be scanned for security purpose.

You have no idea how much time I spent just to purchase the air tics to Jeju. Jeju Air's website ish so not user-friendly, at all. I dunno why, but you have to use IE with pop-up blocker shut off to use the website. No Chrome, no Firefox, just Internet Explorer. I thought IE is only used to download chrome/firefox? -.-

The flight to Jeju took about an hour.

After checking into our hostel on Jeju Island, me and my friend took a short walk in the nearby markets. It was only the 2 of us. The rest of the friends took a later flight and will only reach around 8pm.

Our first accom on Jeju Island (we stayed 3 different places on the island to save ourselves some travel time, I think the island is even bigger than Singapore):

I strongly recommend this place for its convenience. Just right across the road is Jeju Dongmun Traditional Market. The price we paid was quite reasonable and the staff speaks good English and Chinese.

As usual, grabbed a map from the front desk!

And the market is just right across!

Even though Jeju is famous for its oranges, I did not had any... no idea why.

Oh yea, don't buy the chocolates. Everyone's been telling me that. Seems like they're no good :/

This was good. Had a hard time trying to ask the lady what's inside lol. When we bought it, we just had an idea that it's sweet filling. Turned out it's some cinnamon flavoured filling thingy.

And one of my must-eat in Korea:

Tobokki! 3000 Korean Won for this, if I remember correctly. It was good.

Seafood corner in the market.

seaweedsssss

Kimchi heaven in the market

Ahjummas selling veges and ahjummas buying veges

Oh before I forget, below this market (or rather, underground) lies a long stretch of shopping arcade (for the ladies out there).

Yesh, the only one in Jeju Island.