The Days of a Silly and Ordinary Girl! :D: April 2017

[Travelogue] South Korea : Jeju, Day 1 | Teddy Bear's Museum, Lotte Hotel, Cheonjeyeon Waterfall and Nene Chicken :d

By Lasmarya Hadi Purwanto - April 24, 2017

Hello, you! :)

I'm back with another travel story, :p

Well, I really hope that you guys won't feel bored reading my travel diaries, and I do wish you guys enjoy reading it, just as much as I do writing and posting it. :D

So, long story short,

A month ago, my friends and I FINALLY made a trip to South Korea! (Finally, yes, for K-pop + K-drama + K-variety show + Hallyu hardcore fans like us? Where have we been all this time?? We should be there way way earlier!!)

During our 8 days trip, we made some time to visit Jeju and Busan before spending the rest of our days in Seoul. It was a really FUN trip, and we can't wait to be back again to Korea, surely 8 days wasn't enough, wkwkwk *K-fans alert!

Okay, let's get started!

21st March 2017

We boarded SilkAir from Medan to Singapore at 20.30 p.m. local time, flight delayed a bit, and we started to get worried. The boarding time for our flight to Seoul would be at 11.10 pm (Singapore time), so if we arrived a bit later than the boarding time, we might miss the flight. :(

We kept looking at the time during the flight, worrying endlessly, and when we arrived at Changi, it was 11.30 pm *shocked We needed to move from terminal 2 to terminal 3, and Changi is sooooo big, *shocked level 2, so we rode the Skytrain, reached terminal 3, but it hadn't ended yet, we needed to run all the way to gate A21, and we were at gate A11, oh my gosh, *shocked level 3; we ran like crazy, especially with the last call for boarding, *shocked level 4, we ran like there's no tomorrow, (no lah, just kidding haha) but we ran as fast as we could, we definitely couldn't miss the flight, cause there's another flight to Jeju the next day that we had to catch too, *shocked level 5. Luckily, thank God, we made it all the way, to the plane. *hosh hosh

Boarded the plane for 6 hours headed to Seoul's Incheon airport, and had these meals on board by Singapore Airlines. I heard that, only for the flight heading to Seoul, or from Seoul, that they serve the special menu: Bibimbap. :)

credit to Fiona Kasim and Erlyna Koesman

Arrived at Incheon at 7 something a.m., claimed our baggage, bought T-money (transportation card that can be used on public buses and subways in metropolitan cities throughout Korea) then rode the all-stop train (metro) to Gimpo airport (fare 900 won + 2850 won when you entered Gimpo airport station) to catch the next flight to Jeju by Easter Jet at 11.40 p.m.

on train, credit to: Erlyna Koesman, pardon our tired faces haha

try running like us, then board a flight, then hurry to the next flight, see what your face will look like :p

Like, finally, here we were at Jeju airport, *phew, rode bus no 100 to Hankook Hospital bus stop (fare: 1.200 won) then walked a bit to Yeha Guesthouse. Yeha Guesthouse has got a lot of good reviews in TripAdvisor and Airbnb. It is quite affordable, KRW 45,000 for 2 nights per person, and it is located near City Bus Terminal which is the central bus stop for all intercity bus route, so it has quite a strategic location. A recommended guesthouse if you're opting for touring the city by bus.

It was the end of winter, almost entering spring when we were in Korea, the temperature was higher in Jeju compared to Seoul, but we felt that the wind in Jeju was much cooler than Seoul, our guess was because Jeju wasn't as crowded as Seoul, that we didn't share the air with many people, hence the chilly weather.

More footages of Yeha can be watched through the video below ⇓ :)

These are the dining room + hangout room + kitchen + living room + computer room.

Left our baggage in the room, we walked out to nearby convenience store,

(as you can see, the whole alley, you can spot only us walking)

bought some food and drinks, since we were so hungry, no lunch yet, due to the flight, arriving in the late afternoon, so we just bought some samkak kimbab or onigiri and drinks to eat on the bus.

See this artistic bus stop sign? It is soooo creative!

At the Jeju Intercity Bus Terminal station, heading to Teddy Bear Museum, riding bus no 782 (fare 2800 won) for around 35-40 min, got down at Jungmun Resort Entrance bus stop, then walked a bit to reach the Museum.

(p.s.: People in Jeju weren't so fluent in English, we had a bit of difficulty asking which bus was heading to the museum, because the bus driver couldn't understand what we're saying, and even when we showed him the Teddy Bear Museum through our phones, he didn't seem like he knew it. Fortunately there's a woman there, who looked like a staff, and she was able to speak Chinese, she confirmed to us which bus we should take. So my advice is, if you're not speaking Chinese, then it would be better to make sure that you look for all the information you'll need in advance before you get to Jeju, because once there, it won't be that easy to ask around)

(again, not crowded,

which is one thing that I like about Jeju, no crowd, no much noise)

My lunch: Beef Onigiri + Strawberry Milk on the go.

Got down at Jungmun Resort Entrance bus stop,

then walked to Jeju's Teddy Bear Museum,

(see, I've told you, again, no one but us, XD)

if you spot the Starbucks Coffee, then you'll see the Teddy Bear Museum right across.

Teddy Bear Museum,

the one featured in the drama Princess Hours, remember?

Admission fee for the museum is 10,000 KRW per person.

(Dear Albert Einstein, thank you for all the headaches during Physics classes all this time.)

Below is the most favorite spot of the museum:

Princess Hours <3<3

*nostalgic *throwmeback

(So, Bruce Lee Teddy, would you be my....?)

(credit to Erlyna Koesman)

Next stop, purposely passing by Lotte Hotel.

I didn't know anything about this Lotte Hotel, which they said, is very famous in Korea. since it was used as the shooting location in several popular Korean dramas, one of which is All In, played by Lee Byung-hun, so yeah, of course, if it's famous, let's go! wkwk

No, not this one, next one is the hotel ⇓

This is! Front view⇓

View from the balcony behind the hotel ⇓

We intended to visit this Play Kpop Museum, a newly established hologram concept K-pop museum, which is located next to the Teddy Bear Museum, but the visiting hour was over when we got there :(

so, let me just take a picture with my Oppa, wkwk

The last one of the day, to the Seonim Bridge (선임교), which is a bridge over Cheonjeyeon Waterfall (천제연폭포) , with seven nymphs playing their own musical instruments carved on both of its sides.

"According to Korean legend, seven nymphs would descend from the heavens at night and bathe in the waterfall's pond." - wikipedia

There's actually an entrance fee to enter the bridge for tourists, which if I'm not mistaken, was around 2000 won, but when we were there, no one was at the ticketing office, but the gate was open, and there's no "close" sign, so when we saw that people went in, we decided to just go in too, and there was barely anyone there, only those two to three people crossing the bridge to the other side, and soon after, we had the whole place for ourselves.

The night fell, and it's time for us to head back to guesthouse, so we walked back to the Jungmun Resort Entrance bus stop, crossed the street to wait on the other side (the heading-back-to-town bus route) and rode bus 781 (fare 2,800 won) back to Jeju Intercity Bus Terminal.
Oh ya, all the places that we visited on day 1 were located in the Jungmun Resort area, so each of these places was within reach by several minutes walk from one to another. There are a lot of other places and museums to be visited in this area, so you might want to check for more info if you want to visit and see more in one day without having to commute again. :)

Back to the guesthouse, with the suggestion of Stella, we asked the guesthouse staff to help us order the delivery for Nene (Fried) Chicken for our dinner, (Yeha guesthouse's staffs are friendly and helpful, and most of all, they're very fluent in English, XD). If you're asking why didn't we make the order by ourselves, well, we don't speak Korean and we didn't even know how to read the address for them, so why bother? Haha

And all I can say, is that, this is the best part of our day 1,

the definitely BEST meal from our whole trip in Korea, and it's still not overthrown by any other meals that we had on the other days, it's still on the "1st rank" in our list!

I can even imagine the taste again right now, while I'm typing, and I'm drooling again. Oh my God :d:d

(the one we ordered was no 2 from column no 1)

We ordered the Half Half Chicken with Snowing Cheese + Shocking Hot Sauce, (Half Half means whole chicken with different sauce for each half, confused enough? wait till you see the picture) for 18,000 KRW with no additional delivery fee, and it came in a box with three side dishes, one mustard dipping sauce, and one bottle of coke. Ah, yes, in case you're asking, 18,000 won is for the chicken with bones, while the 20,000 one is for the boneless chicken.

We thought it would take around 30 minutes for it to arrive but it came only about 15 minutes from the moment we made the call, so fast delivery ✔

Okay, so one box is for one whole chicken. Half of the chicken is dipped in the Shocking Hot sauce, while the other half was sprinkled with the Snowing Cheese.

They tasted EXCELLENT, the Snowing Cheese sauce tasted like HEAVEN even for a not cheese lover like me, it just tasted that GOOD, served with this Shocking Hot Sauce, which is super duper hot (read: spicy), almost like Samyang Ramen kind of spicy, but the kind that would make you want to savor it again and again. It's like it's so spicy, but yes, you'll want it over and over again.

On top of it all, when we mixed the cheese and the hot red sauce, OH MY GOD, it tasted super AWESOME. *brb *drooling again It is literally "a match made in heaven". It is spicy, but also cheesy, a lil' bit of sweet, just PERFECT.

And it was even more perfect, because it was eaten while it was still hot, it wasn't too oily and the texture was on point.

We first thought that the whole chicken would be too much for the four of us, but no need to wonder, we finished it in a zap. We couldn't even stop munching :DD