Thursday, November 17, 2016

Autumn in Korea, Jeju: From Singapore to Jeju

I thought I was given a lifetime ban from Korea, given that we visited the country 3x within a year. Thus, imagine my joy when Leecher mentioned Korea as our holiday destination. Well, specifically he said Jeju but I'm OK with anywhere as long as it is Korea. However, this was a rather last minute trip as I was swamped with work and didn't have much time to plan. After confirming our leaves, I was frantically searching for tickets during my pockets of free time and only made the AirBnB bookings 10 days before departure. Leecher is quite useless at planning thus, car rental & changing of currency naturally fall under his department. 
Our tired faces on board before I started to feel uncomfortable. We departed from SG via Cathay, with a short transit in HK. I wasn't feeling too good on this flight and I blamed it on the nasi padang that I had earlier at the lounge. I didn't touch any food from SG to HK, which was pretty rare. The flight from SG to HK was slightly delayed hence we were escorted by ground crew for transiting. During transit, I held up the line as I had issues with my e-boarding pass. Paiseh to the max but hey, it wasn't my fault. I was then pulled out of the queue and made to walk the "path of shame" alongside with another ground crew. She had to fill up some forms and tadah, I was "free to go", ha! Again, she had to be "witness" at the boarding gate since I had to scan the same bloody e-pass. Feeling exhausted, I was thankful I had the chance to lie down and sleep better while we cruise to Korea. We finally arrived at Incheon airport, only to be greeted with crowded immigration and took us 1h to clear. With our luggages in tow, we began the journey to Gimpo airport for our next flight out to Jeju. 
Finally located Jeju Air counter at the end of the wing. Well, you can't possibly miss it given the vibrant orange logo. Our flight was scheduled for noon, but we could only check in 2h before departure time and we can't head to the lounge without our boarding passes. Mental note to self: for the next trip (if any) to buy tickets with earlier departure time. Hence, we sat on the chairs and tried to catch up on sleep.
After checking in, my hunger pangs struck much to Leecher's delight as I hadn't ate anything since the meal at SG. Lunch was just udon topped with oden and plain gimbap. Perhaps I was hungry, so this set was extremely tasty. The kimchi was spicy and crunchy (me like) and I paired it with gimbap to add some flavour to it.
Someone can't wait to start, ha!
Tired face after the long journey, SG > HK > Incheon > Gimpo. The last leg of our journey to Jeju, can't wait for the plane ride
We arrived at the gate and was informed that our flight will be delayed :( The initial scheduled departure time has now become the boarding time instead.  
 Our plane arrived and we started queuing for boarding. 
 
Don't you love Jeju air logo? I loved the wink and not to mention that the K-idols I adore were endorsers of the brand. #powerofKwave There are several domestic airlines that departs for Jeju, namely: Air Busan, Eastar Jet, Jin Air and T'way Airlines. I went with Jeju Air because they have more flights/timings as compared to the rest.
Hello Jeju! 
 
The last to-do item before we begin our Jeju adventure: picking up the rental car.You will not be picking up the rental car directly from the airport. Instead, all rental car companies are located a few minutes drive away from the airport. At Jeju airport, head to the rental car counters located near Gate 2 and show them the booking confirmation. We were then given a slip of paper to wait for the shuttle bus which will bring us to the rental office.

There was a long queue for registration. Fortunately, all counters were open so it only took a while before our number was called.

After completing the paperwork, we were shown to our car which came with Korean GPS. While Leecher familiarise himself with the mechanics of the car, the technician showed me that navigation can be done using phone numbers - which seemed relatively easy at this point. BUT, we encountered problems with it - more on that later.
With our luggage loaded, we are ready to go! 

🍃🍃🍃 Navigation for Jeju 🍃🍃🍃 

I have inserted a table that lists down the phone numbers for the various attractions. Simply enter the numbers in the GPS and viola - the places will appear on your map. Have fun driving in Jeju (^^)
 
Attractions Navigation
Yongduam Rock 용두암 (Dragon Head Rock) 7283918
Cafe Aewol Monsant 카페 애월 드 몽상 (GD Cafe) 7998900
Bomnal Cafe 카페 봄날 7994999
Accommodation Navigation
Citrus BnB N.A
Tangerine Pension 7646002

Psst ... more links will be added. Click on the links to read on our adventures!

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Autumn in Korea, Jeju: Preparations for Self-Drive Trip

Hello November! 2 months to the end of the year and 1 more to my favourite month. Looking back, we were away on our winter holidays for 2 consecutive years hence we decided to take a break this year and stayed in Singapore instead (for now). Perhaps, I may get to celebrate my birthday properly, ha! 

I pretty much spent the month of October travelling; a business trip before heading for a holiday to my second home, Korea! Yes, I'm finally back in Korea to complete my experience-4-seasons-in-Korea much to Leecher's dismay. This time round, we headed over to Jeju before continuing the rest of the journey in Seoul. We decided on a self-drive adventure in Jeju as this was the most convenient and efficient way to explore the island. Not to mention that we are spending 6 days in Jeju, ha! Our mini honeymoon since Jeju is the honeymoon island for Koreans. In order to drive in Korea, you will need to prepare these beforehand:
1. Obtain your international driving permit
The International Driving Permit is the first thing that they will request to see when we collected the car in Korea. You can apply for IDP via AA, either online at www.aas.com.sg or at their AA offices (Kallang Bahru/Ang Mo Kio). The IDP fee is $20 and the permit is valid for a year from date of issue. For walk-in application, the processing time is within 1h. They will help you to take a picture on the spot and the whole application was relatively hassle-free.
2. Reserve a car online 
There are lots of car rental companies for renting cars. Previously, I used KT Kumho but they have since changed to Lotte. You can sign up as a member to be entitled to discount rates off the listed price. Since car rental is Leecher's department, I put him in charge of getting this done. To think that he actually outsourced to concierge and they provided us with a list of rentals/prices. Finally, we confirmed the car with Hertz. 
3. Request for an English GPS 
We requested for one but it wasn't available. Hence, we survived on a Korean GPS which was pretty difficult to navigate at first (even our AirBnB host said so!) but I soon got the hang of it.

With that, we are ready to kick start our self-drive trip in Jeju! Now, I just need to sort out the pictures across cameras + phones before I start blogging about it. Before that, let me just catch up on the latest episode of Infinity Challenge - 무한도전. Stay tuned!

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Work in Progress

Let me tweak some CSS code on the side bar before I start on the next blog post .... will be back soon!

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Melbourne Travelogue 07: Teddy's Lookout + Lorne Beach Pavilion

 
Recently, I became obsessed with cleaning #dontaskmewhy. I spent weekend after weekend cleaning around the house, decluttering, wiping the insides of the cupboards etc. I felt a sense of achievement after seeing a "brand new" deco around the house. After operation clean-up, I decided that I want to revamp the picture wall, lol! Well, before my props arrive, let me spend some time updating this space before I get down to work.
 
From Erskine Falls, we drove over to Teddy's Lookout. 
 
As I swiftly alighted from the car and walked towards the lookout, Leecher caught sight of the wild koala and was frantically waving to grab my attention. I thought he needed help with something and was feeling annoyed, lol! He pointed towards the tree and I saw it too - our first wild koala experience :)
Well-trodden path leading to Teddy's Lookout. 
The walkway took us to the viewing platform, where we can see the coastal views and the bends of the GO road, overlooking the St George Inlet. We lingered for a while, contemplating to stay for sunset when we decided that we should head for an early dinner while waiting for sunset.
 
I wanted to head back to The Bottle of Milk, but Leecher convinced me that we should try other places instead. So, that brought us to Lorne Beach Pavilion, a cafe/restaurant with sea view and good food.
The protcol is simple: grab a menu, sit anywhere you like and head to the counter to order. Of course, we chose to sit outside for the sea view.
Happy hour starts from 3PM to 6PM, daily. Leecher went for a pint of beer while I had my sparkling wine. Check out the bubbles, they always make me happy (^^)
 
What goes best with sparkling? Oysters! We ordered fresh oysters, smokey kilpatrick (smokey bacon with oysters) and braised lamb shank to share. Love the smokey kilpatrick, a twist to the classic oysters.
  
The perfect dining place - awesome view coupled with good food and drinks. Throw in a few surfers' dude and my day is completed, ha! 
We lingered for a while more, catching the sunset before I head over to The Bottle of Milk to pack a burger for supper. Leecher drove in the dark for almost 2h to our accommodation before we finally called it a night, with the burger in tummy, of course.
Lorne Beach Pavilion
81 Mountjoy Parade, Lorne VIC 3232, Australia

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Melbourne Travelogue 06: Fun at Beach + The Bottle of Milk + Erskine Falls

A recent craze took over Singapore by storm and I was also playing the game too. Yes, Pokemon Go - the latest craze that kept me/us rather busy catching the pokemons which lead to me neglecting the blog. While I don't go to various locations specifically to hunt for it, I do enjoy the satisfaction when catching a rare pokemon or one with high CP. Before I neglect this space further, let me reminisce the GO journey.
On the way to Lorne, we drove past a beach and we made an impromptu decision to park the car and head down for a walk. It was the beginning of spring, so I suppose it was still too cold to head out so the beach was relatively empty, apart from some people walking their dogs. 
 
Ha, Leecher caught my oh-my-god-it's-so-cold look. Even though I had walked barefooted in the water previously, but the coldness of the water still caught me by surprise.  
Wearing Leecher's slippers! Yeah, I got him to join me since he missed out on the joy.
Needless to say, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Yeah!
With the best travel buddy, though he is quite annoying at times. We spent a quiet late morning at the beach before our tummies grumbled to remind us that it was time for lunch.
 
We headed to The Bottle of Milk for lunch. The place was crowded when we arrived, but we managed to get a table for 2. We would love to sit outdoors and enjoy the weather, which explained why outdoor tables were filled up at a faster rate than indoor tables.
 
Since we weren't that hungry (I blame the snacks in the car), we ordered a burger and smoothie to share.  
 
Leecher ordered the Fire Engine and the burger came with prime beef, tasty cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, house mayo and homemade chilli paste. This burger was da bomb! I loved it so much that I devoured almost 3/4 of it. The burgers are served in freshly baked organic, sourdough bun which makes it slightly different from the rest of the burgers we tasted thus far. 
The Bottle of Milk
52 Mount Joy Parade, Lorne
Tel: +61 3 5289 2005
Opening Hours: 8AM till 8PM daily
 
After filling our tummies, we decided to work off the calories. We drove over to Erskine Falls and hiked to the waterfall.
 
The upper lookout is an easy 5-min walk from the car park. The lower lookout was a pretty easy hike initially, given that we just followed the steps down to the lookout. The real "adventure" came at the bottom of the waterfall, as you inched to get closer. We had to cross through a small river by stepping on rocks. The water was relatively shallow, but the rocks were slippery. I almost lost my balance when I stepped on a loose rock. Thankfully, I reacted in time but my shoes were wet :( 
  
One of the most popular waterfalls in the Otways, the Erskine Falls plunges 30m into the lush tree-fern gully of the Erskine River. As we ventured through, we tried our best to stay on the walking path instead of stepping on the ferns. This is one of the ways that we can help to preserve nature.
 
Our view after a mini hike - totally worth it to feel the cool mist on our faces with a grand view of the waterfall.
Erskine Falls
Erskine Falls Access Road, Lorne 
VIC 3232, Australia
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