Jeju Island

Jeju Island (also known as Jejudo) is situated south of South Korea. It is an island created completely of volcanic ash from the now extinct volcano, Hallasan. Jeju is visited by tons of tourists from overseas and South Korea every year as it hosts many golf competitions, and is also a prime honeymoon location. 

There are various tours you can take when in Jeju. I suggest the English taxi tour, where you get an English-speaking local taxi driver as your tour guide. The tour enables you to cover the island's main tourist spots in two days - one day for the eastern side of Jeju, and one day for the west. They also allow you to customize your tour or tour one side of the island if your stay is short.

The itinerary of the general courses is as follows:

East Course :

Yongduarm rock - Manjang Cave -  Sunrise Peak - Sepjicozi - Seoungeup Folk Village - Sangumburi crater

West Course :

Mysterious road - Cheonjiyeon Waterfall -  Oedolgae - Jusangjeollidae rock - Yeomiji botanical garden - Teddy bear museum

Since I only spent two nights in Jeju, I took the western course. The driver was super friendly and told us stories about the island (you'll have to join the tour to find out). Also, since my mum and I are Korean drama fanatics, the driver pointed out some filming locations of dramas such as "Dae Jang Geum" and "All-in" (which was also filmed at Lotte World Hotel which was the hotel we stayed in!).

The first place we visited was Jusangjeollidae Rock, since the driver told us that it would be jam packed with tourists by midday. The formation of the rock was created by lava from Hallasan. Jusangjeolli is the literal Korean translation of columnar basalt: hexagonal pillars of volcanic rock. 

The statues on the left can be seen everywhere accross the island. They are known as the "grandparents of the island", protecting the island from harm, and giving the citizens good health. It is said that touching their noses will give you good health and longevity. 

Next, we visited Yeomiji Botanical Garden which was a garden completely created inside a green house. The green house is separated into 5 gardens: Flower Garden, Water Lily Garden, Jungle Garden, Subtropical Fruits Garden, and Cactus Garden. 

After that, we went to the "Mysterious Road" which is a road that creates the optical illusion that the car is moving uphill while on 'Neutral', although it looks like the car is facing down hill. If you don't have a car, you can still experience the illusion as the roadside shops provide bottles you can use to "roll up the hill".

We then went to Oedolgae, another columnar basalt rock. Like other unusual-shaped rocks there's a legend associated with it - a Korean general is said to have scared away Mongolian invaders by dressing the rock up to look like a giant soldier. This was a special site as they filmed part of the drama 'Dae Jang Geum' here.

 After a satisfying lunch stop at a local Korean restaurant, the driver took us to Cheonjiyeon Waterfall. It is one of the three famous waterfalls in Jeju. It was the perfect place to breathe in fresh air and walk off all the calories from lunch, and feel completely relaxed and refreshed. The water is unbelievably clean, which enables you to sit by the river and look at the colourful koi fish living in the river. 

After the relaxing stroll down Cheonjiyeon Waterfall, the driver took us to  Jungmin Saekdal Beach since we still had plenty of time to kill. Since it was early spring and still cold, there weren't many people there, but the view was spectacular. 

We ended the day at the Teddy Bear Museum. This museum featured bears from one of my favourite dramas, 'Goong', so it was really exciting to see it. The exhibitions were extremely cute. For anyone planning to visit Jeju Island, this place is a definite must to visit. It shows a range of teddy bears from one of the oldest, to the most expensive, to using teddy bears as an appropriation on famous artworks. There is also an outdoor bear park.

 

A trip to Melbourne (2)

Last post, I've talked about the Phillip Island chocolate factory, in this post I will talk about the Nature Park in Phillip Island and some other places.

Phillip Island Nature Park:
The famous attraction in the Nature Park is the watch the Penguin Parade as this is almost the landmark for Phillip Island.See here, advisement of Tenpin Bowling uses Penguin to promote as well.

Here is the entrance road to the Phillip Island Nature Park.
   
The photo on the left are the sign to remind the drivers to check under their car that make sure there is no little penguin under it, as the whole park is a open wildlife environment, penguin can go anywhere and sometimes if they lost their way home by accident they might be in dangerous if they ran into the car park.

One thing that has to notice is you are not allow to use camera to take photo of those penguin when you start walking into the viewing platform, there will be a notice sign to remind you in different languages.
Inside the park there are some shop where you can buy some souvenirs,some cafes; you can also take pictures with penguins using technology with Photoshop there. There is also a corner that you can pay and rent for a iPod which have details instructions and information about the penguin parade with different languages installed.

Sovereign Hill :

 

Sovereign Hill is a outdoor museum, which re-create the decade after the discovery of gold. Staff in Sovereign dress up in those decade, horses are around, visitor can pay to experience the horse carriages as well.

Some special activities such as watching a melting gold performance is one of it.

People can take picture during the performance, it have different languages which convince visitors and tourists.

There is also some activities that allows visitors to experience of panning golds , and you can take away the gold that you've panned. Near the  Red Hill Gully Diggings (the place when you pan golds), there is a little shop that sells a little bottle with water init which let you put the golds that you find into it so you can keep it. Here is the bottle that I panned with my family.

The Twelve Apostles:

The Twelve Apostles is another famous attraction in Melbourne, the Ocean road has a great sight of view about nature. The Twelve Apostles are actually striking stones that are standing out in the seas, the rocks are formed by erosion, visitors can walk to the peak of mountain to see this amazing view, or they can pay to watch this view though the helicopters.