Day 3: Beautiful Jeju

It was day 3 of our eight days trip. Woke up at 0630 and felt a little tired, probably due to the late night escapade. Anyway, for breakfast, we were having abalone porridege. It's delicious with its subtle taste, with a wonderful anchovies as a side dish (most korean meals have side dishes such as kimchi, seaweed and radish). It was a superb way to start the day. After the sumptious breakfast, we went to a rape seed flower farm. In winter, i think that's the most pretty flowers you can get and it made a good photo-taking moment too. Before long, we embarked onto SeongSan Sunrise peak.

Scaling the peak

It was a tortorous climb (maybe because of the lack of exercise), but it offered a magnificent view. I think the mountain was featured in the korean hit 'My lovely Samsoon'. As our usual habit, we were literally running late. That time, it was no joke because if we were late, we were going to miss our submarine ride. Surely, we wouldn't want to miss that. Thus, off we went to our next destination. The submarine was not docked near the shore and we had to board a ferry to where the submarine was. Within the ferry, there was a lady who was selling grilled cuttlefish or file fish. The tantalising smell invoked many to purchase. As the first time boarding the submarine, we were very curious about it. It was a thirty minutes ride as we explore the sea bed. They even had a diver in a dry suit feeding the fishes, so that the fishes will gather at the windows. I bet the water must be really cold. We were many fishes, corals, gorgonian fans and that's about all. It was not that fantastic, maybe because I am a diver. However, it offered non-divers a chance to see the murky sea as it dove to a depth of 30 plus metres. On our next stop, we were going to a tangarine farm.

All for us to pluck

The tangarine farm was very beautiful, with its fruits ready to be plucked. I was told that the owners placed fake tangarines for the purpose of all season photo-taking. Anyway, the tangarine flesh is chilled (due to the cold weather) and sweet, a good snack before our lunch. We were allowed to take back any tangarines we plucked. They also have a stall selling chocolates with real tangarine extracts. Other unique flavour includes cactus. Most of us bought the assortment of chocolates. Along the way to lunch, the surrounding was white with the previous day's snow. It was so exciting. For lunch, we had bbq black pork. The fattening meat was extremely delicious, a must try in the cold weather. After the fulfiling lunch, we had a brief snowball fight. It's like snow city but the whole place is white. I had never played till my tummy hurt so much before. It was so fun trying to evade and attack. Chris tried to hurl one at us, but I guessed who's laughing. We went for horse riding with the horses looking a little fat. We had to change into our horse-riding costume (looked a little like cowboys). It was a wonderful experience, and I laughed all the way throughout the ride. The ride hurt at the you know where. Also, sean said that horse riding made people want to pee, not sure why. During my ride, I thought my horse must be feeling hungry when it decided to go to the side and nibble on the leaves. It was so hilarious trying to steer the horse back to the track. After the joyous ride, we went to Cheongjeyeon waterfall. It was a little boring because it was only a small trickle of water. Then came the most anticipated part of the day: Teddy Bear Museum.

Re-visit your childhood

The teddy bear museum is a must-go in Jeju. How to resist after so many shows featured the museum. The museum is a three-story feature of teddy bears along the years. We saw so many bears, some cute and some distorted. There were famous ones such as Mona Lisa, Elvis Presley and many more. It was a great time and we were having a difficult time choosing a bear to buy from the many different choices. Almost didn't want to leave the place. However, we were a little short of time and again, our group was late. On board the coach, we were comparing the bears that we bought. The bears were not that expensive and I wished I had bought more if not for my budget. Before dinner, we went to a place called the mysterious road. What's a mystery was that even though the engine was cut off, the coach continued to move 'uphill'. However, later it was reveiled that actually we were on a down slope, but optical illusion made it seemed like we were going uphill. For dinner, we had a mini imperial dinner. Personally, it wasn't that special, maybe the ingredients: tomyam soup with an unknown crayfish-alike, steam egg, stir-fried beef, fish. It was definitely filling, just not very 'imperial'. After the long day of travelling and climbing a mountain, it's back to the hotel. As it was the last night in Jeju, we wanted to finish explore the place before leaving it.