--Changi Airport & Korean Air--
Reached T2 at 8plus to check in our luggage. Chatted with Tuan & some of my friends via MSN Web Msger before boarding the gate. Boarded Korean Air KE 642 and the plane left promptly at 10.50p.m.
This is the cabin of the boeing 777-300 plane. E.W & I were sitted in the middle row, but luckily there's only 4 ppl occupying the whole row. (The seat configuration was 2-5-2) Anyway, there were 2 koreans sitting beside me, and one of the them sat at the wrong seat. I spent sometime explaining to him that his seat was at the other side of the row. Ha! I knew KAL had modified their seats to 35-inches, so it was quite a comfortable ride throughout my 6 hrs plane ride. My only complain is the lack of personal IFE! Luckily, i brought my mp3 & novel along. Service from the KAL cabin crew was not bad, better than what I had expected. They served peanuts and drinks, and gave out amenity kits to the passengers. We also need to fill up health questionnaires too. I read my "Benjamin Buttons" until 1a.m before catching some sleep.
Cabin crew began to serve breakfast at 3a.m. This was E.W's vegetarian meal. However, E.W said it's not very delicious. Haha!
Without thinking, I chose Bibimbap. Quite delicious~! I mentioned that the cabin crew was great generally, but they were very messy with finding passengers who ordered special & veg meals. Lots of errors and u kept seeing the stewardesses re-confirming their lists again. They even pasted stickers on the seats for marking, but mistakes still occurred. I really wondered what happened la.Caught some glimpse of the sunrise, and we reached Incheon International Airport at 6a.m. (Seoul time)
--Incheon Int'l Airport--
Saw this very interesting Unicef donation box with currencies from all over the world.Morning temperature in Seoul was 15 degrees! Ok, I didn't expect that Korea is still in Spring la. Haha...met our tour guide Park Ai-nee-sshi and her xiao di cum photographer Gwang-nam. Our coach was late for at least 15 mins. Nvm...enjoyed the cold wind in the mean time. Lolz!
--Cheongwadae 青瓦台--
Our itinerary changed a little with the sequence of attractions.
This is the Phoenix structure with the four themes - freedom, peace, unity, prosperity.
Yeongbingwan a.k.a the Guest House, which is the venue for large scale conference and for state guests.
Another view of the Phoenix statue from the other side of the road.
I still got to see red leaves...nice "autumn" feeling.
Cheongwadae, the executive office and residential area of the South Korean President. The mountain behind Cheongwadae was Bukhansan.--Gyeongbokgung 景福宫: Main Palace of the Joseon Dynasty--
We entered the palace through the north gate, Sinmumun (神武门).
The palace buildings with traditional roof tiles.
The map of the palace grounds.
Geoncheonggung Residence (乾清宫) was built in 1873 by King Gojong,it was built for the king and the queen to enjoy peace and quiet. This is also the place where the last empress of Joseon, Queen Myeongsung was slaughtered by Japanese assassins.
Hyangwonji Pond (香远池) & Hyangwonjeong Pavilion(香远亭) . This is one of my fav places in the palace. It's also within the compounds of Geoncheonggung Residence. Below are two other pics of the pond & pavilion, at different angles. I thought that the whole feeling of place changed at different angles.
National Folk Museum.
Wind Streamer (风期台) was used to measure the strength and direction of the wind using a wind flag.
Pine fruit.
Interesting "flowers" ne. Did not know the name of the plant though.
The Gyotaejeon (交泰殿) compound seen from Jagyeongjeon Hall (慈庆殿).
Gyotaejeon Hall (交泰殿) is a building used as the main sleeping and living quarters by the queen, and it's located the king's sleeping quarters.
Gangnyeongjeon Hall (康宁殿) is a building used as the king's main sleeping and living quarters.
延生殿 is a small sleeping chamber, located at the east of Gangnyeongjeon Hall.
The walkway.
字庫. There are 10 such rooms (天、地、玄、黃、宇、宙、洪、荒、日、月).
Gyeonghoeru Pavilion (庆会楼) is a hall used to hold important and special state banquets.
Geunjeongjeon Hall (勤政殿) is the throne hall of Gyeongbokgung where the king formally granted audiences to his officials, gave declarations of national importance, and greeted foreign envoys and ambassadors.
The uneven walkway...made up of big pieces of stones.
The stone-paved courtyard is lined with two rows of rank stones, called Pumgyeseoks (品階石), indicating where the court officials are to stand according to their rank. Geunjeongmun (勤政门) is aligned and located directly to the south of Geunjeongjeon, is the main gate to the courtyard and to Geunjeongjeon. The gate is divided into three separate aisles and only the king was allowed to walk through the center.
The furniture and decorations inside Geunjeongjeon was fairly simple.
The King's throne.
A brighter view of Geunjeongjeon. The ppl in the pic were my group mates. Yes..the terrible kiddos~~~
We left by the side gate, so I missed the front & main gate "Gwanghwamun". Spotted this little squirrel eating a small red fruit. (Click on the pic to see the enlarged version).--Rice Cake Museum 传统韩国年糕展览馆--
The rice cake museum was located in the Institute of Traditional Korean Food. There's a showcase of all sorts of Korean rice cakes for different festivals etc. It's a pity that I could not take any pics of them la. We had some snacks at the Tteok Cafe called "Jilsiru", which was at the ground floor.
We had a special tea called "Gan Jiu" and three flavours of rice cakes-mugwort, strawberry and white rice. The tea and cakes were not very tasty to me. The cakes were very sticky & hard to chew.
Jilsiru Tteok Cafe.
Beautiful flowers outside the cafe.
"Golden Bride"!! Yes, this drama featured lots of Korean rice cakes. Not too surprised to see the poster here.
I bought some Samji tteok with citron filling. It's very delicious and chewy~!!
E.W also bought pumpkin sticky rice. She said it tasted good. There're other flavours too.
I also bought the sushi-looking rice cake with kimchi filling. Delicious!--Lunch--
Lunch for the day~We had BBQ chicken, duck & sotong...plus.....
Bibimbap!! Alamak, that's my 2nd Bibimbap in 24 hours. Not as delicious as those I ate in SG. Lolz!--Gimpo Int'l Airport--
It's about time to board the plane to Jeju-do. Gimpo used to be Seoul's int'l airport before Incheon was built. Now it's used mainly for domestic flights, plus some regional int'l flights.
The check in area for Korean Air.
Ah Ching likes to take pics of planes. Haha! Asiana plane preparing for boarding...how i wished I took Asiana to Kr. Soobbzzz~
Banana milk! This is a must-try if u're in Kr.
KE 1227, our plane to Jeju. I thought it's a A320 plane, but it's a A300-600. The seat configuration was 2-4-2 wor! I thought it was a 3-3. Haha. Anyway, it was quite a comfortable plane ride la. Bumped into many high schoolers who were on spring excursion trips. Basically, I wld bumped into them throughout my trip. Terrible ne~~
Plane taking off~
View of Seoul. The weather was quite foggy over at Seoul, so could not get a clear pic la.
It's only 2.18p.m...and I cld see the moon eh!
Reaching Jeju-do soon...lots of coastal features to see.
Jeju-do.
--Jeju International Airport--
Reached Jeju after a 50 mins plus flight. The whole airport was flooded with students. OMG!
Tada! I got to see Lee Min Ho everywhere~! And he's the ambassador of my favourite Dunkin' Donuts!
This is Jeju-do's iconic feature, Dolharubang. It is a statue sculpted out of volcanic rock from the island that looks somewhat like a man or spirit guardian.--Mysterious Road 神奇道路--
Our bus driver switched off the bus engine and our bus could still move wor. Actually it's an optical illusion , as in the vehicles would move uphill by themselves.
Vehicles trying out the "illusion".
Mysterious Road.
Interesting leaves by the roadside.
A roadside stall selling typical Korean food. The fish cake on the left hand side of the pic tasted delicious with the sauce in the big bowl. I've tried the dried bbq 柴鱼 slices too...yummy~!--Dinner--
Today's dinner was hotpot plus...
saba fish. Oh my...the food portion was too much for Aunt Jo & me.
View of the seacoast from the restaurant.--Yongduam Rock 龙岩石--
beautiful flowers~
Oh Kr has lots of big roses by the road side!! Damn nice~
Green pine fruit.
The sunset by the rocks.
The northern sea coast.
Yongduam rock.
Many ppl climbed the rocks, but Ah Ching's not so adventurous~ Lolz! Nice stones and pebbles.
Dolharubangs~ U can see them easily on the island.
龙头岩．
The interesting part of this sign board, was the cartoons used for male & female toilets.
You cld see lots of planes flying past the island. This is a clear shot of KAL plane.
Oh.....I liked this pic very much, but it's abit blur! Haiz~~~--Jeju Pacific Hotel--
Our hotel was located at Jeju city, which was on the northern part of the island.
The hotel is a 4 stars hotel, but the room was not bad. Only complain was the air-con. In Korea, they do not use air-con till summer time. And their air-cons are also heaters during winter time, so that's why their air-cons were not powerful la. (Similar to China~)
The toilet was quite big leh, the sink was seperated out from the bathtub.
Bathtub area.
View of Jeju city from hotel room.
Another view of Jeju city.--Thoughts--
Basically there were 8 kids in my tour grp, and there're two girls who were abt my age. I think I'm the oldest "kid" in the grp though..lolz! Out of the 8 kids, besides the 2 gals who were relatively older, the others were "terrible". Imagine the cries and shoutings I had heard since the moment I took the plane to Kr. Haiz~ Also, they were very noisy when Ai-nee sshi was explaining stuffs on the attractions. Their parents could not be bothered to control their kids lo, really buay tahan. Finally some of them started to get hold of their kids before our faces turned black~lolz! Aunt Jo was pissed off la...but there's nothing we cld really do right? I just hoped that my trip wouldn't be affected by these kiddos, but that's my wishful thinking. It's hard to see disciplined kids these days huh? Haha! (I'm quite proud to say that I am one of them~la la la~)
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