Sparkling Korea

Been in camp these days.. and chatted with Soon Eng abt the Korea trips that we had individually went. And both of us agred that we missed Korea even till now. LOL, he missed the weather, sceneries and the culture. I missed the weather, sceneries and the girls. =P

18th May 2008 (Sun)

Upon touching down at the airport in Jeju, I realised that the airport here isnt as grand as the Incheon airport. But it is logical that an international airport should be better looking in aesthetic sense. And we r going to spend our next 2 days on Jeju island which is 3 times the size of Singapore, but houses ard 8 hundred thousand ppl as compared to Sg's 4 million.

Some interesting facts abt Jeju island. Jeju island in Chinese is called 濟州島. As extracted from Wikipedia: Jeju-do is the only special self-governing province of South Korea, situated on and coterminous with the country's largest island. Jeju-do lies in the Korea Strait, southwest of Jeollanam-do Province, of which it was a part before it became a separate province in 1946. Its capital is the city of Jeju.

Nomenclature
In Korean, do is the phonetic trancription of two distinct hanja (Chinese characters) meaning "island" (島) and "province" (道). However, Jejudo can refer to the island. Jeju-do can refer to the government administrative unit. Below also includes the name of Jeju City, the provincial capital.

English Name-Korean Name-Hangul-Hanja
Jeju Island-Jejudo-제주도-濟州島
Jeju Province-Jeju-do-제주도-濟州道
Jeju City-Jeju-si-제주시-濟州市

adapted from : http://www.stsite.com/jeju/index.php

Jeju Island a land mass that rose from the seabed about 1~2 million years ago after an undersea volcanic eruption. The whole Jeju Island consists of basalt, dark-brown volcanic rock, lava rock and volcanic soil. Jeju island is a living folk village, a paradise island of South Korea, and a popular destination for honeymoon couples and tourists.

It is really a popular place for couples. Could see a lot of young couples taking pictures at the seasides, also, even saw old couples in their 70/80s having their honeymoon trip on jeju and taking bridal pictures! Heard from the tour guide that it is a popular place for honeymoon trip esp for the older couples,cos in the past many of them couldnt afford to travel, even within SK to places like Jeju. And they had their honeymoon within the Korean peninsula. But now, they had the financial ability, and to fulfill the unfulfilled wish to have a trip to jeju, many of these old couples would specially go to jeju to have a brief stayover or taking photos there. It is a really lovely place.


Jeju Island is culturally distinct from Korea due to its isolation from mainland Korea. Jeju Island otherwise known as Chejudo is never short of local legends; the most famous legend is the Tol Harubang sometimes spelled as Dolharubang. Tol Harubang is often regarded by Jeju folks as the god of protection and fertility, also believed as the guardian deities of Chejudo. Tolharubang is easily seen everywhere in Jeju Island as the statue of an old man sculptured from block of dark lava rock. Dol Harubang together with the Haenyo(海女） or Jeju women divers, are Jeju Island's most unique symbols. Traditionally Jeju women were often the head of the families. In olden days the Haenyo or women divers were usually the main income earners of the families but the Haenyeo is now becoming a dying trade.

A picture of how Dol Harubang looks like:




And below is a photo taken along the Jeju street.

Notice the top left hand corner of this pic: the cute cartoon resembles Dol Harubang.

Also note that the stripes on the road arent zebra crossings as seen in Sg. These r the pedestrian crossings with red man/green man! And Koreans when buying cars, favoured buying white cars as i had observed during my stay there, as seen in this picture too!

After touching down, we took a coach to our next destination, which is a seaside where the dragon head formation could be seen there. Notice that jeju's seaside arent like those sandy beaches that we see in Sg or in Malaysia. Theirs are mostly with large basalt rocks which r porous. And of cos, the dragon head formation is also made of basalt.

Below is more info abt the basalt formation in Chinese:

The scenery there is great! Wonderful! It is a perfect place for sea viewing as the weather is cool yet dry. And the sea stretches till where the eyes can see..sea and sky seem to merge at a faraway place.. where the horizon is blurred by the sea mists. Not forgetting the light sea breeze and the accompanying faint scent from the famous jeju oranges! Note that some shops on the island solely sell jeju oranges only, and that shows how much pride jeju residents have in their product and how famous is it there!

A few shots taken there:

Note the rock formation at the backgrd: it is the dragonhead formation which resembles as what the name suggests-a dragon head. The resemblence isnt as strong now, cos of erosion and part of the formation actually collapsed once, and is quickly patched back.. but it is never the same as it used to be.

These r the Haenyo(海女） or Jeju women divers. Here, they sell their catches to tourists to eat! Eaten raw with beer!


Small carts/vans selling the big and yummy Jeju oranges!

Next, we had our lunch at a near by eatery, which is our very first Korean meal there!

Typical Korean meals tt we had there r characterized by steamboats/hot pots, kimchi, long bean sprouts, ikan bilis, seaweeds and rice.

Note: there were lotsa beefs and porks in the meals! So i actually slimmed a bit in the land of Kimchi... T_T ( I dun eat red meat!)

Ok, till now, we had only travelled for half a day.. up in next entry, I will be visiting this beautiful place as shown:

So, anticipate my next entry! ok!