Ochen Priyatna

11. BEST IMPROMPTU IRRATIONAL HOLIDAY SPLURGE

Those who have been following me on Instagram would have knew about our virgin Baseball match in Jamsil stadium, Seoul. So the story goes like this: we were in Busan (at Haeundae, to be specific) and we saw throngs of LG Twins, Samsung Giants and Lotte Giants fans all dressed in their team's jerseys. We kinda guessed that they had a match then in Busan and we were right as tuning in to the baseball channel later in the day, we caught the game, which Lotte Giants won against Samsung Lions. We were quite sad that we missed this opportunity to watch as 1. we like to watch sports live and 2. Lotte Giants was apparently the most hyped up Baseball team in terms of audience cheers. thought it would be fun to cheer along with everyone. So...we tracked down the schedule of the baseball matches and seeing that we were visiting Jeju and then Seoul next, the only way we could catch a game was in Seoul.

Watching Baseball in Korea was pretty cool as each player in the teams get their own specialised cheers and we could follow along, even though we were in the cheapo seating area. There was a player called Yoo Gangnam and they re-lyricised the Gangnam Style song into his cheer hahaha Anyhow the best takeaway was that Beer is really cheap in there (1l goes for $4, comes with cups) and chicken should be bought from KFC or Lotteria. We bought from Nene and they weren't very nice as the chicken was cold by the time we got in.

12. BEST STAY


For the most part of our accoms in Korea, we stayed in Airbnb or boutique hotels (otherwise known as sleazy Motels in Korea) so there was not much to comment since we were on the budget side and we did not exactly look for really awesome houses. We stayed in 7 different accoms across the 4 cities and by evaluating them based on their location, view and level of comfort, we concluded that our best stay was...




Our Hanok stay in Jeonju! Yes this is the actual view from our room and we sat at the table to have one of the best Haemul Pajeon we tasted, cooked by the mother of our airbnb host. Although he wasn't there physically to welcome us, his mum was really welcoming and even gave us the biggest room despite us only reserving the small room. The two layers of blankets weren't sufficiently comfortable so we got 2 more and wala! we had a well-padded bed for 5 whole days in Jeonju! Located in the middle of the Jeonju Hanok Village, food was not an issue as the place was just a minute walk to the main road of the village, where food stores lined the street. 

13. BEST WALK AFTER A HEAVY MEAL



Naturally, after one ingests a large amount of food, a walk is necessary to hit off any occurrences of food coma. Due to the heavy meals we often have, we usually find ourselves taking a walk off course to burn some calories before heading to our next destination.

In Seoul, we usually leave out those walks as taking the train, shopping or walking to our apartments does the trick too. Jeonju and Busan saw us exploring various cultural villages that have numerous murals on them to attract tourists to these old towns. Alright, the topic could have been better named to "Best muralled village" hahaha







Apologies for being touristy and uncreative but the Busan Gamcheon Cultural Village fared better than the one in Jeonju purely because it was more touristy and hence, more art exhibits available. The observation deck was also built with the purpose of admiring this view dubbed the "Santorini of the East" although I still very much want to visit the original Santorini.

14. BEST WALLET-FRIENDLY FOOD


I used to have the impression that food in Korea is rather affordable, perhaps about the same stanards of living as Singapore but seeing that 1000W = USD$1 instead of SGD$1, perhaps food prices are pretty steep in Korea since the cheapest meals we ate are probably 5000-6000W which is about SGD$6.50. However, being extremely budget and cheapo, we definitely found food of pretty impossible prices in Korea! Mostly snacks but some of them can equate to a light meal too!

All these yummy food, for only 1,000W each?!?!?!




At 1,000W per piece, this dakgalbi was an incredible find and we were so won over by the flavours (and the price) we went back for a second piece on the day! We bought 5 of these for our budget meal in Jeonju and it was more than sufficient to fill both of us up, together with some 2,500W dumplings. The owners, a Korean couple, were really friendly too! As they were cooking those yummy DakGalbi, the husband was asking me how I picked up Korean and how he made his patties.

Directions: walk to the end of the main street of Jeonju Hanok Village (the side that has a church) and turn right. Follow the street for about 1km and you should chance upon a bus stop. The Dakgalbi shop is just beside the bus stop! Great snack for commuters waiting for buses.

15. BEST SCENERY FIND DRIVING ABOUT JEJU
Anyone going travelling around Jeju should rent a car to enjoy all the offerings in Jeju at your own time. Although the public transport system is pretty robust with buses to various tourist spots, having a car means you're able to enjoy this spot without keeping track of the arrival times of the buses. In addition, you can find great eateries located in ulu spots without having to flag a taxi everytime. Always a good idea~

So although we are huge fans of food, unfortunately, our stomach has limited capacity which means we always have trouble finding places to go in between meal times. Since we had a car rental, we decided to check out the coastal areas for scenery and wala, we found a gem. (okay besides the fact that there were a thousand sea cockroaches there freaking me out every second)



And this was after we located a restaurant selling seafood ramen which was not opened for dining yet so it was a silver lining to our otherwise, dark clouds.

16. BEST FORM OF TRANSPORTATION

As I've mentioned in the previous point, rental car is the way to go in Jeju. However, elsewhere in mainland Korea, rental car may not be the best options since 1) the roads are more jam packed so if you're not familiar with left hand drive, it may be dangerous, and 2) the public transport is pretty decent to get around. In Seoul and Busan, the train lines are comparable with that of Singapore's (in fact, Seoul has way more lines and, ahem, less hiccups) and are extensive enough to ensure you can get around most attractions easily. Although i would question the layout of some Busan train stations where the train platforms going different directions do not connect. Once, we entered the wrong platform and we had to pay for the ticket, twice.

Jeonju does not have a city train but grabbing a taxi is pretty convenient as well. Taxis in Korea are generally reasonably priced even when they quote their prices. We had to grab a cab once when the train ended service and the driver quoted us 15,000W for a 20 minutes ride. Pretty reasonable, I would say, comparing to all the midnight charges we encounter in Singapore.

Between cities, KTX seemed like a comfortable choice and probably the speediest one but we opted for a more budget option - inter-city buses. We took these buses from Seoul to Jeonju as well as from Jeonju to Busan and we found them to be decently comfortable. Each ride was 3 hours and we would stop by a rest stop for 15 minutes, every 1.5 hours. The rest stop was an additional benefit since I had always seen them in reality shows when the hosts stop by them to play games and drop people off so it was pretty interesting seeing one in reality.

Finally, we flew Busan Air from Busan to Jeju, and Jeju to Seoul since it was about the same price as the KTX but only 1/3 the time spent. Flying was definitely the fastest mode of transport but do note that not all cities have a domestic airport so flying is not an option always available. 

17. BEST UNESCO SITE

Hmmm reading up to here you may have kinda realise I'm sort off using my pictures to drive my stories because, honestly, who wants to read a blogposts filled with words and minimal pictures. Not many out there, since most of us are visual creatures who prefer to take in information through sights, without the need to digest heavy content. (looking at all the uni profs out there, more visuals, less content please)

So...the entire Jeju island is technically a UNESCO preservation site but I'm gonna skip this since it would be lame to simply pinpoint the entire island as the best (even though it seems to be the case since Jeju was really lepak and beautiful).




Okay, this was pretty cool if you're a geologist or someone interested in the wonders of nature. We visited the Manjang lava tubes for 1500Won (i think) and I felt like I was in a visual Geography lesson hahaha the actual tube walk itself was very dark and cold so an outerwear is recommended but otherwise, it's really cool to trod through the passageway that lava once flowed through. Picture quality is kinda poor due to the low light.

In short, these tubes were caused by lava from volcanic explosions and there break through the ground, layer by layer, which results in the layered tubes that the Koreans adorably named "intestines". The last picture shows the lava tracks that supposedly showed the speed of the lava while flowing through and proves that these tubes were naturally formed.

When we were at the peak of Seongsanilchulbong, we saw quite a few mountains and we kinda guessed that one of them was Hallasan but turns out we were so wrong since the two peaks were pretty far apart and there are many such peaks in Jeju that are still actively volcanic.

18. BEST THEME PARK RIDE





The last time I went to Seoul, we missed the theme parks out entirely and my friends went "So what did you actually do in Seoul?!" Well, lots then. But since that was two years ago and times have since changed, I felt that visiting a theme park since necessary to burn a day in Seoul. We chose Lotte World and overall, it was pretty kiddish with lots of safe and kid-friendly rides. The outdoor, more exciting rides had queues that mirror those you see in USS so it was pretty frustrating to take all the rides we want in the limited time we have. (We entered the park at a After 3pm promotion on Lotte's Facebook where the tickets only cost 15,000Won! A Steal since the usual price was 32,000Won per adult)

So....being adults, our favourite ride is definitely the roller coaster! There was one spinning pirate ship ride that we took and that was crazy for people with motion sickness hahaha I came out feeling green and wanting to throw up all the food we ate. The roller coaster had like a pitch dark section and that was really cool since we couldn't see where the tracks were and the sharp twists and turns were excitingggggg. Although I think if you were a rides person, you would prefer Everland (recommended by all my rides-crazy friends) since Lotte is more family-friendly and has more museums to walk around (pretty interesting Korean History museum).