Birthday Trip to Phuket

December 20, 2016 Leave a reply

I was hesitating when B suggested to go to Phuket. I was like thinking “omg, no shopping?!” but we still went ahead to book since Jetstar was having a some sort of a mid night promotion.

Tickets for 2 with one check in luggage at $270! which i think it was a good bargain ! ( i know , i know , it was not dirt cheap but it was still cheap!)

Our stay at Chennalai Garden Resort was remarkable! i think this is the first time i stayed in such nice and cheap (yeah i’m a cheapskate) hotel! I was expecting like at least SGD 100 per night for a seaview hotel but here it cost us around $78/ night (seaview and with breakfast) and not forgetting it was like 3 min walk to the Kata beach! I think the previous stay at Patong was not really enjoyable as it was too crowded and for some reason i did not remember that the beach was as nice as Kata! but if you are someone who wants a bit of a beach life and more of nightlife holiday, Patong would be a better choice!

Escaping from the “very unhealthy” PSI from Singapore to beach paradise Phuket was one of the most enjoyable moment! I was worried when i heard news that the haze actually reached Phuket but we were blessed that we did not continue to be engulfed in the haze instead we had enjoyed one of the best weather we had for months!

Kata beach

We made a trip to the Phuket Weekend Market. It’s like a smaller scale of Chatuchak. So we booked a cab at the hotel which cost us THB600, i was thinking that’s about THB 1200 for a return trip! Personally i find that’s quite lot of money. Moving around in Phuket is expensive , i would suggest to book a personal driver or from Phuket Shuttle. we used their airport service and so far they are safe and punctual. Another alternative that we tried was GrabCar! (I find it kind of weird that Uber is somewhat banned in Phuket but not Grabcar) Anyway , they are having a promotion till end of Nov 2015 that is THB300 off per trip , maximum of 3 trips, so B and I would have total of 6 trips! Always look out for promos where possible!

Jeju Day 2 : to conquer Hallasan (erm 2nd shelter)

November 2, 2013 Leave a reply

Before going to bed…

Me: Probably we should skip Hallasan tomorrow and visit the museums instead….
B: why? Since we are already here (in Jeju),we should give it a shot.

This is what i love about my man.

And we did. No regrets even though came back with legs that we wished that they did not belong to us after all those hiking

We woke up 630am, drank coffee and made our way to the bus stop. We took bus number 780 to Seongpanak which will brought us to the entrance or the start of the easiest trail.

We were not trained nor geared for the hiking so we thought we should start from the easiest trail.Wore sandals and tried to survive the day with 3 fan duan , 2 breads and 2 liters of water.

Our snacks

The sandals was the biggest mistake.

For people like us who do not hike or exercise much, should really train for this trip if your ultimate goal is to get to the top.

the map

entrance

Anyway there was a time limit whereby you will not be allowed to proceed to the top if you get to the 2nd shelter after 1230pm.

We set a goal. To get to the 2nd shelter before 1230pm.

Here we were at the entrance. You can purchase a certificate or even a medal at the ENTRANCE to “certify” that you had reached the top. That was so contradicting. Ha.

medal anyone?

The path were just rocks, uneven rocks.

rocks.. more rocks

at the 2nd shelter

above the clouds

autumn to be here soon

All in all , we took 3 hr and 15 min to get to the 2nd shelter and about 9 hours to and fro. My legs just simply hurt at every move.

Lucky thing the bus stop is just outside the entrance .

And we had Mister Pizza for dinner. Not too sure whether that was a local pizza chain or probably that’s the only restaurant I could remembered that was near our hotel. We had the seafood pizza because most of their pizzas contained beef.

food.!!!

dinner at mister pizza

Lucky that the weather was good

Personally I learnt that if i kept worrying how to descend , i would not get to the 2nd shelter. Same applied in life, if you kept worrying about failure, you will never succeed!

Jeju Day 1 – Seongsan Ilchulbong

October 3, 2013 Leave a reply

Made our way to the bus terminal. It’s probably about 15 min walk from the hotel. I was expecting an interchange but instead it’s just the size of 2 bus stops joined together. Oh well, that’s the bus terminal.

to the bus terminal (circled in yellow) from little france

We were checking out and staring at the map at the bus stop for a while and a nice helpful Korean lady tried to help us with .. er.. Korean.

this was part of the thing that we were starring at

Anyway B managed to figure out what she’s trying to tell us. She mentioned “30″ . So I asked B , what she meant? ” the frequency?, the journey duration? The next bus?”

B : /shrugs

So we approached the old man behind the ticketing booth and pointed to the Korean words on my ipad for Seongsan. He went “ahhhh”, wrote something on a piece of paper and showed us a right hand and index finger of the left hand onto the opened right hand.

“15″?

B said :”6″

Amazed at how he can read the folks’ mind. All of us laughed. The bus ticket cost us KRW 3000 each which is 10 x cheaper (i think) comparing to taking taxi.

We bowed to show our thank you and board the bus 700 soon after. Taking transport in Jeju is not difficult ( just need to know which bus number to take). There is voice announcement (in 4 languages; korean, english, chinese and japanese)of next stop and next next bus stop in the bus. So just need to listen carefully and hit the bell.

On the journey there, the bus stopped for a while, the driver actually went for a quick smoke and back again. I don’t think our Singapore drivers can do that! Haha it was quite a sight actually.

After a while, the bus stopped again and we saw he went to buy himself a drink! lol!

Photos took during our journey there and the bus ride from terminal to Seongsan is about an hour.

9km more!

small butchery

alighted at the wrong stop .. so near yet so far

Almost there!

almost almost!!

Reached and bought 2 tickets!

tickets for 2!

Dolhareubang at Seongsan

here we go!

Midway at Seongsan

Finally got to the top! It was not as spectacular but it’s still beautiful! Cannot imagine how beautiful if we get to see the sunrise in this clear sky.

Top of Seongsan!

to descend

decending trail

Manjanggul was the next destination!

Waking up on the Jeju morning

September 17, 2013 Leave a reply

Good morning from Jeju!

Seeing my loved one making coffee ( manually grind + dripped ) while I’m watching S3 LoL world championship (OMG vs SKT) what else can I ask for?

LoL S3 World Championship live!

B even remember to bring out the small bottle of milk from the fridge and warm it using the hot water ( cause I do not drink black coffee)

This is the first time that I experienced what people meant by 暖暖的阳光。It’s sunny but yet it’s surrounded with cool air! (23degree now)

Now waiting for B to get ready to go out!

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It was a clear blue sky morning ! And it was very windy in Jeju!

clear blue sky

While making our way to the bus terminal , we somehow got to Seogwipo Olleh Market ( i know there’s a market nearby but i did not bother to find out how to get there) . But anyway it’s walking distance from the hotel.

Seogwipo Olle Market

You can get the Korean side dishes fresh from the market!

the Korean side dishes

thought i saw those at some … aquarium..?

erm… not too sure what is this ..

not-so-crowded market lane

crowded junction in the market

One of the must-try stuff would be the Jeju’s tangerine and also the tangerine chocolate. We only got to try the fruit on the day we departed from Jeju. I will post the pictures in another post.

famous tangerine

After the short walk at the market , we walked to the food street and had lunch at a local restaurant . B was asking for menu but instead the restaurant lady took out a piece of small scrapped paper which only had the words “Pork”, “Beef”, “Beansprouts” and … “Blood” on it. Each time she would say the word on the paper and point to the picture they had on the shop wallpaper. Apparently both of us ended with “Pork” soup.

And here were our lunch!

“Pork”

We headed to the terminal to catch the bus to Seongsan Ilchulbong and Manjanggul Cave.

Jeju Little France Hotel

September 16, 2013 Leave a reply

Reached and checked out of Incheon airport to have quick snacks and got the mobile LTE connection. Our lives really cannot goes on without Internet.

Rented the LG U+ wifi device at KRW 5500 per day. Apparently if you rent it for more than 5 days, the rental for the device is waived if not you would need to pay another KRW 3300 per day for the rental of the device i.e total of KRW 8800 per day.

We booked the domestic tickets (~ KRW 380k for a pair of tickets) from Asiana to Jeju because it depart from Incheon airport. Another option is to fly via Korean Air. Korean Air was abit more expensive ( ~ KRW 550k for a pair of tickets) at the time when i booked the tickets. I believe there are cheaper domestic flights if you enough time to spare to depart from Gimpo Airport. As a kiasi Singaporean, of cause I choose to depart from Incheon!

Upon arriving at Jeju airport, we took bus 600 ( airport limousine) which is at gate 1. They had huge posters leading us to the bus bay. Each adult ticket cost KRW 5000.The journey took about 1hr and 15 min and dropped off at New Kyungam Hotel and walked to Little France.

Flew from 8am from Singapore and reached Little France at around 2220 (Korea time).

I was too tired and did not take any photos of the hotel room except this un-glam photo of it =x

At USD 80 per night for a “modern” room, It has everything including hairdryer, shampoo, towels and fridge. The room also has a kettle and they have provided instant mix coffee and brown rice green tea. Although it looks old , the toilet and room is clean. I read from one of the comments from Tripadvisor that the bed is very hard ( that’s so true) haha. The hotel is near a lot of cafes , the bus terminal and also Seogwipo Market!

Overall i’m still happy with it as it’s reasonably cheap and good location.