7D Korea Golden Rama Tour: Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak, Jeju
Could not believe how fast the time went when you are on holiday. Our day 2 at Jeju Island with Golden Rama tour was soon ending with the trip to Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak. I was kinda excited about this place because every tour group's advert about Jeju always display the picture of Seongsan Ilchulbong on its cover page/ webpage.
Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak rose from under the sea due to a volcanic eruption over 100,000 years ago. The peak is actually quite interesting when viewed from the sky because it is a tuff cone. You can google the image of the peak online and you will see that the top of the peak is filled with greeneries. The crater looks like a gigantic cone from below. Hiking trail is available here if you want to try to get closer to the top but since the southeast and north side of the crater are basically cliffs, you can only follow the assigned paths toward the top.
Since Mom has just recovered from her broken knee, she straight away showed us her resistance to pursue the longer way to the top. Okay, stratch it, she was not even interested to reach the top at all. Using Mom as an excused, Bro and I were also somewhat hesitant to exert strength to climb to the top. Omaigat, turns out we are one heck of a non-adventurous/ lazy family. But if you are also too lazy/ have legs injury, you can follow the direction to the left since this path is easier to follow. You can still get amazing view of the Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak (also known as sunrise peak) from this path.
Oh right, do you know that Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak is also one of UNESCO World Heritage sites? I kinda feel like checking all those sites which are listed under UNESCO World Heritage but up to now, haven't really started ticking those sites that I have visited before. Procrastination is really tough to handle. Hmm, it seems that visitors can go for speedboat rides down there. Or are those speedboats owned by private owners who are chaebol (re: rich Korean heirs)? Kinda hard to predict from up here.
Telescope is available for use (for certain coins price) to see the sea horizon. Mom and Bro had a bit of a small debate on whether you really have to insert coins to use the telescope because Mom claimed that she could still see the horizon without paying a single cents. I was kinda too meh to check out the validity of each person's point because at this stage of the tour, we were all pretty much tired (and in need of cold drinks because of the heat).
The view of the sea and the sea breeze were rather nice to enjoy though. Since we were allocated another 45 minutes to spend at Seongsan Ilchulbong, we figured we should just chill here for a while and keep each other company in silence. After all, one needs to connect with nature after working our asses everyday to earn a living. #oceantherapy
Since we still have around 15 minutes left before our assigned time to come back to the bus, I decided to buy drink from the cafe located near to the entrance of Seongsan Ilchulbong, Caffe Bene. There is an outlet of Caffe Bene in Singapore (at Vivo City) but I admit I've never tried their coffee before. Well, it's better to try out the original Caffe Bene after all, right? Bro wanted to drink something different and hence, here comes Misugaru Latte. What is Misugaru? It is basically a mixture of different Korean grains roasted and grounded together into Misugaru powder which is then made into a latte. The drink is rich in protein and low in calories (oh wow!) and it does not taste so sweet and light. Which is nice for non-coffee drinker like me. Jjang!
Before going back to the hotel, Golden Rama provided us with dinner on our last night in Jeju. Jenny has told us that we were going to have seafood kimchi jjigae (re: Korean soup). The salad with purplish color sauce is rather interesting. The restaurant apparently uses yoghurt to make the sauce. Yumz.
The white rice is served inside hotstone bowl instead of normal bowl. Beans are added and mixed together with the rice but you need to dig into the rice to see them. I do think the Koreans have 1001 ways to eat their rice, really.
Oh anyeong again, fried fish. You are one of the compulsory item to eat together with the soup, I see.
The seafood kimchi jjigae is finally ready for consumption. Since kimchi is used, the broth of the soup is reddish as what the color of kimchi looks like. The ingredients used for the soup are ranging from clams, mussels, tofu, crayfish and crabs. I quite like the taste of kimchi jjigae and it's really comforting to have the broth together with piping white rice. Yumz.
Admission fees:
Individual: Adults 2,000 KRW/ Teenagers & Children 1,000 KRW
Groups (10 pax or more): Adults 1,600 KRW/ Teenagers & Children 800 KRW
Adults: 25 - 64 y.o.
Teenagers: 13 - 24 y.o.
Children: 7 - 12 y.o.
Operating hours:
1 hour before sunrise till sunset