Jeju Day 3

24 October 2007 @ Mount Hallasan [한라산]

Today, the five of us [ShinKeat, ChauLun, DeYan, ChinNam and me] decided to hike the highest mountain in Korea, the Mount Hallasan. The peak of the mountain stands at 1.9km but we decided to just hike to its second peak, Wiseoreum [1.7km], which is lower and takes lesser time to go up and down.

There are two tracks that lead to the highest summit and another two tracks that lead to Wiseoreum. We took the Yeongsil track to hike up and Eorimok trail to get down from the mountain. It’s a total of 8.4km.

The tracks are relatively easy and the slopes are not very steep all the way. Besides that, the views along the paths are magnificent. The leaves of the trees are turning red and yellowish. And as we go up higher, we can see the beauty of mother nature in this autumn season.

We finally reached the top at around 11am. We had some kimbap and ramyeon for our brunch. It was nice to have something hot for the cool weather. After taking some photos with the rocks and grass, we took off to hike down the Eorimok trail. We took lesser time to get down as we leaped and run all the way. A bit dangerous but quite fun though. =P

Mount Halla and the 2 trails that lead to Wiseoreum

5 guys getting ready to hike from Yeongsil









Me and the summit [too bad we don't have time to hike to the highest part]

Reached Wiseoreum!! [1.7km]



Yeah! We conquered Hallasan!

24 October 2007 @ Jeju-si [제주시]

Next destination, Jeju-si city, the main city of Jeju Island [far north of the island]. We had a quick lunch at Jeju-si and then head off to the Folklore and Natural History Museum. There are a lot of stuffs in there from the wildlife you can find in Jeju to the history and culture of the Koreans. As usual, no pictures allowed in there… maybe just one…

Folklore and Natural History Museum entrance

Outside the museum

That's the museum... in that building

Taken inside the museum [the people are grinding something I guess]

Then we took another taxi to Yongduam, the rock that looks like a dragon head at the seaside. It was a total disappointment! The picture we saw from websites and books were beautiful but… [needless say more]

Yongduam [Dragon Head Rock]

That's the head [haihz...]

As there’s nothing much to see there, we didn’t stay long. Then we walked along the seaside and reached a street with quite a number of cafés [Koreans love coffee]. We didn’t stay long there too as there’s no food to eat. We were starving.

So we hop onto another taxi to get to the most happening area of Jeju-si. We had our late dinner there and just walk around the busy streets.

A busy juncntion in Jeju-si city

When our legs were starting to complaint on all the walking, we finally took another taxi [we spent way too much on taxi fares] to the airport and took the express bus back to Seogwipo. Quite a bit of letdown for the places we went today. Hope that tomorrow will be better! Billy, out.