Halla San

Thursday was the last full day in Jeju during our holiday. We left the hotel after a big breakfast (what's new by now? We ate a LOT during breakfast) and set off for Halla San (Mount Halla). Halla San is the main volcano and made up most of Jeju island. No matter where you are in Jeju, you can see Halla San. We took Yongshil Trail, the easiest path up to the summit. Yongshil Trail is the shortest one in Mt. Halla but known for its best picturesque scenery. The roads are well paved. Distance : 6.5 kms (4.1 miles), Time required : Ascending(3hrs. 50mins.) Descending(3hrs.) We saw a deer on the way and it was the closest ever she got to a non-domesticated animal.






Were we a bit too aggressive to go to Halla San when we were traveling with Changunnie? Probably. She was a good girl and wanted to walk herself but we ended up carrying her most of the way and it wasn't easy when we were close to the summit. It rained right there and there were places that required a bit of leaping. By the time we were done, we were starving. It was really cold that afternoon and we ordered dduk gook and mook at the tuck shop at the beginning of the trail. I was cold and starving but was still convinced that the soup for dduk gook should be made of bones or I shouldn't touch it.....

After the Halla San hike, we went to more parks (folk village, bonsai and caves...etc) but I was so tired that I slept through most of them. And we stopped by Seogwipo on the way back to have dinner. It was a hole in the wall type of place but the gooksoo (noodle) was good. Funny enough, they served gherkin with kimchi! Weird but tasted alright.

I want that plot of land

Ever been to a place and you just want to settle there? I found such a place in "Yong Muh Li" (Dragon Head) on Jeju Island. We took the morning easy and went for early dinner (around 5pm) at a place called Nam Kyung Seafood. It's supposed to be a good restaurant where the North Koreans were entertained when the unification committee visited Jeju Island. About 10 minutes walk from the restaurant was the Yong Muh Li. It was beautiful there. People could pick up shell fish and seaweed on the volcanic beach there. Sunny, nice breeze, breathtaking view. I wanted to get a small plot of land to build a dream house and was told to forget about it. It's a "fung shui" land (yes, Korean believe in the same thing) and no one can buy land there.






We started our dinner early. It was a Korean raw fish dinner. Definitely not something we can get in HK and not even that easy to get in Seoul. There were so much food, the family was silent for 45 minutes. The raw fish that we had was the size of Changunnie's body. Nothing was wasted at the restaurant, the internal organs, the head meat, the skin of the fish...etc were all served. As if we didn't have enough food, we also got a grilled fish (which Changunnie loved)







After the big dinner, we decided to walk along the shore and on the other side (the Yong Muh Li side), there were couple old women selling shell fish and live octopus (yep, what you saw on Discovery Travel and Living before. They chop up the live octopus and you put that in your mouth with some kochujjang (chili paste) and the octopus moves in your mouth!) We were too full to eat anything at that point.




We kept on walking and found lots of horses about 50m away from the beach. Changunnie went straight to one and so Grandpa went for a wide with her. The horses were really slim. The long limbs told us that they are not Mongolian horses (some people said Jeju has Mongolian horses bought down from the Mongolian through the mainland a long time ago). I wonder if that's true or not but the horses looked like they needed some health supplement.





When we were supposed to meet up the driver on the top of the mountain, no one showed up. Not wanting Grandpa and Grandma to run around, I went up and down the 300 off stairs couple times to look for the driver and to update the family. By the time we got in the car, I was ready for a shin ramyun.....

All you can eat (pork) not!

We continued our tourist trap tour after D-Land. The expectation was properly managed after D Land and we weren't too excited when we got to Hallim Park. Ok, there're two limestone caves and some bonsai. Hmm.... as exciting as eating a live earthworm for me.

It turned out to be a pretty pleasant 2 hours stroll. Lots of work was put in to keep the garden in good shape. The black and white pictures along the way showed how the founder and his team of workers turned a piece of waste land into a garden.




By the time we were done, it was 2pm. Changun ajashi took us to a restaurant on the highway. It serves Korean grilled fish and stews. It was a big lunch and according to everyone else, was pretty good too. I was too busy dealing with Changunnie's feeding and nature's calls and didn't get a chance to take any pictures or eat anything. One thing I noticed though, there are lots of weird Korean Hangul character on the menu. I thought I was the only one who couldn't understand it. It turned out that Grandma and Grandpa have never seen that before either. Changun Ajashi explained that after the introduction of Korean by the king, there wasn't much contact (in terms of language development) with the mainland and lots of ancient Korean remains well and alive in Jeju. These days, scholars from the mainland go to Jeju to study the language, in the hope of understanding old poetries and poems better.

After lunch, we went to the "Spirited Garden", a garden that showcases some of the best bonsai in all of Korea (or so they claimed). I don't know how spirited the garden was. Changunnie slept there and I strolled around a little. That stop was really for Grandpa and Grandma as they are into gardening and bonsai.






It was after 7pm when we got back to the hotel. Since I didn't eat much (at all!) during lunch, we decided to try out another Ddong dweji jib. Not sure why but we picked one on the main street of Jungmun area. As the nice person I always am, am not going to disclose the name of the restaurant here. Just avoid that area if you ever go to Jeju! The service was bad and the food was way too expensive. Call me an old woman but I really don't like the excessive use of sugar in cooking which is favoured by the younger generation in Korea. When my bibimnengmyun arrived, I was disappointed. It was too sweet for my taste! Even the salad that was served with the Ohgyeopsal was sweet!

We headed back to the hotel in heavy rain and bought a mango cheese bread for Changunnie.

Dinosaur Land

We woke up late for our big breakfast at the hotel (which turned into a norm during our stay in Jeju). When we were wondering whether we should stay by the pool side or go down to the beach (Jeju's beaches are very nice, volcanic setting and big waves, not as nice as Big Island though), it started to rain. Grandma showed up at that point and told us that the taxi driver would pick us up in 30 minutes.

In Jeju, you can either rent a car to drive around (with GPS in Korean) or hire a taxi by the day (costs about KRW 100,000 or USD 85). We thought it'd be like in the US where we can drive with our HK license and ID, we didn't apply for the international license before our trip. When we couldn't present that piece of paper that says "International License", the lady at the counter withdrew the car key. Well, not a big loss since the available cars were either Sonata or some 7 seaters. The Kia Sorrento or Hyundai Santa Fe weren't on the list! Anyway, we randomly picked a card from the pile we collected so far and called one taxi drivers for tour service. Turned out he was booked already and he told us his friend would be there to be our guide.

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the ajashi's name plate when we got into the cab. His name is Kang Chang Un! Chang Un Ajashi would drive our Changunnie around Jeju that day! Grandma wanted something fun for Changunnie and was thinking about Dolphin show, Dinosaur Land and some other theme park. Which was not exactly what we envisioned for our holiday but well.... we decided the dolphin shows in HK and San Diego are better and ended up at Dinosaur Land.

If you grew up in HK between the 50s and 80s, you would know of the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park (荔園遊樂場).



http://paper.wenweipo.com/2008/05/08/HK0805080073.htm

Think the last time I went to LCK Amusement Park was when I was 7 or 8. I literally walked down the memory lane the moment I set foot into Dinosaur Land. I held a teletubbies "uh-oh" under my breath. I could not justify why we paid the KRW 10,000 per person entrance fee but since we were there, might as well get the most out of it.



There were lots of big dinosaur sculptures around. Changunnie was amused but the boats in the small pond by the entrance was screaming "come here" to Changunnie. She shot over so quickly that made me wonder if she could break the world record for 100m. The pond was about 60cm deep. The water.... well, algae on the bottom of the pond and made the water green. There wasn't any fish in there at all. However, Changunnie's favourite sport is to row a boat (by someone else while she watches). As sucker parents, we promptly pulled out a KRW 5,000 note for the boat rental. The weight balance didn't work too well at first and the caretaker had to hold the back of the boat to prevent it from sinking. Finally, daddy got the trick of how to stay afloat and off he went with Changunnie.





Next stop? There wasn't really a next stop because it started to rain when we emerged from the Dinosaur Cave (a short tunnel connecting the pond and the other side of the park, 100m long). Grandma went to see the "sea creatures museum" on the left and we took Changunnie to the shed on the right. I knew D-Land is the Korean version of LCK Amusement Park. Again, as sucker parents, we pulled out two KRW 500 coins for Changunnie's enjoyment.




Changun Ajashi came running with umbrellas to our rescue and we gladly accepted that and convinced each other that we couldn't let Changun Ajashi to go back to the car on his own and left D-Land after 30 minutes there.

Hotel food

Jul 20 was a designated lazy day, other than being by the pool side, I don't remember what else we did. It wasn't a bad idea to do that when traveling with a toddler and two retirees.

We started the day by having a BIG breakfast at the hotel. There were so many people at the hotel, it was like a mad house at the reception area. Luckily, a staff asked if we wanted to go to the back room for our breakfast. The decor was "not as grand" according to her description. To me, it was about the food (the front room was pretty good and the back would better serve the same menu), I didn't really mind the decor. It was a pleasant surprise. To make up for the "poor" decor (which in my opinion, the back room was more spacious and delightfully simple comparing to the front), there was a playroom for kids with attentive staff to babysit and a children's buffet table which they didn't have in the front room. The food for children was not bad, fried chicken, french toast, fries, risotto (veg), egg, pancake, banana crepe. I was happy that we moved to the back. The food for adult was good too. They served Korean and Western breakfast. I didn't know why but I loved the chicken teriyaki. The milk was thicker and tastier than the one I could get in Hong Kong. On our first day, there was a big bowl of Banana. It might be very cheap to buy banana in Hong Kong, it is a luxurious item in Korea. People were like ants over honey at the fruit table.

We didn't really wait for long after breakfast. Soon, we were in the pool. Changunnie was happy to play with (or more accurately, approach) the other kids at the pool. I don't really understand why whilst there were tons of kids in the pool, they only played with their parents. It's like they were told to be wary of strangers regardless of the age of the strangers (i.e. include other infants and toddlers). And, there were lots of Russians around. Did I say that in a previous post? They wore really strange swimsuits (tiny speedo and ridiculous bikinis that can't really wrap their relatively large bodies) and they didn't swim. They were slow cooking themselves under the sun until they were red like a cooked lobster.

We had a cheeseburger and a pot bingsu (팥빙수) fruit, red bean and ice cream on ice by the pool. The patty was juicy but my complaint was about the bun. It got very soggy within 2 minutes. The pot bingsu was good though. It was a big enough bowl for the family to share. Grandma and Grandpa were no where to be seen and we only found out later on that they went "eye shopping" (Korean for window shopping) in the tourist area.

By the time we made it back to the room, our skins were all wrinkly and it took a while to wash off the pool water smell. Changunnie was hungry again and we ordered room service. It was hard for Changunnie to make up her mind and so we ordered the spicy wings with salad and a big pizza. She ate the good part and I ate all the left over. I was too full to have a proper dinner and wanted to stay back to take care of some work (i.e. rinse the swimming suits and to do my home spa thing). Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa took Changunnie to town to have a Korean-Japanese meal. Apparently, they had lots of sushi and tempura.....

Samgyeopsal? Ohgyeopsal!

Still talking about the first day in Jeju.

So, after the pool, we headed over to "Sam Won Jung" in Jungmun for some "ddong dweji". Dweji means pig in Korean and ddong.... Hmm... I will leave it to your imagination of what it means. One hint, it's what dogs and pigs apparently eat.....



Usually, we get "samgyeopsal" which means three layers of fat. What we got in Jeju was "ohgyeopsal" which means five layers. I know it doesn't sound healthy but who said tasty food is always healthy? Plus, the key is to consume in moderation. No one asked you to eat ohgyeopsal every day until you get "muffintop" as your middle name! The food was good and reasonably priced. The best part was the service. It was warm and friendly. The moment they saw Changunnie, they served a bowl of white rice and miyuk gook without extra charges (and before knowing what we would order) to settle the little one. They didn't frown at all when Changunnie decided to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for everyone. In fact, one of the ajumah went along and they sang ABC together.

Talking about the miyuk gook, gotta share the recipe I learned. Usually, people fry up some garlic and minced beef to form the base of a miyuk gook. It's more milky and salty as a result. In Jeju (the one that Changunnie absolutely loves!) was made without any meat and is clear like a consomme. Instead of using meat, Jeju people use daishima (or Kombu in Japanese) and myul ji (anchovies) as base and then add miyuk and salt. It has a natural sweetness from the daishima. It's not difficult to make at all and can be used as soup base for other dishes.






The food arrived when Changunnie was having her miyuk bap. The cut of the pork was thick, at least 1cm thick, nothing like the stingy ones in HK. I was too hungry and completely forgot about taking any pictures of the pork. All I can say is despite the 5 layers of fat, all we got was collagen and the part closest to the skin was like jelly fish with pork fragrance.

They have Jeju makgeolli. It's a white unrefined rice wine traditionally drank by farmers. If I get to drink it all the time, I don't mind being a farmer. The taste is like sool bak or the white sugar pudding in Chinese (bai tang gao)

We had two orders of pork and that didn't empty out my wallet (and I left most of my cash in the safe at the hotel). A place that I recommend especially after another ohgyeopsal meal later on last week.

After the dinner, we walked next door to a local produce shop to buy oranges. There are two types of famous oranges in Jeju, the mandarin orange (like the Japanese mekan) and the Hallabong (big like a small pomelo). It was a good first day!

The Land of Morning Calm

Lots of painful calls and two long weeks of waiting after the confirmation of tickets and hotels and we set off to Korea on July 18. It wasn't easy at all to make arrangement in Korea, even for Korean speakers. We called the same hotel reservation number (listed on the official website) of the Shilla Hotel four times to enquire about available packages and we got a different answer each time. In fact, I got transferred to their onsite engineer once and the gentleman was kind enough to go through their internal directory and gave me tips on which department to call. And not to mention if you have a Korean sounding name, showing evidence of your foreign citizenship saves you about 12% of levy that the Korean government imposes on Koreans for staying at a hotel.

Call me a spoiled brat but we went for business class on CX. The CX holiday package was alright in value (2 nights at the Park Hyatt in Seoul + Business Class return is less than the normal full fare Business Class ticket). Changunnie started her eating tour early at the lounge. I think she had one bowl of noodle, one cup of ice cream, half a glass of iced chocolate and some muffin.... That's my girl!



When we got on the plane, the Business Class type gave us the eyes and the looks but I couldn't care less. Try to travel with a toddler (READ TERRIBLE TWO) in economy when it's nap time! It means no nap nor movie for anyone in the immediate rows around the toddler. Changunnie didn't kick up a fuss at all. She did a little friendly hello round to people who don't have the manners to say hello back and settled calmly in her flat bed seat. I gotta watch "New In Town", ate my bibimbup and downed maybe two cocktails. Grandpa was quite happy with the "unstoppable" flow of champagne.

We got to the Best Western Niagara in the middle of nowhere near Kimpo that night. The rooms are..... smelly, the beds got sand and there was absolutely nothing around in the neighbourbood. It rained quite a bit that night and we settled with jajangmyun and kimbap from a roadside stand that serves taxi drivers in the area. Probably not the ideal way to start a supposedly nice holiday but I took that as expectation management!

A bad breakfast (the dwenjjang chigae was spoiled! They probably didn't reheat it well enough the night before) and we were at the Kimpo airport. It looked tiny and something straight from the 70s. Grandma and Grandpa walked around and showed us the gate at which they caught the flight to the US 30 plus years ago, without knowing what was really ahead of them. This time, they flew with certainty of what they were going to do, a relaxing holiday.

Changunnie must be going through another growth spur. She was hungry and insisted on getting something from Lotteria. For those who are not familiar with fast food joint in korea, Lotteria is a cross between McD and KFC with a little bit of Baskin Robins the Korean way. The chicken nuggets was excellent, a little spicy without bringing tears to the eyes. We got on the plane with a full stomach. Asiana served Jeju Mandarin orange juice (very similar to mekan and very sweet) on the plane. Changunnie liked it and was willing to ask for more in Korean. "Unni! Juice Chusaeyo!"

We arrived at the Shilla Jeju after a 45 minutes bus ride. The hotel is located in the Jungmun resort area. It was very nice to look at the ocean. There was nothing between the sky and the sea when we looked out. It took a while to settle in (plus Changunnie fell asleep whilst I signed all the forms and tendered my credit card to the hotel staff). She woke up at 2:30 and we headed for our first meal in Jeju at the "Home of the Women Diver" (Hae Nyoh Weo Jib).






The place was nothing fancy but the catch was fresh and not something that you can get easily in Hong Kong. It's full of the flavour of the sea. The best part (to me) was the abalone congee in the end. It was naturally sweet and the rice cooked well, not in grains anymore but not mushy either.

The afternoon was just sitting by the pool, surrounded by Koreans and Russians (yes Russians). It was a bit surreal for us but it wasn't difficult to hang out by the pool side on a hot day.

Almost the age of a bottle of good whisky

A very good friend from my college days is in town and we went out for dinner tonight. It's been almost 20 years since we first met. We were innocent kids being miles away from home for school. There was no skype or MSN back then (even though you can use Unix and the rather poorly named function to "finger" someone). We didn't need facebook to stay friends.

I don't think our appearances changed much (or am I in denial?) We simply went from girls talking about kiddie stuff like "hot chocolate with marshmallow is far better than that without" to "the mail order bride trend started in Russia and moved onto China and now a big trade in Southeast Asia". We were not able to see each other that much over the last 15 years because of work and study. The flight time was almost always at least 12 hours away.

The dinner was pleasant and we had a good catch up. The missing bit was another good friend from back then couldn't make it and the visitor asked if I have been keeping in touch with the other friend. The answer was an appalling one. I would love to but didn't really do much.

I think the problem is when we are in the same city, we always think there's a "next weekend" to catch up. We ended up rescheduling our get together and after a while, we simply put it on the back burner. Maybe I tend to take things for granted too easily.

I counted the number of years the three of us have known each other. It's been almost 19 years! Almost the age of a good bottle of whisky. How can I be so sloppy? Isn't friends and family more important than work? Gotta re-prioritise!

50 cent - Not the rapper but the cost of a plastic bag

The government is trying to reduce the plastic bag usage in Hong Kong and soo from today, each bag will cost anywhere between 50C to $1.

http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/psb/en/index.html

Intention is good but I am not sure if we will really be able to cut the usage unless people truly understand what the implication of using plastic bags excessively is.

In the next few months, we will be able to see if the HK gov't is having yet another good intention implemented inappropriately which results in creating another problem

Being green is not as difficult as you think

Whilst I was struggling to get out of bed for work on Monday (My name isn't Linda Evangelista. It's the mere thought of being in dodoland was enough to stop me from leaving home, especially after a fun weekend with Changunnie), a thought came to my mind. I decided to see how much I could do to be greener.

Taking the bus and subway to work would be a good start. I carried my own linen shopping tote and rejected all plastic bags. Those are easy and I decided to take one step forward and spent 15 minutes at the pantry (and pretended to have a casual management talk with the team so that no one knows I am using company time for personal use!) My observation:

- Use the steel spoon instead of the wooden stick to mix your coffee/tea

- Leave the cups and spoons in the sink for the cleaning lady to clean. Saves more water and detergent than for each person to clean his/her own cup

- Pout just enough water into the cup. Lots of people have half of their distilled or mineral water in the cup when they leave the cup in the sink

- Use your own folk and spoon instead of the plastic ones

- Shake your hands after wash before reaching out for the napkin. Save at least two to three napkins each time. Better yet, carry your own hand kerchief