Grad trip - Day 3

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 3 out of the 12 days grad trip in South Korea! ^^

It is a long post, but if you are interested to read about my experience, please do so. :)

Day 4: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-4.html
Day 2: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-2.html

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Day 3: From Seoul to Jeju

A bright and beautiful 3^rd day in Korea starts off with myself waking up at 5.45am to wash up and pack the last few items into my luggage. The first two days were in Seoul were quite fun, but they were more for my adaptation in Korea. Warm up is over and let’s get started to explore other places of Korea! Shared some tuna gimbap with SY that was bought from GS25 the previous night. A cold but nice start to the day of travelling!

At 7am, we left the accommodation facility and dragged our luggage in the cold morning. Before we entered the subway station, there was an ahjuma wheeling around a big box, with some words saying gimbap. SY asked if I wanted to support a bit of her business, and since I was lacking some backup food for the travelling journey, why not? I ordered a tuna gimbap from her in Korean, she understood and handed me a nice warm roll of tuna gimbap wrapped in aluminium foil, along with a pair of chopsticks in a black plastic bag. That was something warm to touch in that weather, and costs only 2k won! Extremely polite person. =D

It’s a Monday morning in Korea, and you can see that everyone looks kind of sian, dressed up in nice suits and office attires. A lot of guys were dressed up in suits, unlike SG where a lot of guys are dressed in normal office short / long sleeve shirts. Entertainment wise is the same, many are watching Korean shows / dramas / MV on their smart phones. Line 2 was not too bad, a typical SG morning MRT crowd. We then changed to line 9, which the crowd density escalated significantly! Line 9 is a special line which provides the ALL-STOP (the train stops at every station) and the EXPRESS (the train stops only at interchange stations, indicated by a red dot) services. The two services are alternating, and we thought that it will be good to take the express train since our initial and final stop are all interchange stations. When the ALL-STOP train comes, the train looks kind of packed, and we proceeded to step off the line for other people to board. To our surprise, everyone queued as usual and that is when we knew that everybody is just interested in the EXPRESS train.

When the EXPRESS train came, the announcement and jingle is slightly different, as there is a reminder for people to check their destinations carefully. With a lot of people alighting and only 5 people in our queue, I thought that it would be a sure-in to the EXPRESS train, but it turns out to be otherwise. How the hell did we miss that is really still a mystery to me. One thing is for sure though, the Koreans sure know their way to push through! If you ever squeeze people like the way to do in SG, you will definitely be scolded, but I guess that’s a norm during the peak hours of Korea. After checking the timing, we concluded that we had to get in the 2^nd EXPRESS train no matter what, and thankfully that objective was achieved. It takes about 8 to 9 between every EXPRESS train, and 4 to 5 minutes between the alternating train services. We were packed like some compressed sardines (even worse than SG) on the other side of the door. Thankfully, the doors didn’t open on our side, and so we do not need to go in and out of the doors upon reaching the stations.

At 7.45am, we reached the Central City Bus Terminal. Since our bus journey was 20+ minutes later, we rested a bit in front of the bus terminal berth. The terminal is nice with air-con, various shops and restaurants (that were already open). The berths are pretty neat too, as they show the various cities the buses go to, and there is even a timetable / attendance sheet for the bus captains. In Korean dramas, you see a lot of such bus terminals when there is a departure of a family member or a friend. The real life looks exactly just like that, except that people wait inside the bus terminal instead of standing outside in the cold. =P I bought a lemon drink at the convenience stall for backup drinks in the bus.

8.10 am, the time to board the bus. We placed our luggage in a big area at the bottom deck of the bus, and boarded the vehicle. It is quite comfortable, with enough leg space for every passenger. Some seats are in pairs, some singles, while ours were in the back row. From the seating arrangement seen two days ago, it seems like we were actually booking the last few seats of this bus trip. Any later, and our journey timeline would be perfectly screwed up. This means that if you want to have some long bus journeys, it is extremely important to buy tickets in advance. =) The bus captain greeted the passengers of the bus, spoke a lot of Korean words (which should be safety briefings and the number of rest stops) and reminded us to fasten our seat belts. With that nice words of welcome, it is time to leave Seoul!

The roads are very packed, but thankfully there is a bus lane available in the express way! We managed to pass through the busy stretch of road without much jams. Not much of scenery at the start, as all you see are commercial buildings, shopping complexes and shop houses. When we entered the inter-city roads and expressways, the roads became less jammed and the journey was smoother. Here, more rural items can be seen such as padi fields, farms and agriculture facilities. It looks like a pretty hot day to work under that open area, but I guess the cold wind makes up for it. One can definitely feel the sun’s radiation, but can feel the coolness of the climate. =P What a strange feeling to have. Since we woke up early, I slept for a short while in the bus. SY was sleeping / playing with his phone. Our combined plastic bag of snacks remain untouched.

At about 9.40am, the bus stopped at a rest point, GongJu City. We had about 10 minutes to go to the toilet, buy some snacks and get on the bus. The place doesn’t look too urban, as all we see is simply mountains in the distant and open roads around the rest spot. Is that the bus terminal for the city? I am not sure either. Anyway, we walked around the rest spot and look at the Korean snacks and street food. They are seriously over-priced (E.g. hot dog for 4kW), but that’s what you get for being the only eatery in that area. SY wanted to eat a coffee bun from the Rotiboy shop (which is exactly the same brand as in SG), which costs 2.4kW for a bun. Very expensive in my opinion, but somehow SY feels the price is alright and looks very happy when he was eating it. Ok la, he looked kinda sian in the first two days, I was quite glad that he finally found something he like, no matter how small that item is. The taste of the coffee bun is very normal, I feel the SG ones are nicer. A small treat, as SY describes it.

After eating the bun, we went back to the bus. There were some late people, but they were still accounted for before the bus left. The journey continues, this time into stretches of roads with even more mountains, rivers, farms and fields. Along the inter-city expressways, there were signboards that indicate the nearby cities and their estimated distances to arrival. I did some of my puzzles and listened to songs on my phone. Everything was fine until my phone suddenly died while I was listening to the Kpop songs! O_O It was extremely frustrating for your phone to die on you while you are in overseas, but that is also when I was extremely thankful that I brought a backup phone which I intended for photo taking usage only. Wow, that is a super blessing in disguise! =D The dealing with the problem of my spoilt phone was delayed until we reached the Jeju accommodation facility. I continued to do my puzzles, while SY slept in the journey. We had some snacks and sandwiches along the way too.

Close to 12pm, we reached the 2^nd (and final) rest stop of the journey, Hampyeong city. It is an even quieter rest stop as compared to the Gongju counterpart. We went down for a walk. There were not so many street food shops this time round, but there existed a food court and a convenience mart. I brought down my gimbap to the food court for a meal, while SY ate his remaining snacks. We took a bit of time and were the last few to reach the bus. >.< Thankfully we did not delay the bus move-off timing by too much. I ate the remaining gimbap on the bus. The gimbap is damn delicious! It was even nicer than the one I shared with SY. The gimbap was still warm, the rice texture was soft but yet still sticky, and the fillings were great! Generous serving of tuna mayo, crabsticks, pickles and other vegetables. The roll size is great too! If SG had this serving of gimbap for sale, I would have bought it at the same price and be satisfied for a meal. XD The last part of the bus journey continues, and we were approaching Wando. At 1pm, the bus captain announced that we were approaching Wando and asked the passengers to standby for alighting.

Approximately half an hour later, we reached the Wando Bus Terminal. It is a very small and quiet bus terminal, totally different from the Seoul Express / Central City bus terminals. Seeing that the road is extremely quiet with almost nobody on the streets, we decided to ask the bus captain for the directions to Wando Ferry Terminal. He spoke a lot of Korean which I did not understand, but mentioned something about taking the taxi there. Since there is extra time, we walked around Wando for a bit. Wando is an extremely quiet city(?), with low-rise buildings and shop houses along the quiet streets. Many fashion shops and restaurants seemed to be closed. That area gave me an impression of a cold abandoned town, quiet and cooling. SY described the area to be more of a countryside style. The food and items’ prices are generally cheaper than Seoul’s, probably due to the lower standard of living there.

By some luck, we managed to find the water area of Wando and saw some small ships along the bank. It feels really amazing to look and hear the waves collapsing on the shores, in an environment where human and technology noise are not apparent. The kind of peace one hopes to achieve in their life. Ok la, that sounds too philosophical. But you get the idea, the pure sound of waves that you will hear in relaxing computer synthetic musical pieces. =P SY suggested taking a cab to the ferry terminal, but for some reason didn’t attempt to flag any cabs that passed by. We walked along the water bank, admiring various flowers, buildings and the sea water. There is some construction work going on there though. Wando seems to be pretty famous for seafood, as there is a significant proportion of vehicles being seafood delivery trucks, proudly caught in Wando. For seafood restaurants, the caught seafood were dried up on nets directly at the back of the eateries, and customers could either buy them directly or request them to be cooked in another way before serving. How interesting! So items like squids, cuttlefish, proper fishes were dried directly under the sun.

After walking for 20 minutes, we reached the peaceful Wando ferry terminal. It is a very small and looks kind of run-down ferry terminal. A small carpark, a small provision shop, and a waiting area. Small but concise place. We reached the terminal about 1.5 hours earlier, and thus slacked at the waiting area. I took the chance to re-fill all my used water bottles with the water dispenser (getting a -_- look from SY). Our boarding passes were printed on white paper, while there were many others who had their tickets printed on proper quality paper. That made us a bit puzzled, and we asked around if our boarding passes were indeed valid and proper, and that turned out to be a positive. Wow, such Korean flexibility! The information counter lady was also nice enough by giving me some brochures relating to Jeju Island. I bought a corn silk tea from the provision shop which turned out to be very expensive (2.5kW). The old man was like i-chon o, and I was still happily staring at him after giving him 2kW. He gave up and punched in the numbers 2500 on his calculator, and I was like WOAH 2500. XD He just smiled and say yup. I think he knew his stuff is expensive, but that’s too bad. =/ Whatever bah, the tea is not bad anyway.

Nearing to 3pm, there is a super huge crowd of girls in the ferry terminal, making a huge load of noise. >.< Thankfully that wasn’t the case for the 4pm ferry. Nearing to the boarding time, we queued up and started to walk to the ferry. All the ferry trip planning I did before the trip comes to life! I was quite excited about how the ferry looks like, and wow the car ferry is really very big! From its name, it can be inferred that the ferry is also used for transportation of cars too, and I am guessing that the cars belong to the passengers who wish to drive in Jeju. The boarding area looks like a traditional ship docking area seen in the movies, instead of some super nice cosy areas like the ones we had in SG. We walked up the bridge connecting the port to the ferry, and wow the bridge (with holes) can be a bit scary for people with fear of heights! What greeted everyone is a level filled with cars. An usher guided the passengers to the upstairs of the ferry, which is the passenger seating area. We climbed up the non-working escalator with our luggage, and proceeded to the 2^nd class room.

Somehow we didn’t feel that it was strange that our boarding passes didn’t have seat numbers on them, After looking at the rooms, we immediately understood why. What we had expected were some seats by the window, with walkaway in between and a space for bags and luggage with a similar layout to planes. Instead, the rooms are all big empty spaces, with shoe racks at the entrance of the rooms, and rectangular cushions lying next to the walls. That’s not bad too, as we had way too much space for our stuff, and even more space for ourselves to chill at a corner. SY guessed that the space was initially used to transport cars, but had this area revamped to transport humans too to make more money, hmm. Anyway, the ferry had first class rooms too, but they do not have much differences as compared to the 2^nd class counterparts (is it just the human density?). The main area had a TV, snack lounge, and a screen that shows the whereabouts and navigation of the ferry. We didn’t walk much in the ferry, but rather sat down and talked about MATLAB and school life. It is kind of rare for us to talk, as we had different majors. I am from SPMS MAS, while SY is from MAE Mech Engine. We talked about our profs, the good ones and the bad ones, the stuff we learnt in our modules, and our feelings about them. Indeed, some of the things we learnt in our first two years can be kind of useless, while the rest of the content are sort of reminded and used in the later years. But ultimately, will anything we have learnt be used in our jobs? That is not for sure. =/ That 3 hours talk is more of a catch-up session of our lives bah. What we want to do in the future, family and stuff, etc. It is also an ice-breaker from our frustrations in the first two days of the grad trip. =P

Nearing to 6.50pm, we reached the Jeju Ferry Terminal. SY guided me to the outer area of the ferry to observe the docking process. It is quite cool, with the ferry personnel shooting out several anchor ball objects that has to be tied to the wooden support besides the pier. We watched the process in the Jeju cooling air, and felt the ferry slowed down to a stop. Soon after, we alighted from the ferry. We were the last ferry to reach the Jeju Ferry Terminal (which looks more professional than the Wando counterpart), and thus the whole place looks very empty. Just as we thought of looking for directions, there was a cab driver at the taxi stand, asking the alighted passengers if they required a ride. SY sort of figured out what he said, and we proceeded to follow him to this cab. The cab driver attempted to ask other passengers, but apparently they do not require his service, leading to a cab for ourselves. That heavily reminded me of the Grabshare concept, except that this time we are in Korea. =D For some strange reason, SY asked me to sit at the front, and I happily opened the left front door which I forgot that it was the driver’s seat. SY intended me to go to the front right door as he thought the driver opened the door for me to sit, which in fact he was helping me to load my small luggage. Some sort of tiredness must have jammed our brains at that moment. =P We showed him the directions with my paper, and he understood. The ride was very smooth, taking us all the way to our accommodation facility. We gave a 1k tip after he helped me unload the luggage. Initially he refused, but I insisted as he gave us a really nice ride directly without any trouble. J

Soojung’s accommodation facility is quite beautiful, and reminds a person of a small hotel room instead of a house. The area is bigger than Chloe’s as the layout is more rectangular, a table at the side, a TV, and the toilet is big! There is like a few steps in the toilet, where 1 is for basin and toilet bowl, and the other level is for showering. After placing our stuff, we changed into a more lepak attire (with short pants and sandals) and went out for dinner. Almost immediately regretted as Jeju is also quite cold, but the good thing is that it is not as cold as Seoul. J In my impression, Jeju is a tourist spot, and thus everywhere should be busy. However, our area turns out to be quite ulu (looks a bit busier than Wando) and peaceful. I guess Jeju is just a bigger version of Singapore, with some places being less populated I guess? I finally saw the 119 fire station in real life, except that it was under construction. -.- Before we came to Korea, I was quite excited to see how that fire station on the map really looks like, but oh well. =/ We walked along the streets of Jeju, passing by quiet restaurants, shops and hotels. Since many places were near closing, we decided to settle for some chicken wings. The small shop is called Mexicana, with a young adult girl and an ahjuma. The shop seems to be more for a kitchen preparation source for deliveries, as the seats are really limited and there are like tons of takeaway boxes on the counter. We ordered the Yeong-nam wings for 18kW, which tasted mostly sweet (a lot of sauce) and a bit of spiciness inside. There is no rice, and so we ate that with some strange tasting cube radishes. The young girl seems to have lots of difficulty in understanding me and SY speaking basic Korean to her, and thus we resorted to a lot of sign language. I also asked for water, which the girl was like pointing to it and hinting there it was there and I should take it myself. That was when I concluded that water at any small restaurants and food outlets are self-service facilities, the way I like it. =P

After dinner, we went to the bakery to buy some pastries. I bought a white chocolate tart (I thought it was cheese), which was a bit expensive (2kW?). We then proceeded to GS25 to buy our usual water and stuff. The young lady can speak English quite well, and SY was quite surprised and happy by that fact. Not sure if he was happy about the English or the girl. XD We then went to a dry store to buy a bottle of detergent and proceeded back to our accommodation facility for a rest. Even though the day is mainly spent on travelling, it was a day I really enjoyed myself out of the three. With a happy ending to the night with SY watching TV, welcome to Jeju Island, the touristy spot as said by Ronald, and the 2^nd part of the grad trip. =) I also finally had a hot shower before I slept. XD

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If you would like to read more about my experiences, you may click on the links below. :)

Day 4: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-4.html
Day 2: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-2.html