12 December. Scooting to Jeju!

Monday is not the most convenient day to fly. But it is economical. TR812 makes a 6 odd hour trip northbound to the self-governing island of South Korea.

The plan is to pick up our Spark at Lotte Auto House, zip to Antoinette (Yongdam area) for a scenic post flight late lunch, check in at Regent Marine (Seobudu Area), raid Daiso and raid whatever shops we set our sights on. Dinner will be the Gozip Dolwurok seafood, hopefully no queue. After that do a brisk river walk and then turn in early for the night. It is great to overplan in the great Singapore kiasu style. That way, we glean as much of Jeju (fill in the blank)  as possible. Carthartic ! 

My plan:

What happened was:

We left for Changi airport 4 hours ahead of the flight because it would be disastrous to fall asleep at our usual bed time and expect to wake up for the trip after midnight. So ,with a Comfort via Zig app, we paid $55 for a comfy ride to T1. We checked in and waited 4 hours in a torturous manner for our flight. TR812 left Singapore rather on time but by the time the plane took off, I had fallen asleep in the seat.

It was a rather uneventful trip. Despite a mini hard landing, we reached Jeju 20 min ahead of time at 12 pm. We had our Q-code, K-eta and customs declaration so clearance was a breeze.

We booked a Spark from Lotte. At Gate 2, we were told by Lotte staff to head out through Gate 5 and get up the shuttle at Park area 1. Jeju Auto House is a bit way off, but service was impeccable and everything went smoothly. I even got to be driver 2 at no charge. All in, fully insured, we drove off the little car for only 424000- ￦ for 11 days.

We had a mini incident when Pat turned right but landed at the wrong side of the road. By God's provision, the road was empty, we charged through the end of the lane on the wrong side and continued like nothing happened.

Soon, we were in Antoinette Bakery. It was crazy popular. We had 2 cakes (choc croissant,  strawberry brioche cake, 2 cuppacinos for a princely sum of 26500 ￦. Jetlagged and tired, we took the obligatory pictures. We wanted to end the day's driving , at least not in this state, hitting 30 kmph until we reached Regent Marine the Blue.

Like Lotte, check in service was excellent. 3 nights for 222000 ￦ ( About SGD70 per night) ? It was a great deal. We had a corner triple room, the single bed for my luggage and bags. The room offers a superb view of the hill and port. It was a great choice for 3 nights.

We changed, headed out to the lighthouse off the breakwater in front of the water and sauntered to Dongmun Market and Daiso. Daiso was overrated. Dongmun was all lit up , and it excited the moth in me to no end.

I ended up with 3 handmade muah chee )3 x1000 kwn ) and 2 Hallabong (10000 kwn ) oranges. I got freebies and lovely service in exchange. It was a slow day and I think they were glad I bought from them.

Now 5.30pm, totally zinged out by lack of sleep, we headed back to Gozip Wooluk for seafood. The dinner crowd was building up. We were lucky to get a table. We pointed to the most fancy dinner option. Soon, the entire table was covered with dishes galore. Boiled and fried fish, abalone, tofu, prawns, salads and pickles, tea rice. seaweed soup and seaweed anything, raw fish salad. It was a dieter's nightmare and foodie dream. We paid 106 000 ￦ and left , full and siated.