21 Dec Local Delights, local brands, local delights

With not much time left in Jeju, the great plan is to eat everything we saw on TV; Kopiko sweets, Eggdrop, Samsung accessories, and a last sweep grab at Dongmun for herbs, ginseng, jellies, kimchi and whatever sounds Korean. Then it will be back to Hi where we hunt down the 88 Pig.

What actually happened :

At this point of writing, I have just come back from a day of not doing anything more strenuous than walking. We were hoping that the weather continues its sunny streak like 20th Dec, the day of transit from Seogwipo to Jeju city. 

The night before we packed everything, ready to go to the mountains at 6am.

3 am, Hallasan website said 'normal' but at 5.30pm, all trails except the shortest one were partially closed. Mountain forecast mentioned some 7 cm snow in Hallasan summit with moderate snowing. By now, I am beginning to be an expert with how water/snow works. The day before was moderate showers in Jeju but as the wind cranks up, rain became snow overnight. I can imagine the snow shovel machines calling it quits as the morning of December 21st became overwhelmed by snow.

The rain in Jeju city turned from light to heavy. We set off at 9.30 am for Manjanggul Caves because it would be sheltered from the elements. 

We retrieved our workhorse from the lift system successfully and proceeded to the caves.

At the 20 km mark, the car flagged a low tyre pressure, this time the rear right tyre. AGAIN! I saw a tyre shop and went in for help. They topped up the air free. We could not thank them enough. On the other hand, I have a lot to say about Lotte's rental car and their poor quality car.

The low air did not resolve. Since the tyre looked ok, we drove all the way to the caves. Entrance to the caves was 8000 ￦ for the 2 of us.

The cave was huge. It was dimly lit but I had my personal headlamp with me. I was afraid of falling and did not look up much. It was quite tiring.

12.30pm, I was about to keel over with hunger. We decided to eat at the Korean restaurant at the caves. But of us had cheese pork cutlet (28000 ￦ for both of us) . The meal was a heavy one because the portions were so generous.  From very hungry, I became very full in 15 minutes.

We headed to Samsung, near our hotel. Pat wanted to buy a wireless charger. It was not available. But we wowed at all the 'futuristic' lifestyle appliances jealous of the rich Koreans with big houses who can enjoy these bespoke fridges, dehumidifiers etc.

Back at the hotel, we tried to get help from someone to call the Lotte service. No one was able to help. The hotel concierge was really a piece of work. She directed us to seek help from the plastic surgery on level 3.

We gave up on the car and walked instead. We had bingsu (15000 ￦) at Sulbing. after recovering from chills, we walked around the neighbourhood. We ended up at a jokbal place where we hunkered down and ate a huge plate of shaved jokbal and sweet potato noodle salad in complete silence ( 3000 ￦ ). It was hard work having to eat so much. That was another excessive meal again.