JOURNEY to a HAPPY LIFE: Korea (Seoul & Jeju) 2013 14-28 Oct (Day 8)

Our flight was in the afternoon on EastJet. Woke up had a leisurely breakfast from a shop outside the hotel and we made our way by train to Gimpo airport.

Tip: do check out their budget airlines especially EastJet, its quite cheap. A return trip from Seoul to Jeju costs only approx SGD100. Do book your flights online before you head over.

The trip to Gimpo airport was easy. We wanted to put some luggage in the lockers at Gimpo airport but discovered that it wasn't cheap and gave up the idea. As such we had to lug all our shopping to Jeju.

Tip: if you're planning on buying lots of things in Seoul, better to make Seoul your last stop rather than 1st stop. Jeju doesn't have much shopping. Some skin care product shops are there but not many.

At Gimpo, we decided to have a snack while waiting for our flight.

1st round

After we finished the 1st round, we liked the sandwich and decided to have more food.

I then decided to check the timing of the flight once again and to my horror, we were supposed to be taking off in 15 minutes time.

We grabbed the 2nd order and put them onto tissue paper and made a dash to the gate. It was some distance off. We ran as fast as we could and it's been some time since some of us has ran so fast.

And then horrors of horrors, we discovered that some of the liquid skin care products were in our hand luggages and we were going through the scanners. It was in our hand luggage because allowable weight was only 15kg for the check-in luggage.

However, we were quickly shooed away after the scanning and I realized that it was ok to carry liquids on domestic flights... phew.

When we arrived at the boarding gate, we were so thankful that there was still a short queue of people and the plane was delayed for 15 minutes. 2nd heave of relief.

The flight to Jeju was quick, only about an hour. We were supposed to go pick up our rental car and we went about looking for the booth of Kum Ho car rentals.

Tip: I found that Kum Ho car rentals offered one of the lowest rates for car rentals. However, you need to join as a member 1st online then the discounted rates will show. Also as it was my 1st time driving on the other side of the road from Singapore, I decided to cover myself with the maximum insurance coverage possible. Its not very expensive to cover 100%, do pay for this option.

Tip: You need an international driving license before you can drive in Korea. You will need to show it to the car rental staff before collecting your rental car.

We had to take a minibus to Kum Ho's office to collect the car and it was all a breeze. Just follow instructions and you'll get your car in no time. We also rented a GPS together with the car. It was a Korean one though. The staff taught us how to use the Korean GPS in his limited English but it was not difficult to learn. In fact, the Korean GPS works better because if you were to use the English GPS, you will have to key in your destination in English and you may use a different spelling to what is used in Korea. The Korean alphabet is not difficult to learn and input, just follow the symbols and its pretty self-explanatory.

As the airport is in the north of Jeju and our accommodation is in the south at Seogwipo, we took a leisurely drive taking in the sights and slowly getting accustomed to driving on the roads. I went really slow to get used to it.

After about 45 minutes, we reached our hotel at Seogwipo, the Goodinn Hotel.

Goodinn Hotel

Entrance of Goodinn

Our car in the garage

Lobby

Hotel room

Bathroom

Sea view from the room

Panoramic shot from the rooftoop

View from the rooftop

Road outside hotel

Took a stroll and round the corner was the town centre where there were many restaurants, the market, street food, shopping, etc. Really convenient location to stay.