[Korea - Spring2016] Day 3 Yeha Tour east course

Today is our one-day tour with Yeha Tour! We are going for the East Course, meaning attractions in the east part of Jeju Island.

Had breakfast in the guesthouse and waited for the tour bus to pick us up. The tour guide came to pick us up at around 0830.

The bus looks something like this.

Our tour guide was Mr. Douglas. He explained Jeju's history through the ear-piece given to each of us on the way to each attractions.

First stop of the bus after picking everyone up. Horse-riding! Yee-haw!

When I booked the tour, it was supposed to be Trick Art Museum as the first attraction. Unfortunately, it is closed for renovation so they switched the programme to horse-riding. I’ve always wanted to try horse-riding so it suits me fine either way!

I got a light brown horse and it trotted away without anyone guiding (they seemed to be trained to follow a certain route). Halfway, a staff came alongside to tell the horse to gallop! I was all, ‘Ah!!!!!!~’

Then it slowed to a stop for staffs to take a photo of us on the horse. After that, the horse goes one round along the route back to the place we saddled up the horse. Got off and viewed my photos. Of course they will encourage you to buy and it come with a nice frame. You can always ignore them if you’re not interested. The cheapest costs around ₩30,000.

Got up the bus and got down not too far away at Seongeup Folk Village. There was this old man who was fluent in English and can even speak some phrases of Malay!

He explained to us a bit of Jeju’s custom and their houses. Even their gates have meanings when you look at the number of poles!

Then this old man (around his sixties maybe?) and his wife started promoting some local produce to sell. One of it is a juice which flavour changes according to your current health. It tasted sweet-sour to me and he said that sour means you lack sleep! Haha! I was tired indeed.

Left the place after taking some photos. The bus dropped us somewhere not very far from our lunch restaurant so we could walk to it and admire some houses and scenery on the way.

Black pork for lunch~ You can opt for bibimbab (mixed rice) if you can’t or don’t want to eat pork.

Next stop is Seongsan Ilchubong (Seongsan Sunrise Peak). Was given the choice to either go up to the peak or go and watch the women diver’s show. As I did my researched online before going there, I chose to go up to the peak. Some bloggers had said that going up the peak is more worthwhile. But of course, if you can’t DRAG yourself up to the peak (you’ll understand if you don’t exercise that much like me =P), just stay downhill and watch the show =D

Actually, if you’re fast enough, you could go up to the peak and then come down for the divers show.

So we trooped up the slope and stairs but boy! The climb was soooo STEEP!! I was panting like a dog and had to take many breaks. Thank God there were small benches along the way at certain parts.

Sweated despite the cool spring weather because of the vigorous climb and finally! The peak!! Actually it looks more like a green crater so the ‘peak’ is actually at the edge of this ‘bowl’...

*Ka-chak ka-chak*

None of my photo of the crater really shows the shape...

Ain't the view breathtaking?

Seriously can someone tell me what flowers are these? They look real pretty, dotting the green hillsides.

Went down from the peak and back to the bus…

After that the bus drove along the coast so we can enjoy the sea view that was just oh-so-amazing!!

Nodded off for awhile before reaching our last destination, Manjanggul Lava Tubes! Got off the bus and was directed to the entrance.

All you see is a flight of steps down into darkness. But at the bottom of the stairs, you’ll find that the cave is actually lit up.

Lava tubes…. Cold... Wet… it felt like it was drizzling the whole time, except it can’t be because we were underground.

The floor wasn’t even so it was quite tough to walk on. My mom almost gave up and wanted to turn back before reaching the highlight. We had to coax her and slowly make our way to the end of the 1km long tube that’s open to public. At the end, there was this… thing that reaches from the ceiling of the tube to the floor. (Okay, okay, it's actually made of lava and looks very unique)

A word of advice: Do not wear high heels here, even if it’s platforms. I can barely even keep my balance at times while wearing SPORT SHOES. The floor and environment is quite wet so be prepared to get your shoe soaked! I had to use the shoe dryer provided free by my guesthouse (Yeha Guesthouse) to get it dry again. It’s so cute and looks like a mini aircon LOL

Then walked all the way back to where we first started. We exceeded the meeting time but the bus was still there.

The bus then made its way back to Jeju City and dropped us off.

Had our dinner after that.

Overall, I enjoyed the tour very much and would definitely recommend it to those who want to explore the highlights of East Jeju in one day. Everything is planned out for you and all you need is just the eagerness to explore. If you want to stay longer at a certain attraction and miss the bus-meeting time, you can always take a cab to the next attraction on the list and re-join the group there.

Disclaimer: I'm not by any way sponsored by Yeha Tour. This review is purely on my experience as a satisfied customer. 😊

You can check out their website here: http://www.yehatour.com/