Korea: Palace Hotel ane Backlane BBQ Dinner 20 October 2016

We stayed at Palace Hotel and walked out in search of dinner for the night.

 We found this place: aiyah, we can't read Korean and there isn't any English equivalent so here's the pic: the name of the eatery is on the menu.  We had the beef for W12,000 and squids for W2,000.

 and soup for W8000(just point at the picture lo)

 So, here's the squids, laid out on the wire rack to be barbecued...OUTSIDE the restaurant!

 

He's waving at me taking his photo,,,! and yes, he's on top of the drain with a mini bbq set and he's grilling our squids which gave off a heavenly aroma!

 closer look at how he is doing it and note the gigantic chimney-like smoke sucker!

 The wife gives us the beef which she will fix on our rota table top bbq (below)

 The coals are reduced to embers...

 Another helper fixes chimney (extensions) that goes up to the roof. while he watches, mouth agape!!! he is mighty impressed!

See, how cool is that?

 Now we can grill the beef (actually they are self rotating and we do not need to do any grilling)!

 and of course the side dishes!!

 The squids are done, our soup is here, and our meal is complete!

Grand meal right? Fluffy white rice, beef, sotong, soup and side dishes!

 So nice!!!

 A view of the tiny shop, the assistant is watching TV right behind us!!

 The friendly shopkeeper is walking down the back alley and telling us where to find fruits, and other stuff down the alley.  Guess, it is still very safe to walk around alleys and not afraid of getting mugged or your bag snatched, unlike back home.

 We stand in front of the shop with the name on it, so you can go try this wonderful place is you like!

 We are now back in the hotel in one piece.....we feel very carefree and safe and we just had the most satisfying dinner.

 Palace Hotel coffee shop

The lobby, well, it is now late at night.....See ya next post!  I promise to be on time!

Jeju Island Mysterious Road (도깨비 도로)

What is the Mysterious Road? 

Sounds Mysterious eh?

 Read for yourself what Mysterious road is about....

 We foumd the sign in front of Mysterious Road and proceeded to try to unravel the mystery.

 Actually, I found nothing mysterious about it!!! He tried driving according to the instructions, ( experience the strange phenomenon of going uphill when your vehicle’s engine is turned off)  to no avail, hehe...

 Mysterious houses?

 so we did the next best thing...we went to find the rock which says :"Mysterious Road"

 And we posed underneath it....Look! we have done the Mysterious Road!

 While going back to the car, we found a mysterious message on the GPS......read it below..

 What does it mean? can you decipher the cryptic message? hahaha!!!

 This is the location of the Mysterious Road.

The Rock!!!

Sangumburi Crater in Jeju Island, (산굼부리)

We needed to cover as many places as possible in Jeju Island, so we rushed to Sangumburi Crater, designated as a "Natural Monument" and the filming site of 2 dramas "Love Wind, Love Song" and "Goddess of Marriage" both of which, alas, I have not seen!

Entrance is 6,000 won for this natural attraction,

산굼부리

It is a beautiful crater which according to the pamphlets look like a man made stadium from the top.

Saw this girl perched on the ledge of a building made of crater rocks.

With strange sculpture too, made of mud from the crater.

And so we started out climb up the crater..it was pleasant, as it was autumn and the Eulalia flowers on the slope are supposed to turn it into a golden brown field.

This is a map showing the crater which measures about 650 meters wide, 100 meters deep amnd 2,070 meters in circumference (I got that info from "Imagine Korea" website)

We stopped every so often to admire the scenery and enjoy the nippy autumn air.

The hike is not so difficult as there are lots of huts and rest stops for you to rest and continue at your own pace.

Lots of other tourists are also making the trek round the crater too.

Beautiful scenery which you can get only in Autumn

This must be the highlight of our walking trip here....Since it is autumn there is a sea of pampas grass swaying in the breeze on the slopes of this volcanic crater

We are going to walk up a little to get an amazing view of Halla Mountain and take some great photos

Yes! we have reached the top!!!

It is really a relaxing ascent and what an exhilarated feel when we reached the top!!!

Now we begin our descent!

There is a variety of plant-life on the crater.  According to the leaflet, on the north side, Nandaeseong vegetation such as red-thorn tree, magnolia trees along with rare winter strawberries. On the south side of the crater, Ondaerim vegetation such as evegreens, maple cover the area. and beacuse madny different kinds of trees and plants grow in such a limited space, it attracts the attention of researchers.

Sangumburi Crater is indeed one of the highlights of our trip in Jeju island.  The view and scenery is breathtaking.  The hike to the top is easy as there are paved walkways and we get to take as many pictures as we like along the way as we are not in a group tour.

These Korean girls are always asking me to take pictures of their back! It must be trending for them!

A final picture of me among the grass!!!!

I got lots of lovely scenes with reed plants called eoksae (flamegrass) swaying in the background. It is touted to be a special wonder of nature!