Dynamic Korea in Winter Day 3 – Jeju Folk Village Museum, Trick Art Museum, Hanwha Aqua Planet and Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak in Jeju Island, South Korea

With Hallasan, a shield volcano, raising in the middle of the island, Jeju is covered with strangely shaped rocks. There are samda （三多） or three abundance in Jeju, namely rocks, wind and women, and sanmu （三无）or three lacks, namely thief, gate and beggar.

In the olden days, most men are the fishermen, some did not come back, and hence leaving the women on the island.

Jeju folk village museum was one of the itineraries in day 3 of the tour. It has restored the scenes of the village to that of the 1890’s for the tourists to explore the customs of the olden days, also the filming site for Dae Jang Geum, one of the epic Korean series. 

The entrance to the Jeju Folk Village museum.

Dolhareubangs, the guardian for home. Touch their ears for intelligence, stomach for health and nose for baby boy. :)

Traditional houses in Jeju island.

They offer the wedding costume for photography at a price, of course.

The native Jeju black pigs are found in the Jeju Folk Village museum.

I also found two hairy cows in the village. Does anyone know what's the name of this cow?

This is the map of the Jeju Folk Village museum, but we only made it to the mountain village. We were told the rest of the houses are more or less the same. Explore all if you have time. 

Next, the trick art museum! It is the first museum in Korea to show optical illusion art.

Short and plump leg from left

But it becomes long and slim from right.Tricky, isn't it?

This is one of the 3D art in the museum. It's beautiful, isn't it?

At the Jeju Folk Village museum, the tour guide told us that there is a signature dish in Jeju island that ones shouldn’t miss while pointing his finger to the black pig. Now, we got the chance to taste it for lunch. It sounds awkward, see it first and eat later. *gross* 

Yetjeongui Gol, the bulgogi house. 

In the olden days, cooking food on a typical grill would be difficult in the windy Jeju island, and so they normally would bound the grill with many stones to secure the fire from the strong wind. And now, this is what we were seeing, black pork bulgogi on a small wok-alike, resembling the past cooking method. I have to say the black pork was so tasty, juicy and tender, very much better than the pork we usually have, and we were so happy to refill the black pork a few times. This is really a signature dish not to be missed!

Black pork bulgogi for lunch.

The black pork was tender and juicy, it is much tastier than ordinary pork. 

Free refill of banchan, lettuce and black pork.

In food therapy, we always say eating hot grilled food makes you sore throat or induce heat to your body, the Korean believes wrapping the hot meat with cold or uncooked vegetables such as lettuce will balance off the heat and cold, and hence making it warm for your body, the wisdom inherited from the Chinese ancients.

After the heavy lunch, we took a walk at the tangerine  orchard. Winter is the harvest season, so try them if you are there. 

The tangerine.

We bought some tangerine chocolates here.

The tangerine (top) and hallabong (bottom).

Hallabong is a citrus fruit grown in Jeju island, named after the Hallasan mountain where it is primarily grown.

Seongsan Ilchulbong Sunrise Peak (성산일출봉) is an underwater volcano rarely exploded and erupted out of the sea about 5000 years ago. The crater is 65 acres in area surrounded by pointy rocks resembling such huge castle on the sea. It is one of the new 7 wonders of nature.

The sunrise peak from far.

There were so many visitors at the peak.

Here are multiple views from the sunrise peak.

All In House, the next stop, is Korea’s first drama memorial for the popular TV miniseries, ‘All In’ (2003) which recorded an audience rating of fifty percent. 

This is All In house, but this picture reminds me of the little house I normally see in the autorefractor. LOL

Hanwha Aqua Planet is just a short hike from the iconic Seongsan Ichulbong Sunrice Peak. This beautiful Asia's largest aquarium features marine life from around the world. We spent close to 2 hours here to explore every species, some I've not even seen. 

Some aquariums elongate to the walkway and so we got a closer look on the fishes from multi-angle, I feel the design enables us to be closer to them, unlike the typical large aquarium that we can only view from one side.

There is a huge aquarium where a performance is put up 4 times daily by haenyeo or women divers. They could stay under the water for 30 seconds to 2 minutes or even longer without the aid of scuba unit. 

The sunset was beautiful when we left the aqua planet for dinner.

The sunset is beautiful, isn't it?

After 30 minutes drive, we reached the restaurant for tonight's dinner.

Abalone soup in claypot, another sumptuous meal for dinner. *yay* I found 3 abalone with each the length of my finger in the soup. I love the food in Korea so much as they use very little salt and seasoning, I could savour the original taste of the meat.

Abalone soup in claypot, grilled fish and assorted banchan or side dishes.

We had to catch an early flight back to the peninsular the next day, so we returned the hotel for rest after dinner. 

The souvenirs from Jeju. I like the hallabong chocolate (orange box), it's a little sweet and sour. I haven't try the processed orange (black box).

Stay with me for more exciting journey to Mount Sorak and wine making in my subsequent posts.