After Seongsan Ilchubong, we headed off to Manjanggul Cave. There's an in-house cafe for us to get some gimbap roles as quick lunch before we head into the cave area.
Manjanggul Cave is yet another UNESCO World Heritage site. This natural monument has one of the finest lava tunnels in the world.
The interior of the cave is spectacular, seeing how this is all a natural creation by God. There are many stalactites and stalagmites in a temperature of about 15c.
One of the famous natural structures is this Stone Turtle. The tourism board of Jeju-do has installed lighting in the cave for better visibility of interesting structures. However, tourists are encouraged not to touch any of the natural formation as the sweat in human beings may cause erosion the these natural formation. For information on the opening hours and the entrance fees, do check out the official website.
Fresh from the cave, it began to drizzle so we wasted no time to head to the Teddy Bear Museum. You can find out more about the operating hours and the fees from the official website.
This is the museum for teddy bear lovers, to find out the origin of teddies and also the many different variations that have been created since. Teddy bear apparently originated from the USA when President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear cub that the aide tied to the tree for his hunting experience. In view of that story, people started to make these cuddly bears nicknamed Teddy, like the president, to remember his compassion towards the animal.
There are countless types of teddy exhibits. You could find them as the disciples in The Last Supper, or as Snow White with her 7 little dwarfs, as Yao Ming or even in traditional Korean attires. In addition to these cuddly little plush bears, you would also see a statue of Thinker bear among others. If you're a big fan of these little cuddly bears, do make a visit to this museum at Seogwipo.
Our last touristy spot of the day is Daepo Jusangjeolli Cliff. We actually reached when the park was already closed for the day. Undeterred by the closing hour, our driver cum tour guide went to speak to the guard to allow us to run in (for free) and to grab a few photos quickly as a sweet memory!
The Jusangjeolli are essentially these hexagonal stones piled by the cliff . These stones are naturally carved, thus enchanting people with the wonderful beauty of Jeju and God's creation. Standing at the cliff just for those brief minutes, you would hear the waves crashing over the stones and a very light breeze from the ocean. If only we had more time during the day, this would be an awesome spot for a relaxing day.
After paying our guide for a wonderful chauffeuring job, he dropped us off back at the hostel and we wondered to the town area in search of a nice dinner before we depart the next morning to Seoul. We stumbled upon this homely looking restaurant, and without a single person speaking English, we just try our luck point at the pictures to enquire for the price. We can't figure out what we were going to eat since neither of us understand each other saving the pressing of calculator for the cost of the meal. Fortunately, we ended up with the best Korean seafood stew ever. The seafood were so fresh, they were literally taken out of the water before being dunked into our stew pot. You could see the tentacles on the cuttlefish still moving and the abalone muscles were still moving after being put into the stew pot. The natural and fresh ingredient makes the soup so much sweeter and aptly sums up our wonderful visit to Jeju-do.
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