A Visit to Udo Island

25th April 2013, Thursday
Udo-myeon

We decided to visit Udo Island on the last full day while we were in Jeju. We opted out from visiting the teddy bear museum, or the west side of Jeju – oh well, I’ve seen so many photos of my friends going to teddy bear museum, I guess it’s enough lah.

Amy said this place is also known as land of the yellow flowers. After the episode of camwhoring along the road to Seongsan Ichulbong yesterday, I guess we can never get enough of the beautiful, petite flowers! Our guesthouse host wrote a note on a piece of paper for us to bring along to the bus station, located some 15 minutes walk away. We got to the station, showed the ticketing officer the piece of paper and paid our bus fare. We waited for the bus and was gestured to get into the bus intending to go towards the harbour, for us to board a ferry to Udo Island.

It was a really bright but chilly morning. I could hardly open my eyes. The journey took more than an hour to get to the harbour. I don’t really remember how to get about it so I googled how to get there here for you – for ease of reference if you want to go. Here’s also another link.

The walk from the bus station to the harbour took us another 15 minutes. It was really freaking far (for me at least!)! Once we got there, we got our ferry tickets and took the 10-15 mins ferry to Udo Island. I was told Udo in Korean means a lying cow – lying down.. not telling lies kua? Haha.

As we got onto the ferry, almost everybody got excited with the seagulls. Since it was such a windy morning, the seagulls sort of “float” effortlessly in the wind, just like kites. They were waiting for us to feed them. So many visitors were feeding the seagulls till they actually sell prawn crackers on board of the ferry for visitors to buy and feed them to the seagulls.. imagine the amount of MSG these seagulls are taking! No wonder, they looked not so pretty now. Haha. There’s also a black little puppy on the ferry, and became an instant star. Everybody wanted to pat and feed him!

When we got down to the port, we were greeted by a mural of peanuts and lighthouse, made out of mosaic. I guess this is how we found out, this island is famous for its peanuts. So we will be eating some peanuts later! We didn’t rent an ATV because only one of us brought our driving license. As long as you show them your driving license, you will get to rent the ATV. So, we follow the majority of people and took a bus ride. We didn’t really understand what was going on because most explanations are done in their native language. We could hear laughter from local visitors and couldn’t help smiling ourselves to see that the bus drivers here take their job, rather jovially. I think we should just follow the crowd, as the buses come every 30 minutes to take us around the entire island.

Well, these are some of the snapshots taken on Udo Island. I love the coral beach the most! Seobin Baeksa! In fact, I brought back some of the sand which looked like rice grains back, as remembrance.

Seagulls welcoming us onto the ferry towards Udo-Island

Udo Bong – the cliff overseeing the sea

Tucking in the basic bibimbap

Dongangyeonggul Cave – where you get to ride a speedboat to visit, we didn’t

Must eat ice cream with peanuts!

My favorite beach, Seobin Baksa

Try spending more time near Seobin Baksa and have a cup of coffee, while watching the day goes by. It was worth it. There’s a Latte King facing the beach, so you can plonk your ass there and relax!

We didn’t buy peanuts to go back though. For other photos, please have a look here – Jeju and Udo photos.

All Around Jeju-do

24th April 2013, Wednesday
Jeju-do

We were advised by the owner of our guesthouse to hire a driver to take us around, since it would save us more time and we would be able to go to more places. It wasn’t cheap to hire a bigger car for the 5 of us. It costs us around 170,000 won for 9 hours. That’s roughly RM500 for 9 hours. Anyway, we went ahead with it, since we only have two full days in Jeju-do, we might as well make the most of it. So these are the places that the driver will take you if you go to the “east” of Jeju. Jeju-do’s places of interests are divided into two – one is towards the east where the coastal roads are, which is more scenic or the west – where you go to places like museums, and also some sight seeing. I didn’t do much homework about Jeju, so I let the rest decide. We decided to go east – the coastal road area. It was indeed a good choice because the coastal area is simply so beautiful! Here are some pics for you guys. I think if you follow my instagram, you would have seen them!

Jeongbang Waterfall – it was said to be the only waterfall that falls direct to the sea

Fresh and juicy strawberries at 5-day interval market

Seopjikoji – Coastal view

On our way to Seongsan Ichulbong

Seongsan Ichulbong, where you get to see a volcano crater and also women divers, looking for oyster

Jeju Stone Park

Toppoki near Seogwipo, where we stayed

I can safely say, I think we covered most of the places. I think the place that I like most is probably Seopjikoji. It has a nice coastal line, kinda reminds me of Melbourne’s Great Ocean Road. The walk up the area is not so challenging, unlike Seongsan Ichulbong – well, we cheated. We didn’t go up the crater. See from pictures enough lah. LOL!

Also, remember to try the cuttle fishes there. They are very fresh, lightly smoked with salt. Most of the places we went were very well maintained and there’s hardly any rubbish around. The toilets are all so clean! Eventhough it’s spring and not supposed to be so cold, it’s best to bring along your jacket because the wind could be very chilly! I can’t imagine if it’s winter!

Try to plan your day by checking the weather forecast. Normally, it’s very accurate. Also, must try the strawberries there. They are sweet and juicy! I think you can ask them if you can pick the strawberries yourself because I think they put some not so fresh ones at the bottom of the box we bought.

The locals back at Seogwipo are rather friendly lot. When we asked an elderly ajusi where can we find toppoki, he was talking rather loudly and gestured us to follow him. I think the entire market people knew we were going to have toppoki for dinner. LOL!

All in all, it was a really eventful day. We came back sharp at 6 pm and went out to have a walk around Seogwipo area where we stayed and had some street food.

Hmmm… do you notice most of the places name start with a “S”. I wonder why.

Sokcho Now

The temperature is expected to be high of 4 degrees. I think I am under packed. The journey to Sokcho from Seoul is not too bad. Took direct subway from Gimpo airport after flying from Jeju to express bus terminal to catch a three hour bus to Sokcho.

Checked in the House hostel, a quaint hostel in the middle of the small fishing town. The manager, Mr You is very obliging and gave us some 10 minutes briefing of what to eat and to do here. We took a stroll along the harbor area after dinner at this famed local establishment, Wang Sim Ri. Serving Korean BBQ and it’s a buffet dinner, eat all you can at 10,000 won per head. It was worth it, but the help is rather disgruntled looking.

So here are some shots taken around Sokcho area. You can check out my Instagram for live update.

The quaint hostel

The BBQ at Wang Sim Ri

Pretty flowers

Peri-Peri Goodness

Ever since I got Kim’s recipe on how to make your own peri-peri sauce, I think I’ve tried numerous ways to serve the much loved sauce. I like it so much that I bookmarked the recipe page on my computer, as well as my phone.

Well, you can always do the short cut by buying the bottle of sauce from the supermarket, at about Rm10.90 each but nothing beats making fresh peri-peri sauce on your own! You can check it out on how to make the sauce from Kim’s blog.

I’ve made slight amendments though, to suit my palate. I added a tablespoon of paprika, one whole lemon instead of half and of coz, add more cili padi because I love my peri-peri super hot! The results are amazing! Everybody loves it! Thanks, Kim for this awesome recipe! And it really makes a big difference using red capsicum instead of green ones. Oh, I’ve tried!

The sauce is really good to go with any meat that you like. Heck! I think you can even use it as salad dressing! So here are some of the dishes I made and diversify by using just this sauce.

Peri-peri chicken thigh with mashed potatoes and salad

Baked as per Kim’s recipe

Fried pork in peri-peri sauce

Marinade overnight and stir fried in vegetable oil

 

Peri-peri chicken with capsicums, onions and mushrooms pizza

Marinade overnight and stir fried in little vegetable oil.  Add on chopped capsicum, mushrooms and lastly onions. Lay generously on ready made pizza dough, slightly oiled with olive oil. Add on peri-peri sauce if you like, sprinkled with grated mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 220C.

Broccoli Casserole

 Broccoli Casserole

I think you guys probably have seen the photo above. Well, over the weekend, I have been receiving recipe requests for this dish. I actually google looking for lasagnas recipes but somehow ended up looking at casseroles. Way easier, simpler and faster to make! So, here goes.

The original recipe is here. This is my modified version. (Can feed 10 people!)

Ingredients

• A good hand palm sized broccoli, cut into pieces
• 1 big can of Campbell mushroom soup – you can choose potage with mushroom too.
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar
• 113g of unsalted butter, cut into pieces (Half block of butter. Why unsalted? Coz the mushroom soup and cheese themself are already too salty!)
• Pepper (optional- coz the second time I made it, I forgot and it still taste good)
• 4 pieces of Hup Seng’s cream cracker cap Ping Pong

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Brush some oil/butter onto two 5.5 inches baking dish or a 9 inch baking dish (up to you).
2. Steam broccoli until crisp-tender, 7 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of ice water.
3. Mix soup, eggs, mayonnaise, cheese, butter and pepper in a saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and combined. (To avoid the cheese from being burnt in the hot pot, I used a wok filled with hot water, and cook the mixture in a pot, placed in the hot water – experience!)
4. If you find the mixture is too thick to be stirred, add 2 tbsp of milk. (Not too much, otherwise, the casserole would be runny)
5. Pour cheese mixture on top. Drain broccoli; spread evenly in baking dishes. Sprinkle with crackers. Bake for 30 minutes.

To reheat

If you plan to leave it overnight in the fridge, you may also reheat it in the morning for breakfast/other meals. If you are using microwave, perhaps 2-3 minutes heating would suffice (not too sure). I am using oven, so I leave the dish for 10 minutes after taking it out from the fridge, then reheat it in oven, at 180°C for 15 minutes.

Notes

Eat it with whole grain wrap or bread (because it can be too salty for some people). Delicious!

Happy trying!