Korea Trip June 2013 Day 1 and 2 - with Hong Thai 9 Day All In Korea Deluxe package

With Hong Thai 9 Day All In Korea Deluxe package

For the June school holidays we decided to go to Korea with Hong Thai's 9 Day All In Korea Deluxe Package. You can see the itinerary here. If you're reading this then it probably means you're trying to research your Korea trip and are probably trying to figure out which tour company in Singapore to go with. There's really not a lot of info out there and there's not many blogs stating which company they took their tour package with, this is what I found when I was trying to research my own trip. So I've put together this post, hopefully not so long winded so that you can get the general idea of what the package includes, etc.

The trip does not follow the order of the itinerary as given, so do be prepared for this. The tour guide seems to have a lot of flexibility on using his own judgement on which places to visit and when. 

Day 1:

We took the overnight flight on Korea Air and the night you depart is counted as the first day of your tour already. The flight was full of turbulence and with only a 6 hour flight to Korea from Singapore, there wasn't much chance to have a good night sleep. A choice of supper was served on board and we chose the Bibimbap which was quite nice. The rice was a packaged rice, which you open and mix into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients. The Gojuchang sauce came in this cute mini tube. And there was ice cream served after.

Day 2:

So after arriving at something like 6am, we were all tired and starving. There was no other food served on the flight :( Once we arrived we bought pastries and bread from the Paris Baguette Cafe at the arrival Hall.

Our flight to Jeju Island was scheduled for 12.30pm so we had a few hours to kill. Our guide was a Korean guy called Mikey who spoke fluent Mandarin (and Cantonese). And there was also another younger guy who was the 'camera' man, he and his DSLR camera followed us around and took our photos which he later developed and 'kindly' asked us to buy at the end of the trip. Price of each photo was about $5 a piece. And be prepared for this by putting aside some money before the trip. The photos are good quality and are quite worth it. They put decorative borders like souvenir photos which usually would cost you the same price or more if you got it a tourist place or theme park.

So after we had something to eat, they took us to Kimchi School. It was kinda fun I guess if you haven't made kimchi before. We basically just put the pre-mixed chilli onto the layers of cabbage and wrapped it up. We don't get to take it home, whatever we the tourists made is supposedly donated to an old folks home or something. The purpose of this 'course' I guess is for them to sell you their packaged kimchi. After we finished we went downstairs to put on some traditional Korean outfits and go crazy with the photos. Was a shame we couldn't choose the outfits ourselves (I didn't like what I got to wear). But it was fun I guess and it's something you should do when you're in Korea.

The tasting plate 

We then went to this fresh food market. No one bought anything there, but it was interesting to see all the different fruits you can't find in Singapore.

After the market we made our way to the next airport for our domestic 45 min flight to Jeju Island. Nothing much to report here. Flight was ok, use it to catch up on your sleep.

Upon arrival we were taken to our first tour included Lunch of Ginseng Chicken Soup. It was super bland for me but that's me, I like lots of salt and flavour. Lucky they had soy sauce on the table. I was impressed that they served us a whole chicken - each! This meal most kids should be able to eat (or at least eat part of it).

We then visited the Teddy Bear Tesseum (Museum). The kids would enjoy this. The adults would probably find it a little tacky and maybe even boring....but at least we got a free mini teddy bear at the end :) We were given more than enough time to look around.

Teddy Bear Tesseum

After that we went to the Mysterious Road. I thought Jeju was a small island, but actually the distances to some of the attractions were long, some taking like 45 minutes to an hour to get to.

After this we went to Dragonhead Rock. Nice view, lots of tourists....

Dinner was included. It was Hanjeongsik - Traditional Korean Dinner Set. It was very disappointing....the main dish of Saba fish was rock hard and stone cold because it had been sitting on the table for goodness knows how long. The sliced boiled pork was also touch and tasteless, lucky there was a dipping sauce. The fish was inedible which was really disappointing ..... Lucky there was lots of side dishes. For kids, this meal may or may not be easy to take depending on how picky your kid. Mine only ate her rice with the egg and that's it :(

We ended the day at around 7.30pm and checked into our hotel called Jeju Oriental Hotel. Hotel was nice with a nice ocean view, but it only had 1 elevator per side, so going up takes forever as the elevator is pretty small. The hotel room itself is not bad. Be prepared, there's no shampoo, so bring your own.

DAY 3
DAY 4
DAY 5
DAY 6 
DAY 7 - 9

Carousel at Royal Plaza on Scotts

I used to think The Line at Shangri-La hotel was the best buffet in Singapore. But I think Carousel tops it. Food was excellent in terms of variety,  freshness and flavour. Service was quick and efficient.  So what more could you want (apart frm cheaper price)? :)

Nice herb display

chicken rice

I like the cutlery stand...

Look at the roe on that lobster! The meat was succulent and not rubbery at all.

Best oysters I've ever had! Fresh and without that briney metallic oyster taste you sometimes get. This was so sweeet!

freshly cooked pasta station, coincidentally I love tortellini and you never find it in other buffets. 

The roast beef was really good. The chilli crab not so much. 

Not sure what this is, it's like paella, but was made from noodles instead of the usual rice.

Lots of sauces...this was just one of the sauce stations there, there were a few more around with different sauces. 

Bread station, the breads were a bit dry, 

3 chocolate fountains! Green tea chocolate, white chcocolate and dark chocolate.

Sugar Cone, biscuit, wafer, for ice cream. 

Nice masks around. 

dessert table

Seafood station 1

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whole salmon

lobsters! Refilled continously. 

Seafood Station 2

Swimming Cap from Daiso

Bought this Swimming Cap from Daiso in preparation of our trip to Korea soon. Part of our Korea tour is a stop at a hotspring and the tour itinerary said bring your own swimming cap. Not sure if the Koreans will actually wear swimming cap when they go to a waterpark, but thought better to bring it anyway just in case and I'm sure it's cheaper to buy at Daiso for $2 rather than buying it in Korea. Don't want to spend too much money on something like a swimming cap when I doubt that I'd wear it again in Singapore. Was relieved to know Daiso sells them, or else you can buy online but they're about $5 each for the cheapest one.

These are the cloth swimming caps (nylon), not the silicone ones. 

Buffet Town at Raffles City

I was quite excited to try out this restaurant since a lot of people had been saying it's really good and there seems to always be a large Que outside.

This really is my own opinion because I know there are a lot of ppl that love this place but for me I just found it to be so so only and I probably wouldn't be so quick to go back.

What I did like was the fresh seafood . Fresh oysters and prawns. Can't go wrong with that if you're a seafood lover. Then there was roast wagyu beef which was really delicious. The made to order pasta was also really good. And so was the crepes with ice cream (macadamia ice cream....yum ).

The sushi was a bit of a disappointment. But I guess what I have to keep reminding myself is that this is snack international buffet send not merely a Japanese buffet as we're used to eating. I guess we're so used to eating at its sister restaurant Kiseki (which I like better).

Anyway it was worth a try and if you're reading this because you're thinking of trying it out then I say go for it!

Adventure Cove Waterpark @ Resorts World Sentosa

We decided to take the kiddo here knowing full well, from advance research, that there would hardly be anything she could ride since most of the slides had a height minimum requirement of 122cm and she unfortunately is 115-117cm. But we used the current Wall's ice cream promotion where you can get a free child ticket when you buy 2 adult tickets when you bring two lids from Wall's ice cream tubs. (Offer ends in February 2013).

We got there in the late afternoon and the park was already in full swing. There are lockers for hire for $10 for a small one and $20 for a big one.....I thought the price was a little hefty. But it's better than Wild Wild Wet one since their one is one time use only and you can't open and close at will. Meaning if you want to drink or reapply sunscreen you have to take it and put your stuff down somewhere.

There are two lockers and shower areas in the park. One is near the entrance, and one is at the back of the park near the wavepool. The one at front will usually mean it is the most crowded one since once you enter the park you'd head straight there. So keep that in mind because at the end of the day there'll be a long que at the showers..so if you can go to the back one. The shower are pretty nice with a wet and dry area and soap dispenser. Be good if they had hot water though especially for the kids. But perhaps they had it at the kids shower room (should have checked first).

The coolest thing at the park in my opinion is the lazy river. The river goes around the perimeter of the park and is a good 15-20minutes to go around. It has really pretty decorations in one area and in another there's a cave that you go through and without giving too much away makes you feel like you're on an Indiana Jones adventure!

Another great thing is there's a section near the dolphin lagoon where part of the river is made from see through glass with space underneath presumably for the dolphins to swim under when it's ready! You'll also go through a section where you can view stingrays swimming in a tank beside you. On the other side you have the chance to hop into the tank to feed them too.

There's also another section where you go through a tunnel, which is in fact underneath a fish tank!  Though nice and all, I was a little disappointed that the fish weren't as interesting as the ones depicted on their ads. The ads show a tank full of colourful tropical fish but instead in the tanks we only saw pretty much monotone coloured fish such as catfish, garoupa, etc...

Due to time constraints and lack of partner, I only managed to take 1 slide - Roaring Rapids, a half dark, half open slide which was quite fun. The Que was pretty long at about 40mins, probably because another 2 slides were closed that day. We did go to the wave pool and little C went on the kiddy water playground with her friend.

All in all it was a great day and thankfully the rain held off till we here done.