Back In Seoul

stupid blogger thing, I hit the wrong text background button and now my previous post is filled with this disgusting white background... and I can't seem to fix it... 

Day 8 (Sat)- last day in Jeju, our flight back to Seoul is at 1500 so our 1st stop for the day was at Yongduam rock, it's a lava formation in the shape of a dragon's head which is apparently quite popular amongst tourists, but I did not think it was anything special when we were there... but the scenery was pretty good...

2nd and 3rd stops... one was Jeju folk museum and the other was Jeju national museum, nothing very exciting... and that was it for the Jeju tour... requested for kimchi bokkeumbap again, and the tour guide brought us to this downtown area where young people hang out and found this korean restaurant, and the kimchi fried rice was really nice, probably the best I have eaten during the trip, cos it was spicy and it was served on a hotplate... yum... after lunch, we were dropped off at the airport where we awaited for our flight back to Seoul... 

picked up at Gimpo airport and was brought to Myungdong Hostel where we had booked for 3 nights... upon arrival, the first thing we realised was that there was no lift and the hostel was on the first level and our room on the second level, which meant pong and I had to manually lift 2 heavy luggages up and down 2 flights of steps... the room was dodgy as well, slightly better than the Jeju one in that it did not have such a bad smell and there were no flies, but other than that, we had to provide our own towels, amenities, and the shower is in the same room as the toilet... and the bed was hard as anything... no choice but to stay there since we have already paid, but after the first night, we decided to see if there was any other places we could sleep in for the 3rd night... many places were booked out already, and we found a room at Hotel Royal but it was very expensive becos we had 3 people and it was last minute booking... fortunately the hostel allowed us to refund the money for one night's stay... at least the person at the reception area could speak reasonable English... I was actually quite stressed at certain points during the trip I have to say, becos I did not expect things to be booked out so quickly, and my thoughts were that we would be able to organise tours, and accomodation through the tourism organisation when we arrive in Seoul, but that was not the case when we arrived, I had to do alot of ringing around to search for accomodation, and tours... 

Lesson learnt: book tours and accomodation prior to departure next time, and find out the cancellation policy... and whether meals are included in the package...

Anyway, we decided to explore Dongdaemun that night and have dinner there, caught a train there, again, crowded, but in terms of shopping, not much things to see, and the stuff were not suitable for us, and alot of smoking as usual... we ended up eating Burger King, which is probably the most decent fast food we had so far... the other thing I noticed was that you have to return the trays to the respective store or common area after your meal, most food places provide water dispensers which is pretty good and they also provide metal cups, which are then hopefully washed and stored in the UV cabinet...