Friday April 26, 2019 is the day I board CX138 for a quick journey to meet friends and family.

First stop was Hong Kong. I ended up landing early in the morning on Saturday 27th at 6am. Picked up by my cousin, and told to freshen up before heading out to watch some football in Hong Kong. An experience that I was surprised by.

Football is played on a concrete pitch must like that of an outdoor tennis court. Some skin definitely left on these pitches.

The rain settled in late in the day and it was time to check in at Hotel Vic in North Point. No sponsors here in this blog so it’s all genuine opinions, but this place is a nice place to stay if you get a good price, gym and pool are nice. Unfortunately I missed out on happy hour and didn’t get to experience drinking upstairs.

My first bowl of wonton on arrival, during a short break in the football

View from the Hotel Vic rooftop infinity pool

Early evening after dinner. Slept in and then headed off to use the gym. Enough equipment to do some upper body work as the plan today was to do my first hike in Hong Kong. The hike of Dragon Back was something I was looking forward to ever since booking the trip. As the trip got close the weather wasn’t promising. Though the day was cloudy but cool, conducive to hiking not so for photography.

Going for brunch before hiking and walked past the wet market on Java Street in North Point

Not a bad coffee for Hong Kong standards

Wonton mein .. different restaurant different day

Beef brisket noodles .. thought I’d get hungry hiking

Start of our 2.5hr journey which really was less than 2hrs if I didn’t stuff up my drone shots

Pretty much reached the summit. The uphill is a short climb, now the down hill to the beach

Hmm .. blowing pretty hard .. 137bpm ..hmmm

The asteroid drone shot didn’t work out, too windy too cloudy so here is an iPhone shot instead

Made it. My first hike ever in HK and well it’s been forever since my last hike !!

Not a nudist beach and it’s getting too late to go for a swim so it’s time to head back

This stop over in HK was something of a must do mini adventure. I’ve been told numerous times by friends and family to try the scones at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong @ Cafe Causette. I decided to fit this in on the last day of my short stay in HK, after using the Airport Express checkin I mate the short walk over to the Mandarin Oriental. I must say the scone is definitely tasty and something that should not be missed for those who like a bit of afternoon tea.

Haha gotcha .. I couldn’t resist by putting my Cafe de’ Coral go to breakfast

Got there early so tried a Sausage Roll… scones are served at 3pm but you gotta be quick to order

Now the scone, well it’s a must again irrespective of cost and calories, just make sure you use all the jam

Cathay Pacific changed their flight schedules to Jeju Island and I was stuck on options to get to Jeju Island, the island reminds me of Okinawa with the food produce. The fruit is also desirable with all that volcanic soil which makes up the island. I have been to Jeju previously and decided to make another stop to this island south of South Korea.

Wonton and beef brisket at the airport for dinner.. I guess you know what I like to eat?

I decided to take China Eastern Airlines but this meant that a transfer in Shanghai PVG. After reading some travel forums there was a lot of discussion as to what I had to do. If anyone reads this because they are travelling like me, I went from HK to Shanghai PVG to Jeju Island. The flight was in the evening at 9pm from Hong Kong. At Airport Express I was only provided a boarding pass to Shanghai PVG. In Hong Kong I was told I will need to get a boarding pass in Shanghai.

When landing in Shanghai i had to go through customs and went through the 24 hour temporary visa queue. Proceeded to collect my bags and then work my way back to the arrivals counter. This was about midnight. Managed to find the business class lounge open for China Eastern Airlines. They told me they would not be able to issue a boarding pass till 6am. I had to make a decision to check in to an airport hotel or just bunker down in the airport which appeared I would definitely not be alone with many customers left stranded in transit.

Tunnelbear VPN worked in Shanghai arrivals before customs, great way to kill time by catching up on the F1

Come 6am on the Tuesday 30th April I went to the self service kiosk and was able to get my boarding pass to head to Jeju. Went through immigration early and then went to grab some breakfast and waited patiently till 9am to board my flight to Jeju.

Coffee in Shanghai after passing customs

Xiao long bao and coffee set me back 20AUD

Patiently waiting to leave Shanghai.. just a little early to arrive at the departure gate

Made it to Jeju hence no wonton for lunch !! Bolgogi it is !! Airport food waiting for my ride

Staying in the Dyne Oceano Hotel situated in Aewol in Jeju Island. Roof top pool and bar. It’s about 30mins from the airport by car.

Nice pool.. did have it to myself for 30mins

House rules point 6 for the gym meant i was pulled out.. Apparently not intoxicated enough

The stay in Jeju was more for the food and relaxing not too much site seeing as I have done many of the sites before.

A hike up Seongsan Ilchulbong. This hike is a little different to Dragon Back in Hong Kong, steps have been made and for the normal person with average fitness it won’t take very long to get up there. About a 10 -15 minute walk, with plenty of places to take a break and absorb the views.

Commencing our hike up Seongsan Ilchulbong

A rock formation at Seongsan Ilchulbong or Sunrise Peak

180m climb with plenty of breaks and time at the summit will take you about 45mins round trip

Cannot have a blog post of Jeju Island without a Dol hareubang

Haenyeo, female divers who make up the culture of Jeju Island. Often are responsible for the local abalone sales

Headed back down for the local abalone and sea urchin soup which was nice, but abalone isn’t my thing. I will eat it but I wouldn’t say I have great desire like many Asians for it.

After lunch we headed for a 15 minute drive to do some horse riding, another first on this trip, ridden on a camel but never a horse and this was quite enjoyable.

After the horse ride decided to stop by for a coffee. Managed to find a place where it appeared to be a luxury life of people who wanted to camp. The outdoor setting was of BBQs however the villas were shaped like tents but were not tents and well it was interesting to say the least.

Fancy glamping? but they did serve nice coffee

Dinner tonight was going to be Korean BBQ and fine tradition in Jeju Island is the black pork on BBQ. I think I had a rotten abalone as the stomach was misbehaving but a bit of rest and a bottle of Korean styled Yakult did the job, no need to get in to details.

Jeju Timelapse from Mark on Vimeo.

Fitted in a time lapse before dinner

Unfortunately as the taxi got to the desired location the restaurant was closed !!! It was Labour Day who would have known as when climbing Seongsan Ilchulbong there were school kids scaling up the mountain with us.

Disappointed the taxi driver took us to an alternative Korean BBQ restaurant. It didn’t let us down at all. Two of us took in about 800 grams pork over some Cass beer and Soju. After dinner, decided to have some dessert and had a tiramisu cake and then headed down stairs from the hotel and tried out the bar in the basement, much to our surprise it was playing some late 80s and early 90s music straight off the vinyl.

The second 400 grams is being prepared as you can see in the background

No hangover in the last full day of my Jeju stay. Headed in to the local markets of Jeju and found a little noodle restaurant and to our delight it served up a delicious hand made noodle soup and pippies.

At the local markets, fish and fruit markets

Got myself some freshly squeezed Dekopon juice, it’s a fruit from the mandarin family. Top stuff

We got here pretty early and the stalls in the markets were just opening up

Rrange-filling Dol Hareubang, quite nice

Travel partner was a little upset we couldn’t make it to the Korean BBQ as intended the previous night so we decided to try our luck again. Making our run a little late to Donsadon in Jeju. They have no website but here is the tripadvisor link for details.

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g297885-d8743739-Reviews-Donsadon-Jeju_Jeju_Island.html

The black pork was special here in my opinion it just tasted a little bit better than the previous place the other night.

All in all it was a great way to finish my Jeju stay, a few more drinks at the bar in the hotel just about made it a great little trip for me, bit of site seeing, a lot of chilling and quite a bit of eating and drinking. Not a bad early mid year break.

Don’t be late there is a queue and some very late comers were very upset to miss out waited for 1 hour and sat down at 9pm, an hour to eat as much pork as possible

Ordered 1.5 serves as we didn’t want to be knocked back if we asked for more later

Polished it off in time, and even had time for the kimchi soup

The flight home wasn’t so adventurous, at Jeju airport they could ship my bags straight to Hong Kong. I again was using China Eastern Airlines on my return leg. It was Hong Kong via Shanghai and this time there was no need to get a temp visa, all transfers were done within the airport and it was pretty quick, there is a passport security check but its an automated one where your passport and boarding pass get scanned and then it was a quick body check and through to the gate at Shanghai. Collect my bags at Hong Kong then check them in on my Cathay flight to Sydney. All in all it would take 3 plane rides in 24 hours to get back home … and believe it or not there was rail maintenance on my way home, just to prolong my journey !!!

If only all my flights were like this… Shanghai PVG to HK

Hope you enjoyed my pics and travels …

All images taken from either, Fuji XE-3 (56mm f1.2 or 27mm f2.8), iPhone XS Max and Go Pro Hero 6