Author: vinceneil666

There are a lot of spices and stuff in China..and tea..so much tea. But for us there is only one, our years long quest for proper Sichuan pepper.

There are different types, as you see with both cinnamon and safeon. There are Spanish versions, African and American. Getting hold of Chinese Sichuan pepper is not always easy peasy. But now – we’re here!

She had a nice day at work today 🙂

We had just been at the Chinese arts museum, and looking at the map we found a vegetable/fish market up the road. We where already a bit outside the tourist track so we where confident we could get some good stuff for normal prices.

The Sichuan pepper is either green or red, the red is the one regularly used in food. It not really a -pepper-, its in the citrus family and gives off what they call ‘cold heat’, also it makes you lips go slightly numb. You will get proper Sichuan pepper dishes at a few restaurants in Norway.

The lady in the picture above, in the Zhaojunsheng Vegetable Market had both red and green in prepacked pouches.. God knows what a punch weighed – probably 100gr pr bag. We bought 10 of each! ..So now we are very well stocked.

The price was 10rmb (thats about 14-15 Nok pr pouch/bag) so close to free, or at least very very cheap. I also bought half a meter of local cinnamon… Because.

The rest of the marked was full of other stuff to, lots of vegetables and some met n fisjmh.

Subway – so far – easy peasy. English messages and everything.

Quite a large map…

Last day in Jeju, today we are leaving for Beijing – flying out of Jeju International on Oceanic flight 815 … , or, might be Korean Air flight..

Checking out of our Air BnB that has served us well – this one came with a dedicated girls and boys room, which was fine since I have had 3 days with a pretty annoying flue.

Right no we are sitting. On a cafe waiting to bag drop to be opened, we had a somewhat early checkout at Airbnb, didnt wanna drag the bags around, sonwe just got on the bus to the airport. So far things have gone smooth, checking kiosk worked as a charm…

Arriving today, and my cold not really getting any better – we thought about just staying in our Air BnB, but, nah.. It just feels like such a waste of time.

We had found this place in Jeju called the night market, that really comes to life when the weather is heating up, and its just about starting to do so now. There is also a bit warmer wind here than on Mainland Korea.

so we got on a bus, luckily the bus stand is just outside our door. We are not staying at Shalom Hotel – but that is the building next to ours, and more a practical reference point. So bus from Shalom to Nightmarket – 50-60 mins, i think we did the 310…

Absolutley lovely place, with lots of small stalls selling stuff and food. Lights hung in the trees and even some live music. I bet this will look even more nice when the trees get a bit greener.

And as luck would have it – Jeju Brewing had a small shop here to.

Only had one on tap, so we tasted that one and one of the porters from a can – before we headed back home.

Using the Direct ferries app I was able to book a ticket from Mokpo to Jeju.. Now the thing with Google maps is that is kinda works in Korea, and for the NAVER App. It working fine – but its really not into the English lettering.

I googled around a bit trying to figure out where the ferry from Mokpo (Samhak) actually left from, and i found 3 answers..

this is where you need to go:

All other info is wrong 🙂 — go there.

Here we just showed our passports and the ref number from Direct ferries and we where good, not to many travelers today, its not peak season and thats nice.

The ferry took just under 5 hours, we could have flown – but boat is a kinda nice way to see the country. Weather was perfect to.

Along the way we passed the Chuja islands, would have been cool to stop by, but.. no time. The islands are supposed to only have 2000 inhabitants – in Korea that is pretty much nothing. I got a very Squid Game feeling, looking at the islands.

Arrived 20 min late to beautifull weather and our first sighting of a palm…. Might been fake.

We did the whole song and dance with the local taxi driver – and after 30 mins we found our Air bnb — its on the 17 th floor of this building.

They probably tried telling us a couple of times, to wait at the top of the stairs until they had docked properly…

Ah, finally Mokpo – the Jewel of Asia.

This is just a quick stop to get on the ferry tomorrow. Time just didnt add up, so we got a hotel night here as a bonus. I went for the most expensive option I could find, with infinity pool and resturant at the roof.. 60$ !

The hotell is absolutely huge compared to the rest of the harbor area. Kinda like our og proportions, white marble floors and pretty new… I should have taken a few more pics, but it f’ freezing, raining and kuling in the kasts.

This town, or at least where we are, is the main harbor for all the fishing boats . No beaches or touristy places, so this exceptionally nice hotell just see our of place

No swimming in the infinity pool – or pictures.. I wouldt go out on that roof in this weather.

We are sending a box of misc stuff back home, snacks and souvenirs, so we dont have to drag it along with us for the rest of the trip.

The post office in Korea is nice, here is a picture of a very – very – patient man, that over time was leaning towards the idea that there are countries so small that they dont have states of 5-6 digit post codes.

we where in here for close to an hour. We have had the same issue other places to, Norwegian 4 digit postal codes are not supported. The trick is to ask them to go manual. 👍👍

After a lot of phones and Google translate – we heard him make that noise you hear people do when they are done with a root canal. And we where good… Lets see…if we will ever see this box again.

After that ordeal, noting that i am no longer ‘kinda sick’, Im now proper sick :(, we did a brief walk of the harbor area..downed a beer and had a horrific pizza.. and then just crashed for two hours fighting a light fever. 🤘👍

The shops here are very fish related, just look at this madness, they have built a castle of fishing supplies outside their shop.

Ferry leaves at 0830 tomorrow, after approx 4 hours we should be at Jeju, i just hope the weather improves – if not, it we be a very bumpy ride.