Tip 1 (air fare): There are a lot of promo flights around September and October so I've been hanging around airline websites. I even went as far as downloading promo alerts in my iPod (there are apps available in the app store). When picking flights, you should know when the peak or lean seasons are. April and May tend to be peak seasons because it's summer vacation in the Philippines and most students are out of school. We picked June mostly because I probably still have my internship around the end of May and Cyril would probably be busy fixing her requirements in med school around that time. Just when I thought that the apps aren't working, there was an alert at dawn and there you go, a 10php base fare from Manila to Seoul by Cebu Pacific! Adding up the taxes and whatever plus our baggage, the roundtrip flight to Seoul costs us around 8000php each. As of now, the cheapest flight you could get without any promos is AirAsia, I've been checking their website before I booked our flight in Cabu Pacific and their flight to Seoul costs around 8000php as well (that's around September and October and our flight dates are in June).
Tip 2 (maps and guides): Their government has made it easy for tourists to go around Seoul. When Cyril and I were making our itinerary, we have downloaded several helpful and useful apps. For Apple users, there's i Tour Seoul, Seoul Subway and VisitKorea. In i Tour Seoul, you can download several maps and guides including the places to eat, places to visit and places to shop. There's also their website, http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto. You can start making your itinerary on their website too. At their airport, look for the information desks and get every guide maps you can find.
Tip 3 (renting a place): Cyril and I spent weeks looking for the perfect place to stay at since we have a budget to follow (at most around 2000php a night). In renting a place, we mainly considered the price, the location, the size of the room and the reviews about the place. I'm very sensitive about the bathroom so you could say that's a main thing too. You can go to booking.com or airbnb.com. We got lucky at Airbnb! It was around three weeks before our flight and I was getting desperate. I was browsing for private rooms at airbnb and found the perfect place!!! (Gayang studio apt, 3 min to subway) The place is right across the street from my godfather's place so it's very easy when we moved in the next day. It has a very reasonable price even though it's far from the city proper. It's true that it's just 3min to subway so it's very convenient. The apartment building is literally right next to Homeplus and downstairs is a convenience store and a few restaurants. The apartment was very clean when we arrived. Everything you need is in there from towels to detergent powders to extra blankets. The bathroom is clean and large compared to the places we looked at. Karen, our host, is very fluent in English. She even left us guidelines about the appliances in her apartment (because everything's in Korean so she translated everything in English). We didn't meet her in person but every time I message her for help, she would respond almost immediately.
Tip 4 (pictures): So have you noticed that most of the pictures are solo shots? Hahaha well, it's hard to have a group picture when there's just two of you. Cyril and I both brought our cameras so we just decided to switch cameras and take pictures of each other. Some tourists are kind enough to take a picture of us when we ask them. Well, there's the monopod but we don't have that so... hahaha
Tip 5 (money exchange): Right after we arrived at the airport, both of us only exchanged only 50USD since the exchange rates are high at the airport. It's enough for us to get by that one day. Right before we went home, we exchanged another 100USD at Hana Bank. We didn't think it would be wise to exchange everything so we just exchanged 100-200USD when we run out of cash. Foreign exchange are easily accessible since most of the banks have them. Remember that they are CLOSED ON WEEKENDS AND HOLIDAYS. So it's good to stock up on money before the weekend. Or they have a lot of money exchange at Myeongdong if you forget to exchange before the weekend.
Tip 6 (adapter): This was almost a major problem because we didn't have an adapter! My mom forgot to remind me. And I actually forgot what they use in South Korea since my godmother provided us what we needed on our last trip. Do not buy ones from convenience stores! I bought one from Mini Stop (for 10,000won!!!) because I really needed it since all my gadgets' batteries are almost dead. That's almost okay, but the problem was my camera's charger. I realized later that what I bought was a USB adapter (so my gadgets are okay) and I can't plug my camera's charger there. I bought another adapter the next day at Myeongdong underground (Exit 5). They have it there at 1,000won.
Tip 7 (palaces): We discussed beforehand that we wanted to visit all the palaces. And fortunately, they offer the Integrated Ticket of Palaces for only 10,000php. This includes Changdeokgung Palace (plus Secret Garden tour), Changgyeonggung Palace, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Deoksugung Palace and Jongmyo Shrine. You could use this for a whole month. What's more, you can come and go as you please, just show them your ticket. Like, you go to one palace this day, but you wanted to go again, so you can go the next day again. Even though they already took the stub, once they see the ticket, they'll let you enter again..South Korea 2014: Gyeonghuigung Palace, Gyeongbokgung Palace and Cheonggyecheon Stream
Labels: South Korea, Travel