korea trip day 1.

had an awesome trip to seoul last few weeks! (from 9th jan - 15th jan :p) with my petoms & petams - anne, yani, intan, erol & paru. and my ex-colleague jue & her friend niza tag along too. well that was a 1 week trip and you might wanna guess how many days i still have for my annual leave. i only have 8 freaking days left! my goodness. oh i'll blog about my trip along with tips & tricks (lmaowut). mind you i'm not gonna make it like a travellog or something. it's more to my own experience & thoughts hehe. ok 시작!

 

before depart. sitot & pika were there too to send us off hehe.

our departure flight was on 8th jan sunday, 11.00pm. from LCCT of course, where else, sigh. will never have any chance to fly to seoul if it wasn't for air asia's cheap tix lol. well the gate closed at 10.40pm but we're still munching our last minute dinner at mcd at 10.30pm #likeaboss haha. and only god knows how terrified and chaotic it was after that. we're running like some 100m sprint runners /with our unchecked-in luggage summore/ to catch our flight lmao. will never do like this again definitely.

 

reached incheon dy! :)

 

haruslah ada solo shot lol.

reached incheon airport at 6am KST on the next day (monday). the first thing i did was checking my phone whether got wifi. well we got it! and tweeted 'annyeong seoul~' haha. then we off to settle ourselves, brushing teeth, washing face etc lol. then we had our first breakfast in seoul hehe. at dunkin donuts! lol. i had 2 mini donuts and hot chocolate (bcuz of my tlist's never ending promotion abt how awesome dunkindonut's hot choc was lol). and went to 7-eleven to topup my t-money (not mine actually, it's tonbd's :p) for 25,000 won. t-money is like our own touchngo, where we can use it to ride subways & buses. it's an essential thing to buy first if you're travelling on your own like us (not using tour guide or in package etc lol).

 

t-money (there are 2 types: normal cards or phone charm)

then we off to arex (airport railroad) located at B1 floor. we gonna head off to our guesthouse at myeongdong. there are 2 options from airport to seoul. you can either take a bus or arex. me & anne had a countless debate about whether we should take bus or arex before we go lol. in the end we choose arex. and it became the most painful experience ever lol. why? i'll tell about it later. tbh, seoul subway systems is the most daebak railway systems ever. it's very convenient! (except for it's... endless staircase hmm). well it sorts of confusing at first, but if u're really good with star/putra lrt or even ktm systems in malaysia, which stations u need to get off to transfer to another line etc, then you'll survive riding this thing and won't get lost, no worries. but u have to study the subway map first lah. :p

 seoul subway map :p

 

inside arex.

our guesthouse = the black building.

we just slept inside train cuz we're so tired. but i can't sleep well cuz i was afraid if we missed our transfer station (hongdae) lol. when we reached euljiro il-ga station, we were already tired because of the transferring thingy. and guess what. there's no escalator at this station! lol. just imagine how hard it is to climb all those staircase, with your 10kg luggage summore! OTL.  i felt like i was already dead at that time. thank god my steroids help! went to exit #2, walked a bit, turn left and we saw our guesthouse dy! seoulbackpackers myeongdong!

how to go to seoulbackpackers myeongdong from airport:

-arex: ICN airport -> hongik university
-line #2: hongik university -> euljiro il-ga (exit #2)
-total fares = 4500 won

not gonna write any review about this guesthouse, but tbh, not recommended. lol. erm wait, maybe u can consider it if you're a type of ppl who like to climb up to 4th floor, doesnt have any social networking acc, doesnt care about wi-fi etc. yes u can stay here lol. their service is good, the room is good. the only negative part of this guesthouse is ... well it doesn't have elevators (thus i have to drag my 10kg luggage while climbing the staircase to our room at 4th floor hzz) and wi-fi is only available at lobby area. hmm. we took family room for 4 person. the rate for this family room is 120,000 won per night. x 6 nights = 720,000 won. divide by 4 = 180,000 won per person (for the total of 6 nights). oops there's my review dy lol.

1) gyeongbok palace (gyeongbokgung)

then after settled & pay everything, drop our luggage at the lobby, we off to our first destination. gyeongbokgung!  this is one of 5 palaces u must visited at seoul. idek why we choose this palace instead of the other 4 lol. well tbh i treasured this visit a bit cuz i really like watching this kind of royal k-dramas haha. the latest one is deep rooted tree. it's all about how king sejong invent all those hangul characters. so yeah this palace was built by his father king taejo, its name was given by the prime minister jeong dojeon (all these ppl were there in this drama! lol) so i was oh i know this guy, i know that guy. lol excuse my random ramblings.

 

how to go to gyeongbokgung:
-get off at gyeongbokgung station (exit #5)
-entrance fee = 3000 won

2) lunch at sosim restaurant, insadong

then we off to insadong to have our lunch at sosim restaurant. it's a veggie restaurant so mostly all dishes are.. veggies lol. it is located near to anguk station (exit #6), just next to miss lee cafe (yongseo cafe). if u regularly watch wgm (especially yongseo couple episodes) you might notice this cafe hehe. but we didnt go to this cafe pun haha we had lunch at sosim restaurant. at first we really had a positive thought about this restaurant. we've planned to share our meals but the thing is, we can't! we have to order a lunch set for each of us. hzz. 1 set costs 18,000 won something like that. like whattt. maybe it's us who didn't understand the ahjumma well, or the ahjumma didn't understand us well. it's hard to converse with our limited hangugo knowledge. and their limited english knowldge. so yeah.. lol. in the end we just order 5 sets of fish and eat #likeaboss. i was really hungry so i ate my meals like ....... haha idek.

 

me... and my meals lol.

 

omnomnom!

 

miss lee cafe! the restaurant is located next to it.

cheap bag shop near exit #6. most of the bags (front ones) are 10,000 won. bought 4 bags from here on day 6 :p

3) insadong

after stuffed ourselves with foods, finally it's time for shopping! we stumbled upon this 1 souvenir shop where the eonni was speaking in malay! she was like 'apakabar adik kakak mari masuk murah murah!' LOL we were like okayyy let's go inside then. it was quite impressive cuz then she started to speak in japanese & mandarin when japanese & chinese tourists came. good business skill hah. and we bought a lot of souvenirs from this eonni's shop for ppl back home. well u can buy everything here, from i love korea t-shirt to keychains to pencil cases or makeup cases to everything lah lol. basically, just buy them here haha. /setel semua benda lol/

insadong street.

then we just walked and walked til i really can't walk. lol. my left foot was hurt so bad! (because of my stupid sneakers hrhr). then we found this one shop selling a nice boot for 20,000 won. i know it's quite expensive cuz mostly boots will be around 10,000 won only. but i dont even care and just pay and bought it cuz i can't stand the pain wearing this sneakers anymore lol. and yeah still feel the pain but not as much as when i wear the stupid sneakers! huzzah.

 

my 20,000 won boot! \o/

 

yani bought her boot from this cute guy. and obviously we wanna take pic with him cuz he's cute lol.

 

ddongbang or we called it as kuih taik. cuz it really look like taik! lmao

took by this 1 iran (?) guy.

how to go to insadong:
-get off at anguk station (exit #6)

then we went back to our guesthouse cuz everyone was so tired. but yani & erol have to pick up paru at airport (coz paru's flight is diff from the rest of us). anne ofc will never spend her nights at guesthouse so she went to myeongdong alone lol. me? i dont have any energy left to do anything even to eat. i dont even remember if i've took any dinner that night lol. i just turned on the tv and watch korean shows then fell asleep.

p/s: took 3 hours to write this day 1 post OTL ;______________; shall come back with day 2 post. wait for meeee! hahaha