Not Spring, Love or Cherry Blossom (Part 1)

Hello Saturday ;)

I’m going to share all of my journey in Seoul, South Korea on April 16-22, 2014. I prepared the itinerary, booking hotel, counting expected budget, making visa all by myself. 

 

First, let me share my experience managing visa to Korea. After surfing in the internet, all people said that it’s easy to make visa to Korea. We don’t need any minimum fund in the bank account as long as we have enough money for the living cost during staying there. So, I just need to prepare all the requirement, and don’t forget to prepare copy of booking airplane ticket, booking hotel, and itinerary + expected budget (though they said they don’t need it). The week when I wait for my visa was the most torturing week I’ve ever had in my life (lol lebay). And finally I got my visa hehehe..

A week before my trip, my friend showed me a message that our flight schedule changed. I supposed to go back to Indonesia on 16.00 pm, but it changed to 20.00 pm. Okay so I need to wait on LCCT 5 hours -__-

Three of us had a final meeting to complete our itinerary haha, we were so excited back then. Even we had a dinner in Mujigae:D (warming up before meeting Koreans)

 

AND FINALLY THE DAY THAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR HAS COME. We met in Airport on 6pm, yeah 2.30 hours before our flight schedule kkk. The flight delayed around 15-20 minutes, but we were still waiting patiently.

At 11.30 pm (Malay time) we arrived in LCCT, well long time no see you (after two years). We planned to buy mineral water first in airport because buy it on plane is more expensive. But a sudden voice shouted “LAST CALL AIRASIA TO SEOUL”, we turned our head to the voice and ran there. And that immigration person said “Oh you come from Indonesia, that’s why you are the last”. Oh wow so Indonesian are popular for being late everywhere ya..

I changed my seat with other Indonesian so I can sit closer to Mel and Ci Karin. Luckily the person beside me is a Korean Oppa LOOOL and beside him is Korean Unnie. So the Oppa had the newest Samsung Laptop, watched National Geographic in Korean and the Unnie had her Samsung Note 3 watched Korean Drama without English Subbed, meanwhile I only had Samsung Grand watched EXO :D I was trying to sleep but I couldn’t (I even ate sleep pill but it didn’t work). It was 3 am and I still listened to the music. I was trying to sleep  but I still couldn’t sleep. I ended up only slept for 2 hours. We landed around 08.00 AM KST and the pilot informed that now is 8 degrees outside. I bawled my eyes out and thought how cold it was. 

I FINALLY ARRIVED IN INCHEON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

 

 And EXO were welcoming me HAHA

We had breakfast before going out, i bought the legend banana uyu and chicken rice burger. While enjoying my breakfast we watched the TV in airport and just found out about the Sewol Tragedy. People were gathering and commenting in korean, huhu i was really in Korea *sobs/proud*

After that, we were looking for the bus airport to Jongno, the bus cost 10,000 Won and it only took 1.5 hours to Jongno. The bus really comfy, i was attracted to the scenery outside. Cherry blossom were everywhere, so beautiful

We arrived at Banana Backpackers Guesthouse around 01PM, okay lemme tell you that we had countless get lost in Seoul, but thankful to God that Korean are freaking nice people, eventhough sometimes their english aren't good enough they still help us to find the way, they even use map in their phone to help us. We used the triple room for 3 person with bathroom inside. The rates was 70,000 Won per night. The room had TV, aircon, hairdryer, and provide towel. The guest house wasn't located on the tourist area, so the surrounded area was very quiet at night, but i love it!

Our first destination was N Seoul Tower, we bought T-Money first in the nearby 7-11. We arrived in Myeongdong station and our stomach starts to growl, wow it's already 3PM there, we stop on a Korean family restaurant. We were the only costumer there because it already passed lunch time. We had some grill beef and korean pancake *i forgot the name*. The beef taste nice :3 we only order 2 main dishes because we know korean portion is big. Then, we took the cable car to the Tower. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore the observatory because Mel and Ci Karin need to go to Myeongdong to watch Nanta Show. We only took photo on the love lock.

 i found EXO's name kkk

I was thinking to go to Apgujong area while waiting Mel and Ci Karin until 7PM, but since we really depend on wifi, I couldn't go too far in only 2 hours, so I just stayed at Starbucks. I still remember when I asked the wifi password to the server, they said that the pasword was only for Koreans. It really didn't make sense since this was international store in Tourist Area. Luckily, I still got the wifi signal from the next restaurant.

We had korean street food for our dinner and the seller knew some indonesian word, they said "cantik" to us looool, we don't need you sweet word ahjussi, we need more food :p

 

Myeongdong is heaven for K-pop fans like me. The store always play kpop music, i kept humming while walking, especially for Nature Republic, they always play Growl loool i kept said eurerong eurerong~~~~

We went back to guesthouse around 10pm. Lemme sum up the expense for the first day.

16 April 2014

DAMRI to airport : IDR 35,000

Aiport tax : IDR 150,000

Dinner in Seotta : IDR 20,000

Mineral Water on plane : MYR 4

17 April 2014

Breakfast in Incheon : KRW 2,500

Airport Bus : KRW 10,000

Banana Backpacker Guesthouse : KRW 70,000 (for 3 nights)

T-Money : KRW 22,500

Lunch in Namsan : KRW 9,000

Namsan Tower Cable Car Round Trip : KRW 8,500

Dinner Korean Street Food in Myeongdong : KRW 3,000