South Korea Trip 2016 – Preparation
There’s a lot of preparation to made beforehand – I read so many blogs, write down any important notes from them so I won’t missed anything. In the preparation of our final Itinerary, these are the few first things we have to consider and book.
I can’t express how happy I am right now! Alhamdulillah finally I’m back here still in one piece with lots of wonderful memory on my mind. As you all know (if you have read my previous post), I was in South Korea for the first time! In this post and the upcoming posts I will be sharing my journey for 9 days and 8 nights around Seoul and Busan.
South Korea has been my number one place I want to visit mainly because I listen to Kpop songs and watched K-drama including Running Man. Therefore there’s a lot of exposure within the Korean culture in me. Name it, I want to eat ramyeon, wear hanbok, eat using their spoon and chopstick, talk to them personally, visit the places I’ve only seen in television and breath the same air as my idols, haha. I may sound crazy but I know a lot of you feel the same as me.
In this post, I will share with you the preparation I made in advance before landing to the city full of colors and culture, South Korea.
South Korea Trip 2016 – The Preparation
1. Check for flight promotion
If you want to be smart and save more money (for shopping yay!), you have to constantly check for flight promotion. We have booked our tickets 7 months earlier. Although it’s not the cheapest, but we tried to get within our budget.
2. Find accommodation
Once we have confirmed our flight tickets and the date were confirmed, we checked thoroughly few places to stay. We didn’t rush it out. Both of our accommodation in Seoul and Busan we booked through airbnb. You can download the apps and save places that you found suitable and reasonable.
3. Check the weather
Another important thing that concerned us is the weather. We checked the weather forecast so that we can plan our outfit. Since the temperature are around 8’ C to 20’C when we checked, so we have to prepare an outer wear such as jacket to warm us down. Even so, the actual temperature is not as cold as forecasted, but is good that we actually have jacket because in the morning and night it was cold.
4. Itinerary
Though we thought that 6 days in Seoul are enough, but throughout our planning, there are lots of places we have to take out. So, we have to plan our itinerary properly and make sure we have enough time. Though we have to cut out some places during the actual trip but as long we have fun it doesn’t matter right.
5. Discount coupon
This may be optional if you are not in budget trip. Since we are quite tight in budget, we did a survey from Korean Tourism Organization Malaysia (KTO) and received our discount coupon that we can use. My friend also prints out online discount coupon from cosmetic shop so we can use it when we shop around Seoul.
6. Souvenir
Souvenir is not cheap. If you plan to buy souvenir for your family and friends, it is good to actually know where are the places to find the cheap one. There are few places that I found affordable which I will share later.
Update: You can find cheap and good souvenir at Doota Mall.
7. Luggage
At first we thought that we can survive with only with 7 kg cabin size luggage. But we are wrong! I suggest that if you plan to buy souvenir, please at least buy an extra 20 kg so that you won’t regret later.
When everything have been prepared, I make sure that on the day I’m flying, I got everything I need packed. You can print out checklist anywhere in google.
Keep calm and wait for my next entry!
