South Korea: The Planning & Preparation

Hi. My Name is Delight and right now am planning my South Korea Trip.

After 7 days of application, I finally got my Visa and I praise the Lord for that. I actually haven’t had any plans of going to Korea, yet the moment I learned that the visa is free (0-59days), and I think my money is just enough for a 3-4 days’ stay.

The Waiting Game: Visa Processing

I just followed all of the requirements from the Korean Consulate, except for the invitation letter since I will be travelling alone.

Link for the visa requirements:

http://embassy_philippines.mofa.go.kr/english/as/embassy_philippines/visa/requirement/index.jsp

In Cebu, Visa Application is from 9AM to 11AM, and releasing is at 2PM-4PM. Make sure you’ll go on time to avoid long queue. A lot I don’t have any tickets yet because I am not really sure if I really want this or not. I just want to see if the consulate will approve or deny my application. After 7 working days, I finally got my visa—and I have 59 remaining days—the expiration date will be on 21JUN2017.

The reason why I applied for a Korean Visa–is I wanted to see if even though I only have a small amount of money in my ATM card, I will see if the consulate will approve my application or not, and yes– the consulate approved my 59days visa for gratis.

Right after the pay day, I had P63000 in my ATM and that I used for my bank certificate and bank statement.

Since I am a corporate employee, I was asked to provide additional requirements:

The Search: Lowest Airfare

I am very happy and blessed that God granted my prayers. The next thing on my list is Cherry Blossoms, however, I cannot really find an affordable ticket to Korea since there’s no seat sale on the dates that I intended to go. I used several applications to look for a cheaper ticket—I checked Air Asia, Cebu Pacific, Air Busan, Jeju Air and Jin Air. I got my round trip tickets from Jin Air for $245 – Php11250, which is a very good deal for me since I took it 2 weeks before my April 12-which is my flying date, btw. I am not sure if I could still catch some cherry blossoms or not. But yeah—– it’s a pretty good deal amongst other airline. For Jin Air- they can go lower til $75 going to INC and $110 to CEB. Surely it’s a great deal.

The Search: Itinerary

Here are some blogs that I read as my basis for my itinerary:

The Search: Accommodation:

This is the hardest part, because I really want to save money yet I also wanted to stay in the city center and there are a lot of pretty and nice hostels in Seoul. I am not a fan nor familiar with Korea as I am not a kPop nor a Korean series fan, so with this, I used booking.com and hostelworld.com to compare each hostel.

I booked a hostel in Hongdae, as according to them it’s a lively place, so I booked myself to Kimchee Sinchon Guesthouse – which is in this area, yet it’s kinda far from the shopping areas which is the Myeongdong & Namdaemun- (Hoehyeon station) and the historical sites. So if you are booking your hotel/hostel, make sure that you should decide first on which area you would like to stay- you also have to consider the transportation to the your location.

The Familiarization: Train Subway & Stations

So I downloaded SEOUL SUBWAY app on my phone to help me figure out the addresses of my itineraries.

Phone Applications that helped me on this DIY solo trip.

Visit Korea Seoul Subway Subway LearnKorean by Codegent Korean by Bravolol Dictionary by Bravolol. When I was in China, I was using these applications from Bravolol and Codegent-surely these apps are very helpful.

Seoul Subway, i Tour Seouland Visit Korea are the apps that I used often when I was in Seoul.

TORN BETWEEN CAREER AND PASSION