Seoul to Busan

Our trip to Korea is to explore Busan. Prior flight, we already have train tickets to Busan which was purchased via Korail, a national railroad operator in South Korea (Wikipedia). From the Korail website, there are several types of Korail tickets you can purchase. As for our trip, we just booked a one-way ticket to Busan since we are not yet convinced what date we will leave Busan. Reservation is quite easy as the website offers English language. After following information and payment, voila, ticket can now be printed.

The time we booked for Busan is 5:00PM. After getting passed the immigration, we are in the airport lobby at around 1:30PM which gives us plenty of time to do the following:

• Data Rental/Access - In the last two years, we have been renting out wireless dongle so we can have internet access all over Korea. I asked my mother process the rental. However, they seem to have not understood each other. In the end, we purchased a sim card instead with a 5-day wireless data access. This is actually cheaper than what we used to do except that it will be draining a lot of battery to the phone that will house the newly purchased sim card. I decided to house the newly purchased sim card to my phone and told her that I will just let her connect to my phone if she needs to access the internet so we both can preserve batteries and use our phones to more important things -photographing each other haha.
• Purchase bus ticket to Seoul - We were guided a lady from the information booth how to go to Seoul Station. We went to the ticketing booth and asked the personnel the same question and gave her the note from the information booth. The information given to us by the lady is wrong (facepalm). The ticketing officer provided us the correct information and we purchased the ticket to Seoul Station.
• Lunch - We tried to look for a fancy restaurant/fastfood in the airport, however, we have to line up a very long queue to get ourselves food. We decided instead to take a snack and eat lunch in Seoul. We ordered tea and juice and a sandwich from Starbucks.

The bus ticket we purchased is not time-reserved so we can ride the bus anytime we want. But wait, we haven't taken our lunch yet! So after we ate from Starbucks, we immediately went to the bus stop at around 2:30PM. According to the ticketing officer, the travel from airport to Seoul Station is around 1 hour and 20 minutes the most. The traffic was really smooth and we arrived Seoul station at 3:30PM. Great! We still have 1 and a half hours to eat lunch and look for the platform to Busan.

We decided to eat at GLÜCKS SCHWEIN, a restaurant (German, I think) in Seoul Station. Expensive! But really nice food according to my taste haha!

We left the restaurant at exactly 4:30PM so we have time to look for the platform to Busan, in Seoul station. We went to the waiting area where we can see information of the arriving and departing train. At 4:45PM, the information of the train to Busan flashed to the screen. We immediately headed to where our train is, at Platform 7, Car 9. We took our time to take several photos before boarding the train.

As soon we are seated, the monitor in the train flashed information about the trip both in Korean and English language. The travel time is 2 hour and 42 minutes and we are expected to arrive Busan station at 7:42PM. As soon as the time hits 5:00PM, the train started to depart.

We slept for the whole travel period, but by 7:30PM, I managed to wake up to see where were at -about 3 or 4 stations from Busan. True enough, at 7:42PM we arrived Busan station!

Busan Station is surprisingly big -matching that of Seoul Station in my opinion. The outside of the station is undergoing renovation; seems additional commercial function, I am not sure. Anyway, everyone is quite busy, it's 31st and in 4 hours, it will be 2018. We stopped by first at Dunkin Donuts so I can search from google maps where our accommodation is located. Here, we met a new buddy which I plan to bring on my future trips -he was named packbud haha! During our stay in Dunkin Donuts, I learned that the accommodation that was booked is about 1km away only from the station. We headed to the inn and to our surprise, there's no one from the reception. Funny though, there was a note that we can call the receptionist haha. We did so, and the reception went out to her room. We  checked in and was required to pay a 20,000KRW deposit for the card key. We do not have any cash left though so in the end, the receptionist allowed us to stay without the deposit.

Room 205 - the same floor where the reception is. The room is small but nice and cozy. We immediately unpacked our things and planned something for new year. However, we are too tired and there seemed to be no tradition whatsoever nearby for new year so we just rested. My mother went to sleep while I kept myself busy chatting with friends and greeting everyone happy holidays.

The clock strikes 12 and the year now is 2018. Happy New Year!

Annyeong!

Yes! After two months since I started this blog, this is the first trip I would like to share. Annyeong! My year-end trip is in Korea.

Disclaimer: This trip is purely about related experiences during my trip. This will not include budget allocation, activity recommendation, and attractions. I might be able to mention some, but I do not intend to make this post a guide for those who want to go to Korea.

I honestly expected snow experience. Two years ago, we went to Seoul around November, and the snow experience is very brief.

Anyway, we booked our flight from AirAsia. Our flight was from NAIA Terminal 3 at 7:10AM supposedly. However, upon arrival, we learned that the flight schedule was changed to 6:45AM so we headed immediately to the AirAsia lane to deposit our baggage. I had asked my mother to proceed to pay travel taxes. When she met with me however, she was informed that the travel tax might have already been included from the booking fee. When our time has come, we were informed by the attendant that travel tax is not yet included, thus, we have to go back to the counter to claim our boarding pass until travel tax is paid. I wish there's be a note from the itinerary if there's a need to pay for travel tax so we do not waste our time going back and forth even though we know the process.

Everything went smoothly, not much questions asked from the immigration, except for the typical schedule flight delay. Eventually, the actual departure time became 7:14AM, from 6:45AM, from 7:10AM. The plane was old but neat, cabin crews are very well presentable. All else are the same with other airlines.


Before we landed to the ground, we were asked to fill out the arrival card and health questionnaire as required Korea. This will be used to evaluate your entry to the airport.

The plane landed at 12:04PM local time (Korea is an hour advanced), so the total travel time is actually 3 hours and 50 minutes as opposed to 3 hours and 40 minutes mentioned by the cabin crew before the flight. No issue here though, just saying. As expected, it will be a bit cold but my sando and knitted sweater managed hehe.

The immigration in Incheon Airport is more or less the same in comparison to how they do it in the Philippines, but I would like to mention that the process is a bit more faster. Past the immigration, it's officially Annyeonghaseyo!

The beginning

Before anything else, the owner of this blog is Emil -a frequent traveler. By frequent traveler, he
means going places, old or new, by land, sea, or air, domestic or international. Emil loves to travel. It shows him the beauty of both man and God's creations. It gives his heart excitement, keeps his soul full, and makes his feet happy. Emil started traveling around 2012 and has continued exploring since then.

The very purpose of this blog is to keep Emil's travels documented and hopefully provide readers information on the places he plans to visit and the places he had visited.

Please enjoy the company and help him answer, where to next?