Time to blog about my trip to Seoul about 3 weeks ago! It was a short and pretty rush trip. Didn't get to visit lots of places so yeah. Really hope I can head there for a more decent trip soon!
p/s: I'm gonna write this in a guide-ish way.
Day 1 Singapore to Incheon, Seoul
We took the midnight flight and was scheduled to reach Seoul at about 6 in the morning.
Top: Gmarket | Leather vest: Online | Jeans: Topshop | Shoes: H&M | Bag: Miu Miu
My lovely girls came to surprise me. Lol. It's not as if I am leaving for good!! But hehe, thank you! I feel so loved :")
Don't you just like my rilakkuma neck rest?!?! Hahaha.
Upon reaching Seoul, we rented an iPhone from the phone rental counter. There are various 'plans' for you to take up, and the deposit was 300,000won (approx. USD300). You can pay by cash or CC. There are also other phone models to choose from, which I believe will have a cheaper deposit?
Breakfast was at KRAZE BURGER. The waitress was very friendly and patient with my hardly-there-korean. It has been almost a year since I stopped attending korean classes, and I haven't spoken in korean ever since. (╥_╥)
There are different transports to get to your hotel from Incheon airport, and we chose to taken the international taxi - which is hassle-free! Well, actually I haven't tried taking the airport bus or the train to my hotel before but I reckon it is troublesome and tiring with all that luggages to drag.
Different international taxi booths have different people who can speak different languages (lol look at this sentence.) so you don't have to worry even if you can't understand korean. We went to the US/UK (english) booth and 'ordered' a taxi.
The driver speaks basic english and mandarin, and was very talkative. Sigh, I don't like talkative drivers. I just wanna rest after a tiring flight! Anyway, it took about 1 hour before we reached our hotel - PJ Hotel. Didn't snap a picture of the lobby because it was our second stay there.
Really nice and cosy hotel; with free transport to 충무로역(Chungmuro Station), 명동(Myeongdong), 동대문(Dongdaemun) and various places. Takes about 5 minutes to reach Myeongdong, and 15 minutes to Dongdaemun? The transport operates throughout the day, but have 2 different routes for day and night. So just make sure you check out the schedule properly before leaving the hotel!
Great convenience comes with great price. So it costs about USD200/night for a room. There are cheaper guesthouses with equal convenience but unfortunately, I have yet to have a chance to stay in one to give a review. Next time!
Seoul Olympic Park Stadium
Our sole agenda for this trip was to attend Big Bang's Concert - Big Show 2012. We bought the tickets on Gmarket for the first concert, which was the day we reached Seoul too. Went straight to the stadium after reaching the hotel, fearing that we might miss the time for ticket(s) collection.
Look at how happy my sister is. Lol.
After enquiring from the information counter, we were told to queue at this booth called the Happy Box, for ticket collection. We queued for some time before realising everyone else in the queue was actually queuing to buy the leftover tickets when the Happy Box opens! After asking around (thankful for kind taiwanese fans!), we found out that ticket collection only starts at 5pm. It was only about 11am when we were there? So we headed to 잠실(Jamsil) for some shopping and lunch!
Jamsil station is actually pretty near to the Olympic Park stadium, though you have to transfer to another line. The station links to Lotte World. It's a long walk but you will be entertained by the underground shopping.
Settled down for food right away. Unlike the food centres in Singapore, the food centres in Korea has a different way in ordering food. You do not order food at the specific food counter that you want. Instead, there is a counter for food ordering. So you go to the counter, order and pay for your food, then you'll be issued a number. Now you wait for your number to appear on the screen at the food counter to collect your nomnoms. After eating, you return the tray, utensils and bowls to the original food counter.
This is something I find hard to get used to because you have cleaners clearing your food trays for you here.
Headed back to the stadium after shopping at Lotte Mart. Queued for ticket collection at Happy Box (which is a brown box btw lol), which took so freaking long I almost died. I don't know if it's just me but YG needs to step up their service regarding ticket collection. The queue for ticket collection was MAD LONG, with quite a few foreigners. There was only one counter dedicated to ticket collection, and ZERO staff there who could understand conversational english. The most they could say was yes/no/here/there. I thought it made things hard for those who were clueless about which queue is which. Everything was made worse when some people were waiting to collect their tickets for the standing pits at 7pm, when the standing ticket holders were supposed to enter the stadium at 6:30pm. Some were getting impatient, and so did the crowd handlers who were busy shouting in Japanese and Korean to get those who weren't in queue yet, to gather. A little unprofessional right there because there were so many people still queuing to collect their tickets!
I forgot what time it was when I finally collected my tickets. We were freezing, and I really pitied my mom and Charmaine who were waiting in the cold for us. Got some hot canned drinks from 7eleven/Family Mart (right outside of the stadium) to warm them up. Wanted to queue for the merchandises but the booths closed at 6:30pm.
Sneaked a picture during encore. What a beautiful sight :") I had waited for that day for 3 years, and it finally came true. Big Bang was FANTASTIC, and so were the fans. Security was strict as hell, so I would recommend not taking any photos/videos. Don't even take your phone out! Or you'll be in the risk of being chased out.
We retired to the hotel after the concert. Be prepared to pay more than you should if you do not plan to leave via public transport (as in buses or trains). There are a lot of cab drivers waiting to pick up customers, but they charge a flat rate instead of going by the meter. I think we paid 50,000won for the ride back to the hotel? The ride from our hotel to the stadium definitely cost less than 20,000won. The cab driver also sped to our hotel which was fucken scary. I thought I was going to die right after fulfilling a dream. No joke.
And that's the end of Day 1! :3 Day 2 coming up soooooon
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