Seoul Trip Preparation

I. Annual Leave Application

In our team it is so hard to get leaves since only one person can take at a particular period hence booking in advance is a must. Last Dec 2012 I planned all my leaves for the year 2013 and Seoul trip is part of it. 

My friends and I have discussed about visiting Seoul together since last year however, due to their busy schedule from work and some personal matters they backed out. It is really my dream to visit Seoul this year hence after coming back from my vacation from the Philippines my boyfriend helped me planned out the things. He applied for his leave after I gave him a go signal even though our friends cannot come with us. We were so lucky as his leaves got approved asap though he is just new to the company.

II. Visa Application

It is our first time applying for a visa since most of the countries we visited previously don't require us as they are part of ASEAN. Filipinos require visa to enter South Korea hence we gathered the below requirements needed to apply for visa.

Below requirements are for Filipinos working in Singapore

1. Completed application form, can be downloaded here

2. Original and photocopy of your passport

3. Original and photocopy of your work employment pass in Singapore

4. Proof of Employment from your employer stating your position, date of joining and salary.

5. Previous 4 months bank statements 

III. Airline Tickets

My boyfriend booked our airline tickets as soon as our visa application got approved. We got our tickets from Air Asia as we don't want to spend to much on airfare. The total amount we paid for 2 pax is SGD$1430 inclusive of all the services & fees (SGD$ 715 per pax). Since we paid less on our Air Asia tickets compared to other airlines we need to sacrifice some of our time due to the connecting flights. It is a good thing though that the gap between each flight is only two hours.

Singapore > Kuala Lumpur > Incheon

Incheon > Kuala Lumpur > Singapore

IV. Accommodation

We booked our accommodation via agoda. Hotel Sarangbang is the name of our hotel and we spent SGD$60 per night for a double room. We chose the hotel due to our limited budget and the strategic location of the hotel to train station and main tourist attractions in Seoul. The nearest train station is Anguk station Line 3. The complete address of the hotel is 106 Gwanhun-dong (6 Insadong 16-gil), Jongro / Insadong, Seoul, South Korea.

V. Research and Miscellaneous

The additional preparation we did is by reading blog and watching videos in Youtube about other people's experience in Seoul. Here are the top 5 picks we used for our research

1. http://seoulistic.com/
2. KWOW videos by sweetandtasty here
3. videos by ROK on! Life and Foodspotting in South Korea here
4. Instagram by searching hahstags such as #myeongdong #seoulfood #hongdae and by following seoulover, seoul_korea, rattilovesseoul
5. Random blogs by searching seoul trip blog, seoul blogger