Budget Seoul Pt 1

We had plan to go oversea for our long overdue honeymoon on our 10th wedding anniversary...we did it a year earlier...because hubby just can't wait...so our chosen destination is Seoul Korea. 10 days 9 nights trip with a budget less than 10K.

We drove down to KL, stopping over Ipoh for 1 night because hubby got a free 1 night stay hotel voucher..after check out we direct drive down to KLIA..and waited many hours in the airport because our flight is 11.59pm hahaha....  we are taking Korean Air direct KL to Incheon... cost RM2009/person returning flight. At first we thought of getting Vietnam airline, with a stopover at Hanoi which cost only RM1.5k++ but then not very sure about the condition of Vietnam airline, and I meant the service. To update, an online friend of mine recently took Vietnam airline to Seoul, stopover at Hanoi, codesharing Korean air from Hanoi to Seoul. She said it's only 1hour or so trip to Hanoi and Vietnam air is okay but of course compare to Korean air, Korean air is way better. So if we plan for our next trip back to Korea, we might consider taking Vietnam air as well since it's cheaper...

The service on flight is good tho they mainly speaks in Korean, the cabin crew can understand english and speaks english too... Food is good too... Entertainment also good cause got many latest movie and songs to listen to...

Upon arrival at Incheon airport, we head to SK telecom to collect our wifi egg. We pre booked it online and with promo price. It cost only 5k won per day with unlimited data... This is a must, tho most restaurants and cafe in Seoul provide free wifi, still while we on the go we needed wifi to look at maps etc...overall 5kx10 with 10%tax 55kwon so roughly RM220. (using 3.9 exchange rate)

Then we went to convenient store to get ourselves T-money. It's a must because we're mainly travelling via subway train... The card comes in lotsa design, the cover we bought from Daiso RM5 ^^. Besides T-money there's other option of card like Seoul City Pass and Seoul City Pass Plus... which come with vouchers etc...Minimum reload at the automated vending machine is 1k won.

There's 3 option to get to Seoul from Incheon. 1 - bus which cost 10k won roughly 1 and half hour ride. 2 - Express subway train with no stop to Seoul station 8k+ with roughly 1 hour ride (can't really remember the exact price). 3 - Subway train that stop every stops cost 4.4k won..

We took option 3 because we didn't want to stop at Seoul station but at Hongik U station and it's lower cost.

The min fare for subway train is 1250 won, you can transit line or bus without any extra charges if your check out time less than 30mins (did i make any sense here.. means let's say im from blue line transferring to green line or from train to bus, within 30mins from last scan on getting out from the platform, when you scan to get in another platform there will be no deduction on the card)...

Recommended to download some subway apps and see which suit you the most... it is very helpful...

So we somehow found our way to Hongdae and manage to check into our hotel 'benikia premier marigold hotel' it's a hotel under the korean gov tourism so pricing it's a bit cheaper...less than rm250/night (if i remember correctly). We booked via agoda. The hotel is right smack at the center of Hongdae so going in and out and about is quite easy... The room is spacious and i especially love the bathroom...it comes with a jacuzzi bath tub... the design is like their love love hotel which they call it designer boutique hotel design...

After settling down we head out for our lunch at a kimbap restaurant. Generally kimbap restaurant doesn't only sell kimbap, they sell a lot of other things like kimchi soup, noodles, rice etc... we found one small kimbap shop down the lane from our hotel... as Hongdae is quite a tourist sport, the ahjumma did prepare some pictures with chinese wording for us to choose as we speak half tong shit korean language hahaha...

We ordered steam mandoo 4k won, spicy stir fry pork with rice 6k won and cheese ramyun 4k won.. roughly rm54.60 for our lunch...