Day 0: Journey to South Korea

June 9, 2017

Who would have thought that we will be given the chance to visit our dream destination?

Well… If God works, nothing is impossible.

Since our visa was just released the day before our trip, we did our last minute to-do tasks in the morning of June 9.

We went to Alco Money Changer in Raintree Mall (at the back of Mango Avenue Jollibee) to have our peso be exchanged to won. So far, this is one of the best exchange rates in Cebu. The exchange rate for Korean Won is 1KRW is equivalent to 0.046PHP.

At around 11AM, we went to the airport. Thank God that it was not traffic.

When we arrived, the check in counter still does not open. It opened 3 hours from the flight schedule.

Once done with the check in, we then paid the Travel Tax that costs Php 1620 and claimed our boarding pass at the check in counter. After that, we paid the Terminal Fee that cost Php 750.

We then headed to the immigration office, since I am travelling with my sister, we approached the immigration officer together. He just asked us where we worked and what our travel date in South Korea is. Ate Tzhe, my sister’s friend, was asked to show her payslip or COE or something that could prove she has a work.

Basically, the interrogation with the immigration officer depends on them. Mostly, they will ask a lot of questions if someone is suspicious with their purpose in traveling. That is their work, though.

Tsaran! Another thank you, Lord because we finally are going to South Korea. Woooohooo!

We waited for about 4 hours for our flight to Incheon. We departed at around 3PM and arrived in Incheon at around 9PM (South Korea Time), which is an hour advance to PH.

What I love about Incheon International Airport is that it is very clean and there are flowers all over the place.

After deplaning, we went to the immigration, have our passport stamped then claimed our baggage.

Then we bought T-Money for our rides within SK, checked for Pocket WiFi Rental but we decided not to rent so that we can avoid just always on the phone surfing the net, and asked on how to get to our hotel.

We are staying in Hostel Korea Original. I booked it through Agoda for Php 8301.18 for 3 persons for 5 nights. So cheap right? Plus it has free breakfast (the breakfast consists of bread, cereals, cookies, steamed rice, coffee/milk/tea) . I also checked it with TripAdvisor (as I always do) and found good reviews. It is located in Jongno-gu. The nearest station is Dongmyo. It is also a walking distance to Dongdaemun and Myeongdong. It has a lot of convenience store and restaurant around the area.

We were advised to take a bus number 6002 from the airport directly to Dongmyo Station. The fare is 10,000KRW.

Approximately, an hour after, we arrived in Dongmyo Bus Station. We crossed and looked for our hotel with the help of Google Map that we loaded in the airport. After a few minutes, we found the hotel located in a quiet neighbourhood.

We were welcomed by the owner who is nice and can speak English (Thank God). He gave us this guideline and we negotiated also for an extension on our check out since we will be coming from Jeju Island on that day. And since we won’t be staying for a night in the hotel, he let us check out at 1PM instead of 10:30AM.

The hotel is your typical budget hotel but the price is good, the location is right and the owner is nice. We were guided to our room (Room 101) just near the common toilet & bath and the door to the reception area & outside. He gave us the WiFi password, the key and instructed us for the pin if in any case the main door will be closed.

And since we haven’t eaten our dinner yet, we just placed our stuff then asked the owner where we can eat. He draw us the location and the direction. After a few minutes and getting lost (haahahah), we found this small restaurant. We met the two Pinoys who are staying also in the same hotel. They came from Manila and just arrived too. Their food costs around 5000-6000KRW but it is worth it because it is delicious and the serving is big.

Then we rested after the dinner because we still need to get up early the next day.