First Footsteps In Seoul

NOTE: First and foremost, thanks to all my blog readers including my friends and family for the support on the contest I participated for Malaysia Airlines "The Big Flight" (click here for info). I am truly grateful and touching too for the commitment to drop by my blog.

Date of Flying: 08th September 2011

Let's take a break from my outdated Europe travelogue and let me fly you to the oriental country. I not sure whether for you guys a return ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, South Korea cost RM470 would consider to be cheap or not but for my friends and I, we think it is reasonable to purchase this airfare and so we did that.

For this trip, my friends who went South Korea with me used to be travelled together when we studied in UK before. We travelled together to Wales, Scotland, London and even around Europe for 20 days. Since ever we graduate, we seldom keep in touch but we promised to make another reunion trip someday. Therefore, we decided to choose South Korea as our reunion trip for one main reason, also in order to meet our Korean friend, who we knew her during the Europe trip.

Despite flying countless times with AirAsia, this would be my first ever boarding with this long-haul airline franchise, Air Asia X. Unlike the normal flight I have with AirAsia, this AirAsia X is incredible massive.

I also got the chance to meet and know a new friend during this trip. Welcome our new member, Keng Yap (the gal in yellow polka dot blouse). This is what most people claimed that the best part of travelling is knowing more new friends and yes, I did.

AirAsia X is more wider with 2 aisles and the seats are 3-3-3 and 2-3-2. However, there is no inflight entertainment provided unless you purchase it through online earlier.

Witness the sunset from hundred feet above the sea.

Finally we touch downed Incheon International Airport at 9pm after almost 7 hours of flight ride. Korea time is earlier 1 hour than Malaysia, therefore by the time we reached there, it almost 10pm Korea time.

After done with all the immigration checking and taking our bags from the conveyor belt, we're heading to 7-Eleven to buy the T-Money card. This card is very useful especially for the travellers and foreigners to pay transportation fares on public buses and subways around Seoul and Gyeonggi area and helps to prevent from all the long queue and hassle.

The T-money card that we bought from 7-Eleven costs 3,000 won itself and we reloaded 10,000 won for each of the card. From Incheon International Airport to our guest house which located at bustling area of Myeongdong, we got 2 options; either by subway or airport limousine bus. From the research I done before going to Seoul, I suggested to take airport limousine bus to avoid the hassle of keep changing station with the hand of heavy bags.

Done with the purchase of T-money card, we then heading to the gate 5B to wait for the airport limousine bus to arrive. The bus number we're taking is 6015 and we'll get off at the last station, Sejong. The bus ride took almost an hour. Out of our expectation, just reloaded the card with 10,000 won few minutes ago, few minutes later the all 10,000 won fare gone after taking this bus ride. Looks like we gonna reload it in the next morning to continue our journey.

When we arrived the Sejong station, it almost reach midnight. Thank goodness the person in charge of the guest house willing to wait to pass us the key. Once we entered the guest house, this is what we stumbled upon,

A table filled with foods. It was included in the accommodation fee, therefore my friends almost ate finish all of them. Guess they were too hungry because we only have a small plate of nasi lemak inside the plane. While having our supper, we were entertained by the late night show and what shocking us was that Korean television broadcast 18SX without any sensor. I guess the guys must be damn delightful when got to watch those show.

So, this is my travel story of the first day touch downed in Seoul. Stay tune for more travel tales.