8 days in Seoul, South Korea. Itinerary, Estimated Budget and Tips

I was so excited for my Korea trip! However, I am more of a Japan kinda girl so I really don't have a lot of ideas where to go in Seoul, aside from the places I see often from friends who recently traveled there. Also, I had to take into consideration the season when I'm going to visit, which was late autumn of 2015. Of course, the first thing to look for are places where I can see lots of autumn maple leaves! I also want to experience the culture and get to know some history of this country, and the most important part is to taste as much Korean food as I can, including street food.

So before anything else, here's the itinerary for my South Korea trip.

8 DAY ITINERARY

Day 1

Arrival at Incheon

Check-in at Mago guesthouse

Namsangol Hanok Village

Day 2

Trickeye museum

Hongdae

Day 3

Changdeokgung Palace

Huwon (Secret Garden,also in Changdeokgung Palace)

Seoul Museum of Art

Day 4

Insadong

Jogyesa Buddhist Temple

2Cats Cafe

Dongdaemun Design Plaza
Dongdaemun Night Market

Day 5

Nami Island

Day 6

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Coex Mall

Myeongdong

Hello Kitty Cafe (also in Myeongdong)

Day 7

Studio Ghibli Collection store and Kakao Friends Cafe in Lotte Mall

Watched Crimson's Peak movie at Daehan Cinema

Day 8

Namsan Seoul Tower

Flight back to Manila

As for Nami Island, I suggest you start your day early so you can also visit Petit France which is just a few minutes away by bus from the port going to Nami Island, and other places as well.

Now, here's the original itinerary, hehe.

original itinerary for Seoul South Korea trip

It was a bit hard to wake up and get ready for the day. It may have something to do with the cold weather and probably due to staying up late watching Korean shows and movies which we absolutely did not understand, but still continue to watch. Lol.

I particularly want to hike Ulsanbawi which is a part of the Seoraksan National Park in Sokcho, but it was getting really cold and turning to winter as the day go by. Also, the day we planned to visit, it was drizzling and really cloudy and foggy. I guess I'll have to do it another time and another season, maybe late spring. Oh well. I plan to go back! Haha!

Anyway, crossing out Ulsanbawi in the itinerary which was supposed to be a daytrip left us with 1 day free thus the mall and movie date on day 7. It was also the time when we stayed in the guesthouse till around lunchtime because we can't take our eyes off the tv coz we were watching a Korean movie -take note, without a subtitle - and we wanted to know how it ended. Hahaha! I later googled it when I got back in the Philippines and found out that the movie title was Miss Granny, which I later downloaded from Dramania and I watched it again, this time with subtitles. The movie was really funny and very enjoyable and I loved it even more when I finally understood what they were saying. Lol. I digress. ANYWAY, this was perfectly fine with me because I really wanted to find the studio ghibli shop, which was in Lotte mall. Yay! Found my happy place! So yep..the rest of the day, we just walked around the mall and later decided to watch a movie at the cinema building just near the guesthouse we were staying at. We watched Crimson Peak which I thought was Alice: Through the Looking Glass because it was the same actress and I haven't seen any of its official trailer/poster yet. Lol. But I digress, yet again.

BUDGET

budget for Seoul South Korea trip for 2 without airfare

This is the estimated budget based on the original itinerary. The budget is good for 2 persons already and take note that the key deposit is refundable when you check out with the room key. The guesthouse we stayed in offered free breakfast so the budget for food stated here is for lunch, dinner, snacks, etc.

Now here's the breakdown for the admission fees with details.

as of November 2015

AIRFARE

For the airfare cost, you may check my previous post. Though, to reiterate, this is not a budget trip, so it may not be of help to you but I talked about Air Asia's Premium Flex which you might find interesting.

Air Asia flies from Manila to Incheon everyday. It leaves Manila at 7:10AM and leaves Incheon at 12:55PM (Korea time). Cebu Pacific also has a Manila-Incheon vice versa flight everyday, but it leaves Manila at 3:00PM and leaves Incheon at 9:35PM (Korea time). Although, I noticed there are some Saturdays where there are no flight either from Manila/Incheon, so it's better to check and plan accordingly.

ACCOMMODATION

I really wanted to stay at a Hanok guesthouse, a traditional Korean accommodation, but for reasons of preference, I had to save that for my next trip/s. Haha! Anyway, I looked for a nice guesthouse that I still find appealing, until I stumbled upon Mago guesthouse.

I already forgot the usual price of the double/twin rooms that I previously checked, but for this guesthouse, room for 2 ranges from 72,000 KRW to 78,000 KRW. There is one room with a western style bed and three rooms with traditional Ondol room (hot flooring system) with traditional Korean furniture. We booked and re-booked several times for reasons I mentioned in my previous post, but Mr. Kim, who I was talking over email with for several months, has been nothing but patient and understanding and kept accommodating our re-booking requests. Our experience in this guesthouse was awesome. I can't recommend this guesthouse enough. I don't wanna turn this to a whole review of the place so kindly wait for my separate post regarding this awesome gem of a guesthouse in Chungmuro, Seoul.

FOOD

The average meal was around 10,000 KRW including the drinks already; and this is for one person only. You might think, shouldn't it be just around 320,000 KRW for both of us? Yeah, but I added an additional 80,000 KRW additional budget for snacks and must try street foods, or a bottle or two of beer or soju..or you might want to treat yourselves once or twice and go to a restaurant that offers samgyeopsal or Korean barbecue (both highly recommend, by the way) complete with banchan (Korean side dishes).

I was sort of nervous to try different Korean food because I wasn't particularly fond of kimchi. Keyword: wasn't. We ate samgyeopsal and Korean barbecue which came with lots of side dishes including kimchi and I slowly became a convert. I may not be able to eat it by itself yet, but I loved putting it with meat and vegetables and rice! And you must not forget to try Korean fried chicken. Oh. My. Gee. It's so good and so juicy and so delicious and so crispy! Mmm...yummy! I prefer the plain over the ones with sauce though. Pair it with beer, and you can leave me alone and I'll be having the best time of my life. Lol. This is where I discovered that KFC chicken doesn't taste the same in other countries. This was the best KFC chicken I ever tasted, though this was the first time I tried KFC outside the Philippines. Note: I tried the KFC chicken in Japan on my last visit (June 2016) just to compare, and while it's definitely better than the KFC chicken in the Philippines, Korea's KFC chicken is still the best. Just saying. Oooohh..just thinking about it makes me crave for it. 

TRANSPORTATION

Mago guesthouse was about 8mins walk away from the Chungmuro subway station and we rode the train almost all the time I was there. The only time that we rode the bus was when we were coming from and going to the airport and going to N Seoul Tower. If we needed to go somewhere, we hop on the train. So it was important that we get a T-Money Card which is Korea's transport card (similar to ICOCA/Suica/Pasmo IC cards in Japan). This can be bought from convenience stores such as CU, GS 25, 7 Eleven and from ticket vending and card reload devices with T-Money or Cashbee logos inside the train stations. Using the T-Money card saves you a couple of hundreds of won every time you ride, so this is really the best way to go around the city. It can be used on trains, buses and some taxis that accept T-Money card. Click here for more details.

The first card I got was the blue card with Korean design, but I somehow lost it and had to buy a new one. So happy to get a cute bear design! Mago guesthouse can also lend their guests the T-Money card and you had to return it on your last day during your checkout. Although you may not get a refund for any load left you have in the card, but most likely, the card has some amount of load in it when you borrow it as well. Like the IC cards in Japan, you can refund any amount left in the card with a corresponding service fee. I bought mine coz I want to keep it as a souvenir and use it on my next visit. 

MISCELLANEOUS

The weather was cold during my stay. I arrived with a 15C degrees temperature, which was the hottest during my 8day stay. It was November and it was the end of autumn season. I was still able to see a couple of the pretty autumn maple trees and other trees in shades of yellow, orange and red around Seoul. In Nami Island, the trees were brown and dry and most leaves has fallen. Then winter came with a temperature of 3C degrees on my third day. During most of my stay, the temperature ranged between -1C to 4C degrees. The coldest it got was -7C on my 6th day, the day after I witnessed my first snow. If you're planning to stay during this time of the year, it is best to come prepared with winter clothes. Seoul is particularly cold. You might not fully enjoy your trip if you're not properly dressed.

Good thing there were hand and foot (and even body) warmers available in convenience stores. Once I used it, it became a part of my daily outfit and you'll never catch me leave the guesthouse without it. I swear by it! Hahaha.

I didn't rent a pocket wifi because my travel buddy uses a Korean mobile with unlimited data use (if I remember right). Should you be interested in renting one, here's one that I saw online, Pocket Wifi Korea. Putting this here for future reference as well. Hehe.

I also downloaded the Korea Lite app for some commonly used words. We got lost in the subway a couple of times and Koreans approached us! Can you believe it? I guess foreigners with maps and a confused look on their faces are a bit common here. There were times when we approached some people but they just shook their head and moved on with their day, but there were a couple of people who approached us and asked if we needed help and offered theirs. I noticed that the people who approached us spoke English well. Anyway, there was also a time when we were in a train and asked if that train was going to Gapyeong station, but they weren't sure and moved away a bit, but came back after a few minutes and helped us out once they found the answer to our questions. We hopped out of the train on the next station and asked for assistance but the lady didn't speak English at all. We almost gave up going to Nami Island and just go back but she took her phone out and used a translator to tell us what we needed to do. So guys, I really can't recommend the google translate app enough especially in these situations. Such a life saver! We got to Nami Island, although late but much better than never.

It also helps to download a .pdf copy of the Seoul Subway map for reference. I found it to be a big help in deciding which train to take. You can download this one.

Enjoy your trip to Seoul and eat lots of kimchi! Hehe.