August 21, 2012
-
Trip to Korea (planning)
We have been planning for a trip since 2011. We didn't go last year and my wife ended up heading off to Laos with her girlfriend instead. We had planned for some place like Taiwan, but when I came back from my Jan-2012 trip work trip, we decided to go South Korea. Planning and procrastinating over tickets booking means we didn't book until April 2012, as we had planned for the trip to coincide with the two holidays in August. Initially talks with friends who have been to Korea (mainly HM) means we booked for the first night and leave the rest of the stay ad-hoc (jumping from hotel to hotel). That sounds good on paper (and for a bachelor travelling alone) but as we neared the dates of travel, we realized our itinerary didn't give us that option and on hindsight, we did the right thing by pre-booking accommodations and travel arrangements.
You don't want to waste time travelling a lot of spending time moving in between accommodation places as that eats into one's holiday time - the transfer between two flights to single destination leaves us with less rest than expected, as a lot of interruptions happen. Whole days can be spent moving out via buses and reaching the next destinations (Seoraksan, Jeju), and back.
When I spoke to my colleagues in Korea, was told that July/Aug was going to be
1. Hot
2. Potential typhoon period
3. Summer holidays.
Thus instead of starting 8 Aug, we moved the trip later till 18 Aug. On hindsight, it was probably good we procrastinated booking of hotels as a lot of information was gathered in the Feb and Mar period for us to make informed decisions by Apr.
Searching for tickets led us to Pricebreaker.com and we went down twice for information and bookings. By then, the very meticulous me had researched and knows more about the schedules than lady that served us, which was good as I am able to suggest flights that she didn't highlight (e.g. the $750 connecting flights by Cathay Airways). We booked our first night hotel at Hotel California in but in the end, we'd extend our stay there even though hotel wasn't ideal. We booked our Seorak Tourist Resort from home, and also the Airbnb accommodation back in Seoul a week on our return from Seoraksan in Singapore, and also our Jeju accommodations. While in Korea, we booked our Jeju tickets and the return from Jeju accommodations via Airbnb. That sorts out our stay till the final day in Korea.
