Autumn In Seoul 2015 : The Introduction.

Assalamualaikum and Annyeonghaseyo...!!

How are you guys doing? Alhamdulillah.....

What a relieve to be back on my blog. At last I have something to write! It was nearly two months since my last entry. Not only Malaysia, my blog also was 'badly affected by haze'. For the past two months, I have spent my life either at home or workplace. Such a relieved to see the blue and beautiful sky again.

Well, due to a long hiatus, this post is going to be a little bit longer than usual.  I think so. Without further ado, please have a seat, grab a coffee (or grapes or whatever) and continue reading...

Ok, seriously let’s get back to the topic. For your information, I just came back from Seoul nine days ago. It was an autumn trip. Did I say autumn? Yes, it was!! My second autumn experience. I guess I should make autumn trip as an annual getaway. Because Malaysia doesn't have autumn. That's all.

Me, mesmerised by the colour of autumn in Nami Island.
Photo courtesy by Dayang.

I was soooo excited I could feel it in my nerves. Well I know anyone can be freaking excited when it comes to traveling somewhere especially abroad. It's about taking a break from the routines and stepping out from our comfort zone for a while. I was super-excited because this trip was the only trip I had this year. The last trip I went was almost one year ago! Imagine, how could someone who claimed she is a wanderlust had allowed herself to travel only once this year? Well at least, it wasn’t the end of the year yet. I was having some kind of traveling-related-withdrawal syndrome for not traveling enough this year. It drives me crazy, I'm not kidding! I was depressed! Reason being, I had been saving quite a sum of money to have a treadmill in house, purchased a new camera (damn expensive, why do I need to have this hobby?? Urgh!) and replaced my mini laptop with Galaxy Tab S which I don't have to fight anymore with my son over my PC whenever he wants to watch his favourite cartoons on youtube. I'm kind of settled with that and now I'm back to my wanderlust mode.

You don't take a photograph, you make it.
- Ansel Adams

After my last trip to Japan in October last year, I was wondering where should I go next. The fact was, I still couldn’t move on from thinking of going to Japan again. I had never thought about traveling to Korea and I didn’t know why. Could be I was not a big fan of K-Pop or K-Drama or K-celebrities. I WAS, back then (not until I know Big Bang. Love their songs especially Let's Not Falling In Love and now becoming my phone's ringtone).  OR..  It might be Japan had implanted something in my brain so that all I was thinking was getting back there. People who went to Japan before may agree with me.

I really think I need to give myself a break from admiring Japan so much. At first I did not have any impression about Seoul. I barely read anything about this Land Of The Morning Calm. Basically, the most thing I know about Korea was - Rain and Running Man. But then, just before traveling, I could say my knowledge and information about Seoul had tremendously improved.

Gwanghwamun Gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Sharing experiences of some friends who had been there and a guarantee of having a wonderful moment in Seoul had influenced me a little bit about going there. So, the first thing I did was going through some blogs about traveling to South Korea, googling about Seoul and I found there were amazingly A LOT of interesting places to go with promising exciting experiences to venture. As much as I admire about Japan, I was pretty sure that South Korea was absolutely not going to disappoint me. Obviously it did. I was considering of going back there for the next trip. But.. hmmm.. I was thinking about going to Japan as well. OMG help me, I don't know which one to go. The thinking is still in process.

Alright alright. Stay cool.

When going for travel, there were lots of things came into consideration. You know, things like who are your travel companions, when to travel, place/places to stay with the most nearby subway for transportation convenient, interesting places to go, how not to be so obsessed with the itinerary and planning the route, what to eat - quest for halal restaurants, and many many more! Thinking of these was fun, it's exciting, scrutinizing and sometimes threw me some headache. Kind of headache that I enjoyed. 

Not all those wander are lost.
- J.R.R Tolkien.

Travel buddies.

This time around, my travel companions were five ladies and a very young handsome (KPop-looked) boy, my son. Some of us had different flight booking times, because initially I was only with my son and my friend Dayang (we traveled to Melbourne together in 2013). The news of me going to Seoul was passed around and later my niece, Atika excited to follow. The other two friends are Midah (we traveled to Krabi and Tokyo together last year) and Siti, Midah's friend. They got the cheapest ticket price (around RM 680, return tickets) among us, might be because they booked during the MERS outbreak in Seoul and the airline company was crazily offered a low price ticket!

Because it's autumn..!!
I was pretty excited about experiencing autumn once again. Autumn in Japan last year had touched my heart in various ways. It's definitely something. I wanted to have autumn again, again and again! It's not every day we have the chance to witness the beautiful colour of autumn. It's a global phenomenon to falling in love with nature.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. 

- Albert Einstein.

Accommodation.
I made the reservation for place to stay via Booking.com. I have been using this website since four years ago and it's user friendly.

There are several criterions running through my mind when thinking about paces to stay.

1. I need to find a place just a few step away and a convenient accessibility to the subway. 
2. Affordable. All the members of the trip agreeable of the price. I did not want any of the members felt it was pricey.
3. Kitchen. Because halal restaurants were not available everywhere, to limit the traveling time, I suggested to my team that we needed to cook. Furthermore, most of halal food could cost a pretty penny. From my previous experience, I get hungry a lot of time while traveling. So, I wanted to make sure that we had enough food and energetic for the whole day. 
4. Free wifi. Is there anybody who's not agree on this?? :-P 

Lucky enough, I had found a guesthouse which accurately meeting my criterions above. It was The Town Guesthouse 4. It is located in the city centre and the Seoul subway station is just under our noses,  had a complete kitchen equipments and the best thing is it has washing machine. It was a good thing we did not need to bring a one week clothes to wear. That could save us from excess baggage and gave us space in our baggage to fill up with carry-able food on the way to and stuffing with souvenirs on the way back.

Anyway, I'll tell you later more about the guesthouse OK ;)

Location location location!

Planning for traveling has turned me into an avid blog reader, made me read a lot, think a lot, asking people a lot and asking myself a lot too.

I read a lot from blogposts. I mean unbelievably A LOT. About where people usually go when they were in Seoul. From my previous experience I don't want to be so obsessive about the itinerary. I don't want to end up rushing from one place to another. But I couldn't help myself squeezing everything in. True enough, I had to cancel a few places such as Ihwa Mural Village and Banpo Rainbow Bridge. Not because we did not have enough time, but apparently we could not move our feet anymore. This traveling involved a lot of walking, hiking, climbing (stairs) and walking again and our feet cried in pain!

Marching up to Namsan Tower. Photo courtesy by Dayang.

The navigation and useful smartphone Apps.

The fact that I have never been to Seoul had made me aware about the importance of preparing myself with the navigation. I presumed that our major transportation will be the subways (because I think it's the easiest way to get around). And latter, walking.

To understand the subways system was not really a problem to me for this time around. Remind that Seoul has nine metro lines with multiples intersections. I think one of the advantages of me traveling to Japan before has taught me how to understand the transportation system in South Korea and other places perhaps.

Furthermore, by the help of this android's app, it's Subway Korea. It gives accurate time of departures and arrivals, the ticket price and the best thing is it can be used offline. The app is updated from time to time and it's free! :-)

The other thing I used to help me getting around Seoul is Google Map. Getting around Seoul on street view was fun and helped me to anticipate what was around before my actual present. Just so you know it can be used offline on certain features. That helped me survived traveling in Seoul without depending on internet connections. Pocket wifi was not necessary if you planned your trip properly and furthermore most of the places in Seoul have free public wifi connection.

Searching halal restaurant.

Another aspect that I seriously put into account was the quest of halal restaurants. Most of halal restaurants situated in Itaewon and less in other places. Somehow it turned out we ate at only two restaurants (one in Itaewon antoher one in Dondaemun) because we ate a lot from what we brought from Malaysia. We save money a lot on that part but once we got to Namdaemun Market, everybody went broke especially me!

Photo shoots.
I am amazed with how many photographs I took during the trip. It was never been like that before. It could be due to the new camera.. hahaha. It's time to brush up my skill. I can't wait to share those photos here. :)

I guess that's all for now. It's impossible to write everything here. It think it's too much for an INTRODUCTION, haha! More stories about everything later. Anyhowww... It was an amazing getaway!! I will definitely impart the informations for most of the places I went, InsyaAllah. What I'm hoping is the informations that were provided will be useful in helping you guys if you are planning to go to Seoul in future. Just stay tune for more updates from me. Till then, see you again..!! Mmuahh!