Thursday, June 13, 2013

Korea Travelogue: Day 9 - Last Day in Seoul and back to Singapore

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 9 itinerary

  • Kimbab Heaven (Brunch)
  • Zoo Coffee (Tea break)
  • Heading back to Singapore
Sigh. Welcome to the final day of the trip in Korea.
So depressing because time flies when you're having fun.
I didn't even think about anything back home while I was there and it was really very fun!
Guess that's the purpose of a vacation right? To relax your mind and all...
Alright so we were all packed up and ready to go by.. 10-ish in the morning?
Check out time is 11am at Namsan Guesthouse 3 and the staff even came by at around 10.30am to remind us.

My stuff.. not including the 26kg I shipped back the previous day *gulps*

Sad to say, I overbought once again and had to EMS everything back.
The good thing about living in Myeongdong was that there's a post office there (opposite Shinsaegae) and I could easily EMS everything back to Singapore.
Yup, just like that.
Paid approximately $100SGD to ship everything back, yes $100 for 26kg, good deal right?
Better than paying the airline excess baggage charges lol.
And my items arrived on Tuesday in Singapore!
That's how fast it is la homg.
Back to the travelogue.
We wanted to eat Korean food before going back to Singapore and our choice was... Kimbab Heaven LOL!
Super no creativity once again even though I was secretly hoping we could go back to Yoogane to eat again.
But we went to a bigger outlet within Myeongdong (near Clio) and this outlet had more variety of food!




Egg kimbab! NICE ^^

Lirong's Pumpkin Porridge

My soondubu jiggae

 
Juyin's Cheese Rabbeokki and Kee's Jajjangmyeon

Qiu's Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup

Last meal in Korea

Afterwards Lirong wanted to buy her ice cream so she bought 1 and we all shared.
End up she couldn't finish (LOL!) and Juyin and Qiu had to help her finish it.



Qiu and Kee wanted to do some last minute shopping in Myeongdong so the rest of us went to Zoo Coffee to chillax.
Actually it's just an excuse to save some money because by then I was very broke.
The richest was... Lirong! LOL despite her buying so many clothes, I wound up being the only one who had to change money (twice!)

Directions
Remember Lotte Department Store? It's situated directly opposite Lotte! Along the stretch of shops by the main road is Zoo Coffee!



 

The interior is really cute! There are stuffed animals placed all around and even on the tables so it's kinda like a zoo concept? HAHAHA.
Cute eh?
We had a ball taking pictures with the stuffed animals, esp the pandas! :D




Machiam drama ah lol

Ordered a thick toast to share (Juyin & me who else lol) and drinks as well.
COFFEEEEEE!


 

Toast was meh in my opinion nothing very fantastic

We went back to the guesthouse to prepare to head to the airport because our flight was in the evening and we had to go claim back our VAT money.
Booked a van with the guesthouse for 65,000 KRW because we had too many things to carry already and it wasn't feasible to take the airport limousine bus back.
I may roll down the hill with my luggage instead while trying to get to Sejong Hotel lol.
No joke, seriously!

 
Last selca in the lift

Emo people lol

Thankfully we arrived earlier because claiming back the VAT requires quite some time.
What I mean is that we had to check in at the airline first, get our boarding passes issued and head to the VAT counter to get the chop from the officer (they will ask you to open your luggage and show them the items), drop the luggage at the counter next to the VAT counter, head inside to clear immigration and find the VAT counters inside only. Then you had to queue up to claim back your money!
Remember to fill in your particulars before you head to the airport to save some time :D

VAT counters inside the departure area and yes, there are 3 different kinds :/

By the time we claimed back the money it was almost time to head to our boarding gate.
We passed by this small area where you could take pictures for free with the costumes available!
Sadly they refused to let us change into it because our boarding time was near so we made do with a picture there only.





I felt so tall sorry >.<


Seating partner to HK

Airline food is crap seriously :/

The flight to HK was horrible!
Poor Lirong had motion sickness after that and even I was not feeling that well because the plane kept jerking everywhere.
People were screaming as if we were on a roller coaster due to the sudden drops in altitude.
Reached HK and this time our stopover was shorter but we went to find some hot drinks to fill our tummies while waiting for our next flight to Singapore.

What they served on midnight flights

Managed to sleep on the next flight back to Singapore because we were extremely sleep deprived.
I was dozing off and woke up automatically when the air steward came with our food (see la, glutton!).
Even had the time to take Lirong's food cos she was sleeping very soundly hahahah.

Singapore!! :D

Touched down really early at approximately 5am local time.
Picked up our luggage and went home to sleep.
Very upset with the way Cathay Pacific handled our luggages.
4 out of 5 of us had our luggage damaged by the possibility of ground staff trying to steal from our luggage.
Lirong's luggage was almost sliced into half at the joint there while Juyin and Qiu's zippers and locks were broken.
Mine was... quite bad too.
They drilled a hole in my Rimowa luggage O.O
HOLE. I don't know how they did it seriously.
Filed a claim already but customer service has been slack and I've had to chase them constantly.
Mad annoyed by customer service standards in Singapore recently.
I think I've lost faith in customer service already la.
All companies should just close their customer service down because your customers are just getting bullied constantly by them.
Sigh.
Ok that marks the end of the entire Korea trip!
Thanks for reading thus far.
Do check out the other entries if you haven't and till my next wanderlust trip, 안녕~

8 comments:

memories。 said...

Hello! Came across your blog and I want to know where can I find kpop stores that sell merchandise and albums at reasonable prices? :) also, are we allowed to take pictures in the Everysing store?
Thank you so much in advance for answering my questions ^^

Paula said...

Hello, sorry for the late reply! I haven't had very good internet in where I'm staying now.

You can find kpop merchandise all around Myeongdong, even at the metro station itself. Usually I buy my albums and merchandise from there.

Everysing, by right we're not allowed to take pictures. But you can just don't get caught I suppose :)

Jessica said...

Hi Paula

I was just wondering what time did you have the egg kimbab?

I wanted to share that I wanted to try the Egg Kimbab because you said it was nice. But I did not managed to try any despite trying 3 different outlets in the morning. It seems like they only serve it in the afternoon for lunch. My biggest regret in my Seoul trip. :D

Paula said...

Hi Jessica, I had it at around 11am I think. Brunch time I remember :)

Unknown said...

Dear Paula,

Hello, i want to know the EMS services, do you have to pay some tax when you receive your package at home?

Thanks a lot!
Hellen

Paula said...

Hi Hellen, I think the standard GST rules apply. If the amount of your goods is SGD$400 and above, you'll have to pay 7% GST for it. I think the courier man will ask you to pay on the spot! (I say think because I've never gone beyond $400 before except when I ordered through DHL and there were official invoices from the merchants I ordered from).

Grace Seow said...

Hi! May i know about how much you spend (excluding housing and airticket expenses?)

Paula said...

Hi Grace, approx. 3.5K SGD in total! Anyway am blogging now at paulalogy.com!

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