Checking-in In South Korea

Checking-in time is at 2 or 3pm in S.Korea, which is rather late. It's quite strange because in Malaysia, check-in and check-out time are mostly before lunch. I also don't remember checking in after lunch when I arrived at Guilin last year. So, when my mum told me we can only check-in in the hotel in Seoul at 3pm, I was like, "What? How can we start our adventure with luggage?"

Anyway, this post is not about that, this post is about the two hotels we will be staying in.

#1 Jeju Four Seasons Hotel

Search it up and you'll find it on TripAdvisor. It's a 15 minute ride from the airport, which is convenient to a certain extent, but an hour plus away from Ilchubong Sunrise Peak. Good thing we have a taxi guide, because I can't imagine taking a bus. 

We already paid for the family suit, which has two queen-sized beds in one room. I'll be forced to share a bed with my brother who sleeps all over the place, and also hear the snores of my dear father. But we're on holiday, who sleeps anyway?

#2 Hill House Hotel, Seoul

It's on TripAdvisor too. It's really close to a subway line. Walking a little further would also bring us to Myeongdong and Namdaemun. Namsan Park and N Seoul Tower are rather close too. With a subway line and notable places within walking distance, I say my mum found a good place.

I read some of the comments on TripAdvisor and learned that it's an uphill walk to the hotel. I don't mind though, and I think my brother and I would have separate beds in a different room from our parents. So no snores and tugging of blanket, yay!

That is all I can say about the hotels now, and I'll probably write another post about it once I get back from the trip. I'll rate it on my blog then, since I'm too lazy to sign up for an account on TripAdvisor.

Check out my other posts on South Korea:

Simple Itinerary

My Shopping List

Trip Recap

Hotel Review

Food Review

Street Food Review

Where To, In South Korea?

Day 1: On The Planes

Morning flight from Kuala Lumpur to Busan, followed by evening flight from Busan to Jeju. Dinner, check-in, sleep early.

Day 2 & 3: Exploring Jeju Island

Wherever the taxi guide suggests, we would follow (except for caves, cause we've been to 3 caves in Mulu already, and gardens because we have gardens in Malaysia too; Putrajaya Botanical Garden). 

I would like a morning hike up Ilchubong Sunrise Peak to see the sunrise though. Since I've never seen a sunrise before. True story. And hopefully a day spent in Udo Island, since it is highly rated on TripAdvisor.

Oh yes, and the Nanta show too. 

Day 4: Fly To Seoul

Morning flight from Jeju to Gimpo, followed by Namsangol Hanok Village, and shopping at Myeongdong. 

It's not like we will be buying a lot of things either, since the currency exchange rate is high. Food is also not cheap according to a Korean friend. But we'll see, I'll probably come home with a Seoul loot that mainly consists of candy (if they have intriguing ones) and Laneige products.

I also plan on tasting their street food, especially the sweet ones since I'm quite the sweet tooth :)

Day 5: Site-seeing, Pun Intended

I'm hoping to start the day early, so we can grab breakfast and make our way to Changdeokgung Palace & Secret Garden in time for the 11am tour. Before the tour, we will take a walk in Insa-dong and do some souvenir shopping. After that, we head to Cheonggyecheon; it's a long walk so I don't know if we would want to walk from one end to the other. Second to last stop would be Namdaemun, and the final stop for the day would be N Seoul Tower. 

Day 6: A Healthy Goodbye

By healthy I mean waking up early to take a walk in Namsan Park; come back in time to check-out at 11am, have lunch, and then take the subway to catch our 4pm flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

That's the plan so far, which might change, who knows. Might seem short to some as we did skip a few places (eg; the other palaces. Seen one, seen all, right?), but I think it will leave us with enough memories without being taxing on the wallet :)

Check out my other posts on South Korea:

Lodging

My Shopping List

Trip Recap

Hotel Review

Food Review

Street Food Review

Finally, I Love Exercising!

I started exercising and eating healthy about four months after I began working. 

Working decreased my activeness and the hawker food was going to my hips. I knew I had to change my lifestyle in order to stay healthy, so I began working out and packing my own meals.

The exercising routine began with a set of Nicky Holender videos, which were effective for a while and helped maintained my weight. But, I never really enjoyed his program. In fact, I never really enjoyed working out. I do Pilates on Saturdays (my mum is an instructor so I join her class), but I don't enjoy Pilates either. I know it's good, so I do it, and the same rule applied to my daily dose of Nicky's workout.

I use a USA Pro skipping rope.
The rope eventually snapped from
the handles. Not a great pick.

Working out was more of a chore for me, until... I decided to buy a skipping rope.

I don't know why, but I love skipping rope. I love it so much that I pushed myself the first week and was down the week after that because of minor injuries. But once I got back on my feet, I trained myself for two weeks, perfecting the normal double leg skip, before I customized my own workout routine. 

So, here's what I do with the skipping rope:

- 100 side-to-side/front-and-back skips

- 50 single right leg skips

- 50 single left leg skips

- 100 running skips

- 10 single leg push-ups

- 15 sets of renegade rolls 

- 10 sets of plank oblique twist

That whole combo is 1 set, and I do 4 sets, 6 days a week (the day I rest, I do Nicky's recovery workout). This routine takes me about 40 minutes to complete, depending on how much breather I take in between. It also makes me drip sweat, and we all know how satisfying it is to know you've sweat it out for the day.

I still do Pilates and some extra TRX on Saturdays, but I make sure to do my own combo too. Why? Because it's fun. I don't know why... but it's very fun.

Right now, I just can't wait to get home to workout!

Prayer Does Not Work

On Wednesday, I had inkling that I had caught the flu bug. So I prayed to be healed. 

On Thursday, I thought I was feeling better. But when nighttime came, I wasn't. 

Early this morning, about 3a.m, I woke up because it became rather uncomfortable to sleep. So I walked around.. yes, like a sleepwalker, and then laid back down and forced myself to rest.

Now, I'm all teary eyed with both a stuffy and runny nose. I would have taken a sick leave, but I'm not sick enough... I guess. I've only taken a sick leave once since I started working, and as much as I would like to, I always end up going to work anyway. 

So, during this short period of time, I began to wonder.

I placed this image here as sarcasm.

Why is it, that when I pray for healing, I don't get healed? Is the common flu too common for God? Why does God bless me in other ways, but does not lift a finger when I fall sick? Does my prayer for healing even work?

Now, they are just random thoughts. I don't blame God if He chooses not to heal me. He is God, He doesn't have to answer to me. But today, as I was making my rounds in the blogosphere, I stumbled upon a post titled, 'The Power(less) of Prayer'.

The blog post talked about how useless prayer was and that we shouldn't rely on a divine being. It also questioned how and when God answers prayers, and whether or not they are useful. Naturally, such an interesting topic required me to leave a comment... and my comment was the answer to my own questions.

Prayer is not a platform to request for things. It is not the place where you ask God to do things for you. Prayer is communication. Often times, we use prayer as a customer service help line; my computer isn't working, help me fix it. And when the help line is not 'helpful' we start to question if prayer works. We forget that prayer is a communication gateway between us and God. It is the place where we can talk to God and just spend time with Him. Sure, we can bring forth requests, but just like requesting your friend to do something, they are not obligated to do as you ask.

So does prayer work? That question is like asking, 'Does talking to my friend work?' It doesn't make sense to question whether your talk with your friend 'works'. Hence, it doesn't make sense to question if prayer works.

Prayer only does not work when we choose not to communicate with God. A powerless prayer is an unsaid prayer.

6-Day Trip To South Korea!

I suddenly had an urge to start a new blog, and then I thought, "Why not use the one I already have?"

So here I am, blogging about my upcoming trip to South Korea!

I've wanted to go to S. Korea since last year, mainly after I became a Running Man fan, but S. Korea always seemed a little off budget. So last year, my family and I went to Guilin China instead, which was no doubt a very relaxing holiday.

This year however, we decided to up our budget to RM3k per person and see if we can actually make it to S.Korea. Surprise, surprise, we can!

You're probably going, "RM3k? Only?" Yes, it might even add up to less, but I can only tell after the trip. The answer to a cheap holiday is the word, 'plan'.

As a family, we dislike following tour groups. You have to wait for people, you can't choose where you want to visit, AND it's expensive. Since Guilin, no.. since my parents were caravan-ing around the world, we have always planned our trips. This round is no different.

We will be spending 3 nights and 2 days in Jeju Island, and 2 nights and 2 days in Seoul. The rest of the hours are spent on the planes. It might seem rather short, but we've planned to captured the best of S.Korea... and 4 full days is enough.

For Jeju Island, we will be getting a taxi tour guide. Not much planning needed as we would just go with the flow and take the 'professional' suggestions of the taxi guide. However, we do have a list of a few places we would wanna visit, but it might change. The taxi guide is also rather cheap, so you might want to check them out if you're planning to visit Jeju Island.

For Seoul, the planning is much more taxing, especially on my brain since I'm doing it. Unlike Jeju Island, we do not have a guide in Seoul. We found a hotel which is a 5 minute walk to a subway station, so we'll be using the subway to get around. Through Google maps, I've managed to get a rough estimate of the traveling time, but that excludes the number of hours we would be on our feet. I'm not complaining though, walking is good for you.

The places we are visiting in Seoul are; Namsangol Hanok Village, National Museum of Korea, Myeongdong Shopping, Namdaemun Market, Changdeokgung & Secret Garden, Insa-dong, Cheonggyecheon Stream, N Seoul Tower, Namsan Park.

I will post the itinerary and other details later on, since the trip is only in September. I'm just so excited right now! Maybe I'll blog when I'm there, we'll see :)