Hatched this idea last year one random night at a Coffee Bean - thought I wanted to have another go at cherry blossoms. The Japan one in 2023 was a lukewarm success only, and I wanted to see it in full bloom. These days, flights are part of the whole travel experience for me, but by the time I had this idea, the redemption tickets for Japan had predictably been snapped up. So I switched to Korea instead, which is also pretty famous for this, and I had seen very good photos from past years on it. A quick check showed that tickets are still available, but as usual, a bit of indecision meant that the best options (day flights, utilizing public holidays) had gone, and I was left with less ideal options, or shelve out the advantage rates, or (gasp) go for layovers including partner airlines. 

Not that I couldn’t afford it, but stingy me didn’t want to fork out the extra miles, so I dug a bit deeper - with the help of a bit of brainwave - and I ended up with a rather convoluted itinerary. My flight to Seoul will start from KL instead (which, for some reason, the SIN-ICN leg was still under saver rate as compared to if I omit the KUL-SIN leg), which meant I had to fork out an additional repositioning flight to KL. The return leg, while it was direct, would be a red eye, with the idea that I will head straight to work (!) after landing. 

So with that, I get to experience a few things in one go - a day trip to KL, a short-haul business flight, lounges in KUL and SIN, and sleeper service on a business class seat. All things considered, it was a pretty novel experience, and having gone through it, I can now say I have no regrets, but nonetheless, I might not want to do it again if I had the choice - will share more details in the usual trip posts. 

So, Korea. Not a new destination, and in fact, ten years ago, I would never have envisioned liking this place that much to the extent that I would want to return multiple times (and I think I am not done yet!). And I sort of placed quite a bit of emphasis on this trip possibly being my trip of the year (which is saying something because I have quite a number of trips planned this year), possibly because it would be my longest trip of the year (the rest are mostly short ones requiring only a couple of leave days each). So much so that I even started learning Korean on Duolingo lol, only to eat a huge piece of humble pie because while I can (sort of) read and have a bit of vocab, I can’t really understand most things, let alone converse in it hahah so much for the 224 days learning streak. 

Budgeted five leave days, so this meant a 9D8N trip, enough to cover two cities at a leisurely pace. A bit of strategizing involved also because of the unpredictability of cherry blossom season, so I decided to place the Busan leg in between two stints in Seoul, just in case flowers bloom late in Seoul. I think this largely worked out in the end, although I would still say it wasn’t blooming completely in Seoul even by the time I left, or maybe I just didn’t visit the correct places. 

 

Have grown to like the food in Korea (gasp). I think there are still a fair bit of gems that I have yet to get to, which would warrant a trip back lol. There are a couple of places that I almost revisited but struck off in the end due to time constraints (and there I was saying this was a leisurely pace). Mostly explored new neighbourhoods that I have not been to. I loved the modern outlook and elements of the city despite obvious traditional aspects. And let’s face it, it’s a really nice city to people-watch and I was quite conscious of my fashion choices lol. 

It’s a solo trip if that is not obvious by now - which sort of contributed to my excitement because it’s been a long ten months since my last one. And I was really invested in this idea of a solo trip, to the extent that I panicked when Stel half-heartedly hatched an idea of a Seoul trip during the same period, and when KH April fooled me by announcing that he is joining me for my second Seoul leg lol. It was a similar feeling I had in HK last year when I pulled out stops to prevent my solo trip from being intruded upon. But yeah, again, had to find ways to work around dining alone in Korea because the portions mostly are not intended for solo dining, and mostly successful. 

And I came back with just a weight gain of 1.1kg! Surprise. And I was diligently cutting in between CNY and this trip, with the plan to get started on bulking phase after this so quite chuffed that I didn’t get set back as much. 

The weather was rather temperamental though. It went from -2 on the day I arrived to 20 on the day I left. In between, temperatures were mostly high single digits or low double digits, which was okay for two (thicker) layers, but the killer was the wind which was aplenty in Busan - a coastal city - so I did end up catching a cold and not feeling 100% during the second Seoul leg. It would take me some time to get going in the morning, but surprisingly once I headed out I was still able to function and taste things that I wanted to - with it only failing once at ICN lounge, but recovered in time for the sleeper flight. And by the time I got to work I was back to normal hahaha I don’t know what this is tbh. 

So this was a very fruitful trip. Very enjoyable. And if my mantra this year is to do more short trips (I have been very inspired by a few travel accounts on IG)….you might even see me back there sooner or later.