Books, Travels & Life in Between

Fall in (Love With) Korea

February 1, 2015

It felt like everything warm and beautiful was sprinkled across Korea during the fall season.

Despite the cold weather, there’s a warmth in the colors of autumn—from the red and yellow trees to the drying golden fallen leaves. The tones seemed to see through every crack, and for someone experiencing autumn for the first time, it was a delight to behold.

I knew I would love this season even before I experienced it firsthand. I knew I would enjoy every bit of chill that enveloped us as we walked along the streets of Seoul and hang out under the canopy of Ginkgo trees in Nami Island.

So for the third time, I fell in love with Korea, because that’s the only sensible thing to do when you’re surrounded with so much beauty.

I can go on forever expressing my love for autumn, but I’m pretty sure these photos can explain it better than words can do. [Read more…]

Aboard KTX Express From Seoul to Busan And Back Again

January 29, 2015

(Disclaimer: Hello! Since I’ve been getting a lot of queries on this post, I want to clarify that this article was based on our travel experience. What applied to our travel situation doesn’t have to apply in every situation. I cannot answer every question, because I’m not an official representative of KTX. But from a traveler to a traveler, I will try to be as helpful as I can! So just send in your questions, and I’ll try to help and answer it as much as possible. Last update: 08/12/2018)

In the ideal world, we’re efficient travel planners that we smartly booked a plane ticket from Manila to Incheon, and another one from Busan to Manila. However, in the real world we’re just a bunch of Korea fanatics who grabbed the first chance to book a flight to Seoul. It isn’t so bad though, because no matter what we booked, we’d still be boarding the Korail Express to go to Busan.

Since we had seven days in Korea, in the middle of our planning we realized that we had enough time to go to Busan. No chance to change our ticket, though, since we got it through a promo. Hence, the long planning of how to work about our schedule commenced.

In the end, we decided to spend five days in Seoul and two full days in Busan. It may not be enough, but our time only allowed two days. Thus, our hectic planning on how to ride the train from Seoul to Busan and vice-versa began. I decided to share it with you since I know that a lot of people are planning to go on the same adventure.

You can travel from Seoul to Busan by train, bus, plane and car. But doing it via the KTX is one the easiest and fastest way to do it, and it runs from Seoul to Busan every 15 to 20 minutes everyday from 5:00AM t 11:00 PM. And that’s also our chosen method of transportation.
[Read more…]

Fall in Korea Day 1: N Seoul Tower At Night

January 27, 2015

N Seoul Tower never disappoints. Be it spring, summer or fall, the place looked romantic. So on our first day in Seoul, we trooped up Namsan Park to have a grand overview of Seoul.

As much as we tried to catch the sunset, we were running quite late since we only arrived in Seoul that afternoon. We disregarded our planned itinerary and just decided to head straight to N Seoul Tower. Even at night, the red and golden leaves on the trees mesmerized us. We braved the cold and hiked up the slope leading to the tower.

Good thing the Seoul’s skyline at night was more than a nice consolation. [Read more…]

Seoul Accommodation: Hongdae Family Housetel (Pencil Hotel 3)

January 23, 2015

Our stay in Seoul may have been short, but our hostel made sure we felt at home every single day.

Our hostel falls under a couple of names, which we found odd! It’s called Hongdae Family Housetel in Agoda and Hostel Hongdae in Facebook. It’s also called Pencil Hotel 3! In the grand scheme of things, the name doesn’t matter because the building was a welcoming site after every tiring day in Seoul.

It’s one of the simplest hostels I’ve stayed in, but I must say that it still has its pros. Also, among the Seoul hostels, they seem to offer the most varied breakfast, which is always a plus.

What I love most is the host’s kindnes. We did two bookings—first was for only night, then the second was for four nights—since we’d be staying in Busan for two days. Before going to Seoul, I corresponded with our host via email and they allowed us to leave our baggage in the hostel once we leave for Busan.

We were surprised when they said that we could leave our baggage and pretty much all our stuff in our room for two days and one night! Take note, we didn’t pay for that night, but they saved us the hassle of moving our things from one room to another.

So from the very bottom of our hearts, thank you very kamsa! [Read more…]

Sunday Dinner at Makchang, Malate

January 11, 2015

Another Sunday, another Korean restaurant to fill our stomach!

For my sister’s last day of vacation, we went to Manila to have dinner at Hwang So Ga, a Korean buffet dinner along Adriatico. But we arrived in Manila quite late so we went to Mak Chang instead, which is just beside the buffet restaurant.

I first read about Mak Chang in my favorite food blog, Jin Loves to Eat! Then a high school friend (hi Annie!) said that she likes Mak Chang, too. We often eat Korean in Makati but we’re too lazy to try other restaurants aside from Korean Palace or Korean Village. So this is a good change, and I personally enjoyed it.

Mak Chang is really simple inside, with little to no interior designing at all. But don’t let the hole-in-wall aura fool you, because the food really packed a punch. There are only a handful of round tables and it was full from the time we walked in till we walked out. [Read more…]