Showing posts with label Seoul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seoul. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 1, Part 2 continuation...

Before I continue on our Day 2 in Seoul, Korea.

Recap back on Day 1, we checked into Sejong Hotel at Myeongdong.

Went for dinner at Oppadak Restaurant, had Baked Crispy Chicken.

Actually before we went for dinner, under the recommendation by Jocelyn's friend and ex-colleague, we went to an Optical Shop to make a new pair of glasses each. The shop was located in Myeongdong, the best thing was it's along the same stretch where Oppadak is located, it's just a few shops away.

Jocelyn's friend is a really nice lady, she gave us a map which she got and used in her last trip to Korea, in the map she indicated a few places of interest which we may want to go take a look, the restaurants which serve tasty food as well as the Optical shop. We used that map to navigate ourselves for the first few days in Myeongdong.

Armed with the map from Jocelyn's friend we found Look Optical(name of the shop) without much problems.



It is advisable to bring along an existing pair of glasses which you already own and get them to scan and replicate the similar degree of lenses for you.
The optician does not speak English nor Mandarin, however there's a salesgirl who can speak Mandarin and basic English, she would be able to translate back and forth the information from the Optician.

After scanning your existing lenses, they will show you a menu of different types of lenses suitable for your current degree. Ranging from the lower range of 40,000won to the higher ranges of 80,000won and above.

Depending on your existing degree, the optician will recommend the type of lense for you as the higher degrees one as explained by the salesgirl tend to be thicker, the better and higher range of lenses can be sanded thinner so that your glasses won't look so thick and heavy but of course the choice is all up to you.
They will not hardsell to you to choose the higher ended ones, that's the best part they are not pushy at all.

In the end I chose the 80,000won lense and Jocelyn chose the 40,000won lense, she has lower degree of myopia thus the lower range of lenses is sufficient as it would not be thick for her degree. I chose the 80,000won lense, firstly because my degree of myopia is higher, secondly it also has added properties like UV protection, anti-glare properties and it's thin.

After choosing the lense you can walk around the shop, look, see and free to try all the frames. The spectacles frames range from 20,000won to the more expensive 100,000won and above.

After walking around testing and trying different frames, we finally got the frames we liked, paid up, got a receipt and was told that the spectacles would be ready 30mins later for collection, we can return to collect it before 9.30pm local time. We got back our existing spectacles after the optician took down the power of our degrees.

My pair costs roughly about SGD$130.00+ and hers about SGD$80.00+

What better timing! We walked over to Oppadak to have our dinner and returned to collect it after dinner!


After collection, we walked around and did some window shopping for abit before heading back to our Hotel, before going up to the room we went to the Concierge and asked for directions to go to Everland. They handed us a brochure and roughly explained the various ways to get there and within the brochure there's a discount coupon for foreigners.
I will elaborate in details later on how to get there.



Being dead beat tired from the 6hour long flight, we headed up to our room
and turned in early, unaware of the twist of event tomorrow morning.......

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 continued : Where to buy and how to top-up Korea's T-Money Card similar to Singapore's Ezlink Card

Ok now I will explain on where to buy the T-money Cards.

It is advisable that you purchase your cards 1 day before you plan to travel using Korea's public transport, buses, subway in their major metropolitan cities, like Seoul, Busan etc.

For us, we bought our cards on our first day, after taking our dinner nearby our Hotel, we went to a nearby GS25 mart, one of their convenient stores chain.

The T-money cards can be bought at most of their Convenient Stores, GS25, 7-11,Mini Stop, Buy The Way bearing the T-money Logo and their Ticket and Card Reloading Devices inside the subway stations.

The cards come at 2,500won each. The cards have no stored value in them and they have no expiry dates meaning you can still use them the next time you go back to Korea.


They can be topped up at their sales locations unless otherwise stated at certain locations where they don't have topping up machines.

Well we decided to be adventurous and try out their reload machines in their subways.

The words are all in Korean what do we do?! Haha



The machines instructions are in Korean, which I do not understand, however I roughly know the process by observing the person in front of me doing a reload.

It is quite similar to the machines at our MRT control stations which we use to top up our Ezlink Cards.

First you place the T-money card which you want to reload onto the card reader at the machine wait for it to read your card.

Another screen will prompt you to indicate the amount which you want to top up. 5,000won, 10,000won etc

Select the amount, and insert the notes required.



Now wait for the machine to prompt again indicating the new value in your card. We topped up 10,000won on our first day, it lasted us for 2 days with balance of about 5,000+won in our card, we travelled to Hongdae, Sinchon, up and down between Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, Chungmuro a couple of times.

Total we topped up 15,000won each card which lasted us 5 days and still have a balance of 2,900+won, that is inclusive of travelling to Everland and back to Myeongdong.

You can choose to refund the amount in the card at a fee of 500won which will be deducted from your balance in your card at their substations control centre.

There's a person from their subway control which will assist you in getting the refund. Or you can choose to keep the value in your card and use them again when you go back to Korea in the future as the cards have no expiry dates.

We hoped this information will be useful to those planning on going to Korea on free and easy trips and wished to take their subways and buses as a mean of moving around.

More information can be found at their official tourism website