Planning trip to Korea, where to start?

I just got inspired to do this kind of info post as I just planned my own next trip to Korea. This is mainly useful for those who are planning budget travelling.
Also, this is mainly done for finnish travellers but there's some tips for those travelling from other countries too :)

Where to start?

Usually many do that rookie mistake and go straight to travel agencies sites. Actually you will end up spending more money because travel agencies have commissions and fees. So first thing to do is skip those sites and use search engines like

booking.com
ebookers.com
momondo.fi
hostelworld.com

Pick your price range first and start comparing. Remember to go to these sites in incognito mode, because travel search engines are tricky; if they see you are a returning customer they will have more higher prices than when you first came to their sites. Why? Because they know you are seriously planning to buy from them so they'll raise the price sneakily.

Anyway, comparing is the word if you are on a budget. Compare different sites because prices and hotel/hostel selection might vary.
When you find accommodation you like, check if they have booking option straight from their own home page. I haven't stayed in hotel in Korea, I always stay in hostels so I don't really know how it works with hotels but at least like 90% of hostels and guesthouses give you cheaper price than in search engines. Usually when you contact hostel via their own site, they will send you a customized price and they usually even offer a discount. So it's waaaaay better to book your hostel straight from hostel's own homepage.

As for flights, do not book too early or too late. If you book your flight let's say, 5 months earlier then the price will most likely be higher than if you would book it 3 months earlier of your trip. And if you book super late like let's say 3 weeks earlier the price will also be higher. Ideal time is to book flight about 3 to 1½ months earlier.

At first, look straight from flight companies own sites what they offer. They might have promotions etc going on so then you will get flights cheaper than in search engines. I favor direct flights because I have sometimes severe motion sickness and it gets only worse if I have to change flights. Lucky, Finnair has promotions going on alot during the year, usually around february-march, june, september-october and december. Finnair is currently the only company from Finland that has direct flights to Korea.

If you would like stop over to save even more money then I recommend first to look through search engines and after it compare prices with one way tickets and roundtrip tickets. Sometimes it is actually cheaper to buy flights separately one way than for whole roundtrip.

And if you have one flight company you favor over others like me, get their regular customer membership card. You will get points or miles and they are useful when you are planning your next trip. You will get points from their affiliates also! I'm Finnair plus card holder and I can totally recommend it, it doesn't even cost you anything so you would not lose anything with this deal ;)

Congratulations, you succeeded booking. What's next?

After booking you are starting to think what you should prepare.

First things first; vaccinations. Check if they are still valid. Every country has their own recommendations and to Korea it is recommended to take hepatitis and if you're going more rural area it is adviced to take japanese encephalitis vaccination. The latter one is expensive (I think it's over 100€) but better sure than sorry right?

You should also think if you want to just stay in Seoul or travel to another city in Korea. For this I actually advice to think before you even book your accommodation. Because some hostels can arrange so that when you're away couple nights they won't charge you anything from those nights and even let you leave your luggage to their baggage room for safekeeping. So then you don't have to drag heavy luggage with you. But this is totally depending from hostel, for me I have never had any problems with hostels I've stayed in and staff has always been super friendly and helpful with these kind of things.

If you go to major cities that are located south, for example Jeju or Busan, I advice to take fastest way there to save time. Even if it costs a little bit more it is worth it! You will save lots of time to see and experience rather than spending it in train/bus/plane.
Fastest way to Jeju is by plane from Gimpo airport. I recommend Jeju Air, it's usually also very cheap (like 50€ roundtrip). To Busan fastest way is to take KTX bullet train which takes you there in 3 hours (normal train takes nearly 6 hours). If I remember correct, roundtrip ticket cost about 37€. KTX has discount for foreigners so definetly check that out.

Plan beforehand some sightseeing places you definetly want to see. Seoul especially is a big city and you might end up not seeing what you originally wanted to see if you don't plan at least something beforehand. I don't mean you have to plan everyday but reserve one or two days and plan them beforehand. It also saves time because some sights are near to each other while some are very far. For example it's not worthwile to visit Insadong and leave there straight to go to gangnam because you have two main palaces and Bukchon hanok village near Insadong.

Remember to take travel insurance and for finnish people; send out the form to ministry for foreign affairs office to inform you are abroads. This way if a problematic situation in the country will occur while you are travelling, they can find you and help you more easier.

Also, if you plan on attending musicals, concerts etc. book ticket before you travel! For foreigners only option is to buy ticket beforehand from either interpark or yes24. Keep in mind that you will first have to sign in to these sites before you can buy tickets. When you have purchased ticket to event of your choosing, you will get confirmation email. Important! You have to print confirmation out as you will have to present it in ticketing counter when you are attending the event. You are also asked to show your passport with the confirmation so they can be sure you are the buyer before they will give you physical tickets.
If you discover some event while you are in Korea you can go and ask from ticket counters in the venue if they still sell tickets but this is usually unlikely because popular musicals and concerts sell out quickly.

What to pack?

One word: lightly. Korea has very affordable prices in cosmetics, food and clothes so for western person it can be a bit overwhelming and you're gonna buy alot of stuff! So pack lightly because your luggage is going to be full when you leave home.

If you're going in summer; there will be hot. Like humid hot. It will last from june until August and from September to mid-November it might still be warm so you will not need winter clothes.
From late November it starts to get cold and december might be a bit freezing already so take your winter jacket if you are travelling at that time. Cold weather last until february when it starts to get warmer. Last week of March might already be very warm so only light jacket is ok for more colder days.

If you get easily cold then take couple extra warm shirts and socks if you travel during winter time. Many hostels might be cold especially in winter. Koreans use floor heating in their houses and buildings so room might feel cold even though floor is warm.

I also recommend to take mosquito repellant. Those sneaky monsters are alive even in winter! I don't know how they do it... some hostels might not have mosquitos at all but some hostels have them even in winter.. I have experienced it.. did not like it. I hate mosquitos lol.

Pack as less skincare as possible, you will find lots of travel size products with cheap prices from Korea. This way you don't have to carry extra weight in your luggage.

Korea is full of hills so pack good shoes! You will end up walking a lot up and down hills.

Finnish don't need adapter to Korea, they use same electricity voltage as us and same plugs.

Take a travel guide with useful phrases in korean with you. Koreans don't speak that much english, older people almost none at all so it will be good to know some useful phrases or at least you will have some book where you can show sentences of what you mean. Don't trust on technical devices too much, sometimes some places might not have a wifi and then you can't use your cellphone to search for words or if you for example get lost.

If you know at least a little bit of korean you will manage. And locals are always happy even if you can only say 'hello' and 'thank you' in korean.

Other things to remember:

Check your passport if it's valid! For finnish travelling to Korea passport has to be valid at least 6 months when you go to Korea.

Take copy from your passport with you, put one in your luggage and one in your handbag in case you lose your passport or if someone steals it.

Check your phone company if you have data block etc so you will not get unpleasant surprises.

Pack your own medicine. Korean medicine isn't that effective and you know what's best for you so definetly buy medicine beforehand from your own pharmacy. Also pack some bandaids! I forgot to pack them for my last trip and it was pain trying to look for decent bandaids for abrasion in my toes what my shoes caused me for walking too much..

Separate your cash. Put some amount to your luggage and keep some in your wallet. Korea is reeeally safe country but you never know.. if someone success to steal your wallet at least you have money in your luggage.

I hope this helps all of you who plan a trip to Korea :) I might have forgotten something but if you have any questions just comment down below :)

I love me fair + Korea event

Hello hello~
I had a busy weekend going to I love me beauty fair on friday and Korea culture event + KDC on saturday. By the way I'm sorry for my crappy photos because my phone is slowly dying.. first it got reeeally slow, then it had been tilting once in a while and now the camera quality got horrible so I apologize my material in here =_=

I love me beauty fair

So, I went to beauty fair in Helsinki messukeskus on friday with my friend Annina. We met at train station and travelled there together.

When we arrived to messukeskus venue, it was 9.45am and opening of doors was 10am so we were like yesss we are on time. Well our joy was short lived. They had absolutely horrible arrangement of those with pre-booked ticket and those who had to get their tickets from different organizations (like they had won their ticket from competition etc.). So first Annina went to that latter line, she had to get her ticket there. I had already mine but it was pre-booked internet ticket and I slowly looked horrifyingly how my ticket line just grew and grew. In the end I said to Annina that I'm going to queue and I'll wait for her inside. But I got inside in 10 minutes while I had to wait Annina for half an hour! So in the end it took us total 45 minutes to get in! Annina said that the problem with her ticket line was that companies were only delivering tickets when they were already opening the fair so there was alot of problems because of that...

Anyway, we finally got in and started browsing around. We first went through makeup section and honestly, it was more smaller this year than last year. And we didn't get but couple samples.. would have thought that when you pay yourself in to a fair you will get something extra but apparently no. And companies didn't even have any major discounts from their products. Of course there were few companies offering great deals but major of them offered only like -20% discount from store prices so it wasn't that shocking of a deal.

NYX was the only one standing out really well from cosmetic companies. They didn't also have any major discounts but at least they had interesting display. I bought eyeliner from Nyx because I don't have one at the moment and many have been praising their eyeliners so I thought to give it a try.

Also, I don't remember this one company, I think it was finnish though but they made cosmetic products from natural ingredients and their packagings were so pretty! For example they had wooden eyeshadow palette which closed magneticly so it was awesome!

We went cosmetics around pretty fast and wandered towards health food section. Bad idea, there was too many food tastings going on lol. We tasted too much I think xD but I fell in love Twinings tea section which was prettily decorated and customer service was sooo good!

 After tasting some new tea flavors from twinings we stopped to take selfie right next to it where we could print out our selfie :P it was the fair's own kind of booth to print a memory of the fair. One other booth used this kind of machine also which worked that you posted photo to instagram with one specific hashtag, the machine recognized the hashtag and printed photo out~
This is what I printed out:

Then we just wandered around abit more, participated some lotteries and just had fun time.

This was Sokos Hotel presidentti display, very pretty right?

 There was also smaller hall across venue's bigger hall and we decided to go through it quickly because we were getting tired. But there was a fashion show that had just started so we went to watch it. First time in a fashion show, was interesting experience. There were brands like Kookenkä, Kalevala jewellery and vero moda.

So that was my experience in I love me fair. I'd say health side was biggest this year and better than last year but cosmetics side was disappointment.

This is all I got from there, makeup brush and nyx eyeliner I bought as well as real techniques cleaning tool for brushes.

Korean culture event + KDC

On saturday me and my other friend Anniina went to korean culture event in Gloria, Helsinki. Firstly we met at train station, went to eat and then to the event. We got there pretty late and there was really nothing to do. We followed a taekwondo show for awhile though but after it just waited for Kpop dance competition to start. This year competition was tough and all groups were so talented! And this year gloria had arranged a stream for those who couldn't come so it was super nice~

There was couple things though that were not arranged well. Firstly MC, it was so awkward and she tried too hard. Couple my friends watching the stream said the same... it was really hard to watch that. And second thing of negative feedback is that we had to watch Blackpink Whistle+Boombaya 3 times and Sistar's I like that cover 2 times... I'm sure organizers knew what everyone was going to perform so they had time to arrange things differently. It got downright boring to viewers to watch same cover many times. Of course groups performing them were amazing but it got boring just because there were so many...

Anyway, I enjoyed watching covers and I was glad to see there were many girl group dances this year~ And omg one group performed Shinhwa's Venus! I was so surprised, thanks to those girls for choosing Shinhwa! I tried to take photo from them but as I said before my phone camera has gotten so bad especially if there's bright lights. So I'm sorry for this abit crappy material =_=
And I also took video.. happened to be second Boombaya performance.

So this is it for this post :P
Next post is up sometime next week I think. I have some things this week so I'll be a bit busy.
See ya~

Zoo- and amusement park days + announcement

Last week was pretty exciting, I went to visit Korkeasaari zoo and Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki because they had events. I haven't visited Korkeasaari in about 8 years and in Linnanmäki I haven't tried any rides in about 4 years.

So what was going on?

Korkeasaari Zoo event

In tuesday Korkeasaari Zoo held an event that you got in for free. I couldn't let this chance slip since I hadn't visited there in many years. My friend Annina went gladly with me.

We were a bit lost at first since we thought to take waterbus but it had finished for this season so we ended up taking the only option to the zoo aka bus. It was reeeeally full of people but it was short ride so it was ok.

When we arrived we just started to walk towards top of hill (Korkeasaari is actually a hill island), there we encountered peacocks. They could move freely and didn't mind people as long as people didn't chase them.

We popped to visit a cafe and then left to search for big cats area. We found it quickly but most of the cats were sleeping or resting lol. But at least I saw a lion and cute tiger cubs <3

Then we just headed forward passing some animal cages like Reindeers. Korkeasaari also had fun small nature trail representing how trails usually are in finnish forests.

We continued to wander around and saw goats, wild horses and bears. One bear was really cute, it didn't care about anyone and just comfortably sat inside it's cage.
We started to think if it would be time to go home or if we missed something. We looked zoo map and noticed we totally missed tropic animals. So we headed to tropical house where we saw alot of lizards, turtles, frogs and snakes. Also some beautiful parrots~

Then it was already approaching 3.30pm and zoo would close at 4pm so we decided to leave. We had fun day seeing all different kinds of animals.

Linnanmäki light carnival event

At friday me and Annina went to Linnanmäki light carnival which is a yearly event in Linnanmäki amusement park. It was private occasion on friday actually, organized by Nuorisosäätiö. Officially light carnival opened last saturday. The event is open until 22nd October so if you're interested you still have time :) Lights this year were fantastic and amusement park looked wonderful!

There were many people, about 5000 in this private event so we had to queue for popular rides for quite some time. Because of it we didn't have time to try every ride (event lasted from 4pm to 9pm).

But we had so much fun anyways! First ride we headed to was of course Rollercoaster. It's a classic and you cannot miss it!

There was a bit cold but we didn't really notice it while we were in rides because we had so much fun! After rollercoaster we decided to take this kind of haunted house ride. After it we queued for Linnunrata eXtra for quite some time; it was a rollercoaster where you put oculus on and it made it kind of virtual at the same time you were moving with rollercoaster so it was exciting.

After it we toured through some rides before we noticed that time had literally flewn and it was nearing 9pm. We said bye to Linnanmäki and headed home.

So this was basically how my last week was. This week I haven't had much to do except my korean lesson.
Before my korean lesson I met my friend Sirja with whom I discussed about travelling to South-Korea next year. And whoops, suddenly at the evening we had flight tickets to Incheon airport and a hostel booked xD
Ok, we had to lose our temper first because we had problems reserving the hostel and then Sirja had some problems booking her flights so both of us were losing our minds. But in the end we got what we wanted and now I have a trip to Korea booked for 18th february to 4th March :D
We have another friend too who may be coming but she has other things to confirm before it so we'll know about in december if she's coming with us~
Anyway, we'll stay in K-Guesthouse Sinchon 2 in Sinchon area (신촌) which is right between Hongdae and Ewha. Basically center of Seoul.
So that was my announcement :D Look forward to my travel posts next year^^

Other things

Cosmetics

Now that winter is coming, I might as well recommend some handcreams~ Beware that your hands don't go dry and dehydrated which will happen fast when we're still not used to cold temperatures. I have atopy so if I don't use handcream everyday my hands will go dry very quickly and I get dry spots to my hands so I have to be very careful. That's why I have tried so many handcreams to find what I like best. Here's couple I have been using this year (I go through small ones seriously fast, in about 2 weeks).

I have tried alot of handcreams but Nature Republic is my number 1 when it comes to affordably priced handcreams that treats your hands well, moisturizes and softens. They are also in convenient small package which don't take up too much space if you want to carry it in your purse. These are must-have handcreams for a skincare lover! Only minus thing is that they are available only in South-Korea and few other countries so if you want to have Nature Republic handcreams, you will have to go to online store.

In the lower photo is also two Mamonde handcreams; Jasmine cashmere and camellia petal. I have tested about four Mamonde handcreams and only Jasmine cashmere I would buy again, it softens your hands instantly and is only mild scented. Other Mamonde handcreams had really strong scent and my nose wasn't comfortable with that..

Good second place in my favorite handcreams goes to L'Occitane shea butter handcream. I just love shea butter handcreams but this smells soooo good and is gentle to your hands. It's on a pricy side especially since tube is small but I recommend this to everyone who wants to have soft feeling hands instantly. Plus most of the bigger shops in Finland at least carry this so you can just go to store and grab yours without having to go to online and wait for your order for days (though if you're not living in an area where there's L'Occitane available, they have online store).

If you need heavy cream then this is your pick. Biotherm Biomains is thick but very moisturizing. Only thing I didn't quite like about it is that it leaves that sticky feeling to your hands for a long time.

 Innisfree handcreams are too thick for me but someone who has extremely dry hands might like them and they are really affordable too. They are available for example in online stores concentrating on korean cosmetics.

This Nature republic aloe vera handcream was very good but it's light so it's more suitable for summer use. So, it's very lightweight and absorbs fast leaving cooling and soft feeling to your hands. I don't know if this is available in any online stores because I bought this while I was in Korea.

This Clinique even better handcream was very good night handcream! I use two different handcreams for day use and night use. This was on heavy side but it was caring and softening so I put it in the evening and in the morning my hands were soft~ Side note; this has quite heavy scent so if you're not used to heavy smells then I don't recommend buying this.

 This The body shop Vanilla Chai handcream I bought last week, I tried it in body shop store and ended up liking it instantly! It has nice scent and very suitable for especially christmas season :)



That's all for now~ Next post is up after next week propably. I will attend I love me beauty fair in Helsinki next week's friday and in saturday I will go to this one Korean culture event in Gloria.
Thanks for reading, see you soon^^

Sightseeing and other events

Hi everyone :)

I'll start my post from last week's thursday, I went to watch korean movie Train to Busan with my friends. There was this movie festival in Helsinki where our biggest movie distributor company showed movies they don't normally take to their program. And there was Train to Busan which was box hit in Korea even though it's a zombie movie :,D I don't normally like horror at all but it was ok because it was more on the action side than scary horror.

On Saturday I went to Linda's birthday and had fun time there~ Linda had baked cheesecake for the first time and it was delicious! If I would try the same I would propably burn it xD

Then on Sunday and Monday I met with my korean friend who I know from one online app, he was visiting Finland for couple days before continuing his trip to Sweden. I enjoyed going around Helsinki even though it was a bit tiring because we walked alot lol. First we visited Suomenlinna (fortress of Finland). I haven't visited there for the longest time so it was nice for me too to see if it has changed or not. It actually had a bit, there were alot of construction work going on. I didn't remember that it was sunday so museums were all closed in the morning or either opening very late.. so a little disappointment but anyways we enjoyed going around and exploring.

After arriving back to mainland in Helsinki, we went to Senaatintori (Senate Square) and after my friend was done taking photos there we were so hungry we went to eat. It's a shame there was only either veeeeery expensive finnish restaurants or asian restaurants near... or mcdonalds lol. We decided to go to one japanese restaurant and ate kind of fried rice dish. I'm horrible host lmao I took an asian person to eat asian food in Finland when I should have introduced our food culture xD but we were so hungry xD

After eating big lunch at Momotoko we went to rest a little to Esplanade park. Coincidentally there happened to be food festival.. but we had just eaten lol so we just looked around and sat on a bench.

Then we were wondering where we should go next and decided to go to Sibelius monument. My friend wanted to visit there, I guess it's very popular among asians because almost every asian knows it. It's not so popular among finnish people because it's just ordinary park for us where just happens to be a big monument :P

We were starting to get a bit tired but still went to Temppeliaukio church xD After it we just sat down in one bar in Kamppi, just talked awhile and then I had to leave. My friend stayed in Kamppi.

Next day we met up again and we wanted to visit Seurasaari but it had just been closed last week :,( bad luck.. so we just walked around Hakaniemi and visited Hakaniemi old market (Hakaniemen kauppahalli). Then we just walked around Helsinki center until my friend had to go check-in to Silja Line for his trip to Stockholm. I said bye to him at the terminal. Bye the way, before going to terminal we had lunch at Kauppatori where my friend tasted finnish food but it was soooo expensive for like a plate of couple potatos and little piece of salmon. So if you have foreign friends coming to visit seriously, search restaurants in Helsinki beforehand xD I did a mistake of not searching and we ended up eating expensive lunch. (They have high prices in Kauppatori because there is so many tourists).

Anyway, I had busy monday because right after saying bye to my friend I had to hurry home because I had my korean language lessons in the evening. It was funny, after I said to my friend I study korean and have been trying to study by myself for 4 years, he started speaking more and more korean with me and now he sends me messages only in korean xD much stress though because I'm very slow writing in korean and he writes so faaaast and I'm like slow dooooown xD but he always waits patiently my answer if he asks me something because I usually have to check one or two words from translator.. because even though I know the word, I usually mess up writing it so I have to be sure I'm not writing it wrong... or the sentence might get totally different meaning xD At least now I get to train my korean skills :D

This weekend

Yesterday I met up with Annina and went to autumn market to Tikkurila. It was a big market event and we had nice time just walking around. We also discovered a new cafe; Kahvi Charlotta which was right opposite of dixi. They have one cafe in Kamppi apparently and they will be opening third to esplanade. I liked interior design of this cafe and they make coffee from fresh beans which was totally pleasant surprise~ And customer service was excellent, I'm totally recommending this place :) Also, their carrot cake was yummy :P

Recommending~

So what are the things I have been enjoying these couple weeks?
Well, one is a korean action drama that started last week: The K2. It tells a story of an ex-soldier Kim Jae Ha (played by Ji Chang Wook) who ends up being a bodyguard to one Assemblyman's wife and his illegitimate daughter. Je Ha couldn't care less of anything at first because of his dark past but he has his own reasons which eventually makes him agree to work for Assemblyan's wife. He gets codename K2 and that's why this drama's name is K2. 4 episodes have been aired and it has been very action packed with interesting characters. I'm totally hooked. I'm also recommending The K2's first OST song, it's addictive especially from the chorus:

Also cosmetics I have been liking:

Lancome Hydra Zen neurocalm. This was very moisturizing face cream and it has pleasant texture. I got this with discount but I know it's normally quite pricy. Anyway, I liked this because it spreads well even though it at first seem heavy (it really isn't). And it made my face feel so soft! Repurchasing it if it appears on sale sometime. You can get it almost from everywhere where they sell high-end brands.

The Face Shop x Kakao melting color lip creamer. This has become one of my utmost favorite lipsticks! It's very creamy and hydrating without being too much if you know what I mean. It has very pretty, light peach color which shade is 12. Plus packaging is very cute! You can get this for example in ibuybeauty.


Next post is up in about 2 weeks. This week I'm going to Helsinki zoo free event on tuesday and on friday to Linnanmäki amusement park light carnival (it officially starts on Saturday but I got invitation to private event :P ).