The very first thing I need to finalise has got to be the itinerary. Without knowing where to visit and what activities to go for, we won't be able to decide how many days to spend in Seoul and Jeju. This would also mean that we can't book our air tickets to Jeju.
I didn't take too long to come up with a list of attractions since I have done a little bit of "homework" to check out the places even before the NATAS travel fair. For Seoul, we will be visiting 2 palaces namely Gyeongbokgung palace (plus National Folk Village) and Changdeokgung palace, one of the theme parks (likely to be Everland), Insadong, Cheonggyecheon stream, Myeongdong, Namdaemun, Dongdaemun, Noryangjin Fish market, Namsan Park, N Seoul tower, Itaewon and Namsangol Hanok Village. Instead of hitting the ski resorts, I am also contemplating to go to Korean Children Centre Snow Sledding field. It looks like an interesting place for kids and it is within Seoul itself, accessible by subway so may go there if it is in operation while we are in Seoul.
At one point, I was thinking of going to Nami Island. But decided not to after a friend told me there was nothing much to do there. Besides, I didn't even watch Winter Sonata...
Besides planning the itinerary, I am also sourcing for accommodation at the same time...busy busy!
One main challenge we are going to face is language barrier and it can be very frustrating especially if we were lost. To "minimise" the chances of us getting lost, we spent a significant portion of time studying the maps. Unfortunately, the maps we have are not detailed enough. Thinking I could get more detailed maps from the Korea Tourism Office, I made a trip there during lunch today. Sad to say, they don't have detailed maps either. Guess we have to rely on whatever maps we have for the time being and hopefully, they do have detailed maps at the airport.......
