Hello! I'm back from 'Kimchi Land'! Sad to say that I never enjoy this trip as much as my previous
Gold Coast holiday. When I'm back to work, some of my colleagues asked how is it and so on... and my reply to all is only 1 word! Is 'S**K'!! Probably because is a city place where you will wish to cover as much as possible unlike in Australia but end up too many hiccups. Bad planning, too much time wasted on travelling around and totally not baby friendly!
Seoul is not a place for babies! I travel with my 15 months old and regret lugging my stroller which I only used twice. And is not easy to find baby chair (high chair). I only found it in their food court at Pororo Park and at their fast food chain in Busan. Unlike Singapore, almost everywhere you can find at least 1 high chair! In regardless how dirty it is but at least you can simply find one. And I realize they hardly bring baby out and they hardly used stroller too. Their MRT station is not stroller friendly too. Thou they have a gate beside for you to push your stroller or wheelchairs but I don't see any baby pram inside their train! I even witness people jumping over or climb underneath the gantry of their station gate
I wish I could tell them to tell to try this 'stunt' in SG! Lol.... There was a day when we are having our dinner at their food court at 'Doota' located in Dongdaemun, I saw this mum feeding her tods in her carrier! I felt sorry for her and realize probably this could be one of the reason why they hardly bring their babies out to have a meal.
Seoul is a bad experience for me, I will probably be back again only when my boy is much much older. Having to carry a '10kg' daily and a '5kg' baby backpack is no joke! Their station is similar to Hong Kong! Flight of stairs and is like never ending stairs! But but but they have vending machine inside the station and to my surprise, their train are still very clean! If this is happening in our train, I can't imagine riding in a rubbish truck Lol!!
Note:
Plan your itinerary well
Give extra time allowance
Best to calculate the travelling time (which I miss out)
Find the exit of each places you need to go (Seoul has 9 Lines and about 8 exit for their station)
Prepare your place of interest in both English and Korean (Out of 10 we only manage to get 1 or 2 who will help us. Try to get student, they usually can communicate better)
Print out their station map (It really comes handy)
Get data sims card
Flying with baby:
Try to fly at the time he/she naps
Try to avoid red eye flight in case your little can't sleep the whole flight will be disturb
Prepare extra feed if you giving formula
Prepare blankets or their comfort toys for them when they nap in the bassinet
Extra diapers in the bag
2 sets of clothes in case they dirty or poo on their pants
Wet tissue is a must!
Snacks, biscuits
Water bottles
Something to suck on to ease their painful ears ( I'm thankful that this never happen on my boy)
Extra water for milk
Hot flask
Toys to entertain them, Ipad or load new videos on your phone
New toys! (this can help entertain them a little longer)
This time round we flew with SQ, here my review comparing with Qantas
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SQ
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Qantas
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Bassinet
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Lower, Easier & comes with
blanket
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Above our head (when sitting down),
difficult to place baby in, can be dangerous
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Food - Adults
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Chicken or Fish
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At least they have beef :)
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Food - Baby
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Infant meal - Bottle food (puree)
Child Infant meal - almost the same to kids set but how can a 15mos old eat
Seafood Spaghetti?
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Infant meal - Packet food (puree,
quite a huge pack and they also offer to help warm it up)
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Freebies
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Baby gets toys and kids get drawing
kit etc…
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Not for baby but for my older child
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Stroller handling
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They use a plastic bag to wrap up
your stroller
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Nothing for my past experience
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Service
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1. My boy needs to be in his carrier
when the flight takes off and land so that he won't struggle and wriggle like
a worm but SQ refuse to let me use it no matter how I reason with them
2. They could be too busy to compliment or maybe not their culture to do so
3. On the return flight, there was a irresponsible parents who prefer to glue
to the tv & their tods was so noisy and disturb my boy nap. Thankfully
the stewardess find a quiet area for me so I can peacefully rock my boy to
sleep
4. SQ saw me carrying my boy to nap but told me they only can keep my food
for an hour max
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1. More flexible in the carrier issue
2. They compliment my boy for been a good baby on flight
3. Qantas offer to warm up my food when noticing I am carrying my boy to nap
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Sorry for the long naggy post, please stay tune for the next post for my days in Seoul and Busan!
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| Kids set! |
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Child Infant meal!
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I didn't calculate the travelling time and end up the kids didn't get to the Snow Park to enjoy. As we are travelling in huge group, our 'another half' who didn't came with us has fixed a time to meet at the next destination. Time travel to One Mount through and fro took us nearly 3hours! Yes, I'm not kidding, you can check their station map. Our friends did not get any data sims card and none of their phone are working (switch off) so I am left with 2 choices. Abandon them and let them wait and worry or make the kids sad, I made the 2nd choice 
After checking in we went back to Seoul Station to filled our hungry stomach since the place we wanted to go has closed. We just hop into a random restaurant below the station and went to Lotte Mart to shop for some groceries. 
