What a difference 1 week can make. And it wasn’t even that much of a productive week, really. Exactly 1 week ago I published my ‘first travel blog’ so to say, where I explained my reasons for feeling quite stressed due to this trip and things starting to really ‘settle in’ so to say in regards to this 12-week trip and how it’s going to affect me and my family at home.
How’s the travel planning going?
First of all, my biggest issues last week were with the planning: a thousand things to do, plan, decisions to make and just not doing it. Well, I can tell you that the past week has mostly revolved around decision making. I applied for the K-ETA, booked some hotels, made sure everything was covered in terms of ‘sleeping locations’ for the total 12-week duration and with that my biggest worry was gone. Let me quickly summarize the plan:
- March 1st – May 10th: I will be in Seoul for 10 weeks, learning the language during 4-hour classes, 5 days a week and exploring some shopping locations, cafés and cultural highlights of Seoul and the area.
- May 11th: Then Daniël (the boyfriend) will fly in and arrive on my b-day!
- May 11th – May 13th: First, we’ll fix Daniël’s jet lag and take it easy for the weekend, May 13th – May 17th: On monday take the train to Busan, stay there for 4 days and on the way back to Seoul possibly stop in Daegu for a day (if we can fix that with the train, it’s an ongoing thing).
- May 17th – May 26th: We’ll end the trip with shopping, café hopping and (cultural) tourist highlights in and around Seoul. Possibly some day trips to Korean Folk Village, Nami Island, Suwon maybe?
- May 26th: We’ll both fly back to NL.
Jeju Island
Last week, we (my boyfriend and I, that is) decided not to go to Jeju Island, or Tangerine Island as my boyfriend likes to call it due to the various tangerine related tourist attractions covered in social media content, during our 16 days together in South Korea.
Really, it’s a shame, because I would’ve loved to see the unique and popular nature of Jeju Island, 1 of the most popular vacation spots for Koreans, too, but it just became too much of a hassle:
As Seoul is in the north part of South Korea,roundtrip flights from Seoul are around 400/450 EUR. However, from Busan, down at the South coast, roundtrip flights are 70/100EUR. As we were already planning on going to Busan, no issue! So we tried to plan 4 days to discover Busan and then fly to Jeju. Be there for 4 days and then take the train back from Busan to Seoul again.
But… That would mean 2 extra days spent solely traveling (plane, train, car on the island, etc) within the 16 days we would have. Also, Jeju is an island you would have to rent a car on as its public transportation or tourist buses are not that much of an option on the island to really discover it. I would have to get a certification for my Dutch driver’s license to be able to rent a car, add to that the additional costs of flights, renting the car, hotel(s) on the island and the hassle of taking suitcases to an extra location. It just became too much. So! We are saving Jeju for next time.
Next steps in the planning process
But! With this some of these decisions on where we will spend how many days the real fun planning can start now that we have our timelines for cities straight. I’m thinking, day trips to the Korean Folk Village, Nami Island, Suwon maybe? There is so much to do in Seoul and Busan themselves. For an introduction to South Korea it is really enough. And this is an opportunity to do even more shopping and cafe hopping in Seoul as, really, I don’t want to miss any of the beautiful themed cafés I’ve seen on social media.
So from stressed planning we have now gone to happy and excited planning. So what’s the next issue?
How’s the content going?
Well, shit. I hear you thinking: “Oh no, you just said you entered the ‘happy and excited planning’-stage, I thought it was going well!” Yeah, me too. I had this whole plan for the blog, but expectations had to be adjusted… a few times. And now I’m a bit lost.
Travel & info blog doubts
There’s the travel blog part and the ‘info blogs’ part of this whole blogging website. The travel blogs were logically supposed to be once a week about the past week and what I have still planned for the next week(s). For my family, friends and as a kind of diary for myself.
The ‘info blogs’ I could determine a schedule for myself: once, twice, thrice a week, about language, K-pop, Hallyu, whatever I wanted to write about or was relevant at that moment of traveling. My goal for this part has always been: inform family, friends, and whoever else online that is interested about K-topics (Korean-related topics, that is) that I am so passionate about. So I can spread knowledge on these K-topics among my peers and beyond and just to write it off… As currently I don’t really have many people to talk to these things about:
Being a K-stan in the western world is still quite niche after all. It’s a bit lonely sometimes.
These motivations and goals bring me to a constant doubt I’m having in things like:
- have I chosen the right language (English) for my blog posts? As I have some people (mainly family) reading my travel blogs that are not that skilled in the language, so I translate the travel blogs too and send them through email.
- Or is this website even the right platform? Shouldn’t I just use my popular SNS platforms, like Polarsteps, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok for these things?
All doubts that stem from the results being quite minimal so far in terms of reads for my blogs, likes on my posts, etc. But, as my boyfriend keeps reminding me, one of the goals and arguably the most important one was a diary for myself, which I am still achieving with this website and all other content on social media I have planned. And I still feel like there might be more reads for the blogs once I also start posting about my experiences in Korea on social media.
But in all that doubt I just… stop being motivated to continue creating content or think like: “Nobody will notice if it’s a day late.” or “I’m not even in Korea yet.” or “Why not just do less blogs for now and then I’ll write that nxt blog tomorrow.” (It’s always ‘tomorrow’ and I never actually do it ‘tomorrow’.) And those days end with Netflix or sleeping in being too tempting.
So much to do, so little time
On the other hand I feel like I should actually be focussing on planning the Korea trip at this point in time and practicing some Korean as I will be needing it in 13 days. Maybe that’s an excuse for not writing blogs or planning other content, too, I’m not sure. Mind you, I’m still spending most of my time sleeping in or binge-watching Netflix! Both of which I’m not supposed to do, and that don’t give me energy at all!
And then another priority: spending time with family and friends as I will be away (and missing them!) for 13 weeks in a bit. But… that’s an urge I seem to have more or at least in another way than the family and friends around me. Or maybe it’s more like: they still have a life to live and mine has kinda stopped ever since my employer was declared bankrupt a few weeks ago (oh, this is a whole other story, with so many more issues, I don’t even wanna think about it. I should find a therapist, really).
I could do some cleaning or other things in my house, work on Kore-An Recipe content, find a new job, plan things with family and friends, like I’m urging to do. And when I actually want to start doing any of those things, I feel like I can’t. And I have too little time to actually do any of those. And then I end up wasting even more time. Because of… overthinking in essence. It honestly feels a bit oppressive. Is that weird?
So what now?
I don’t know. Shall I check in with you next week again? Last week was, in the end, a big success as I actually did fix some of the main issues I had:
- Made some essential decisions and can now start the ‘fun’ part of planning
- Crossed some more things of the Korea 2024 ‘to do before departure’ list from last week (fixed K-ETA, contact EF for arriving a day early, fixed hotels)
- Updated my website (added TikTok and Instagram on the home page, added travel plans to the timeline)
- Got a LOT of inspiration for videos about my travels, so maybe I’ll focus on working those out next week. As blogging is really not
And this was an unproductive week. Do you know HOW MUCH I could do if I was actually productive? I would be an unstoppable force. Maybe I’ll try it next week?
Thanks for your comment!