Good news for KDrama and KPop fans who have been wanting to visit the Land of the Morning Calm! The culture ministry of South Korea recently announced that it will allow visitors from Southeast Asian nations to enter the country without a visa until April 2018.
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| Gearing up for Pyeongchang 2018! |
In line with the celebration of the
2018 Winter Olympics which will be held in Pyeongchang, the South Korean government will allow visitors from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia to enter the country visa-free. The Winter Olympics, a major international multi-sport event, will kick off on February 9, 2018, with the closing ceremonies happening on February 25, 2018.
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| Soohorang (tiger) and Bandabi (bear), the official mascots for the 2018 Winter Olympics |
The
Winter Games will last for almost two weeks and will showcase more than 100 events in seven different sports. Some of these events include snowboarding, figure skating speed skating, curling, and ice hockey. A total of 84 nations will be participating in this much-awaited event.
Sounds exciting, right?
There is, however, a catch to this visa-free ruling.
Tourist groups must enter South Korea through the Yangyang International Airport, located in Yangyang, Gangwon-do, which is 158 kilometers away from Seoul. Unfortunately, there are
no direct flights from the Philippines to Yangyang.
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| I've tried all flight-finding sites to no avail. |
I googled '
flights to Yangyang Airport' and here's what I got:
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| Direct flights from Russia and Japan only. |
Upon checking the international flight schedule at the airport's official website, I found that only
Korea Express Air (which does not fly to Manila) flies to
Yangyang. Turns out, this visa-free entry via Yangyang is a lot more complicated than we thought.
Anyway, should you decide to apply for a visa instead
(and I strongly suggest that you should, because flying to Incheon or Busan is way easier than any other route) here are some tips on
how we got our South Korean visa. And
multiple-entry at that. :)
