A Business Trip to London From South Korea: What to Sort Before You Fly
Read this in the week before you leave Seoul. What eight hours of time difference does to a London evening, why nobody at the office will organise your nights, and the one thing worth booking before you get on the plane.
By KF.Social·6 min read·Published 3rd October 2026
If you are reading this in Seoul in the week before you fly, the single most useful thing to know is this: your body will want to sleep at eight in the evening and be wide awake at four in the morning, and London's evenings do not start until seven. For your first four or five days, the part of the day you are meant to enjoy is the part your body has decided is the middle of the night.
That is fixable, and knowing it before you land is most of the fix.
01The time difference and what it does
London is eight hours behind Seoul for most of the year and nine in the winter, after the clocks here go back at the end of October. Flying west is the easier direction, which is true, but it is easier in a specific way that catches people out. You will not struggle to fall asleep. You will struggle to stay awake past nine, and you will be completely alert at half past four with nothing open.
What actually helps, and none of it is clever:
Get outside on the first morning. Daylight is the only thing that moves your body clock quickly, and it is also the thing you will skip because it is grey and you are tired. Half an hour outside before ten in the morning is worth more than anything else you will do that day.
Do not nap after three in the afternoon. A nap at four feels essential and costs you the evening and the night.
Plan something for the first evening, not the third. The received wisdom is to rest on arrival. In this direction it is wrong. An evening in the room on day one means you sleep at eight, wake at three, and start day two worse than day one. Something that keeps you upright until ten on the first night is the single highest value thing in the whole trip.
02The thing about London evenings that nobody will tell you
If you are used to work continuing into the evening as a matter of course, London will feel strange and it is worth being ready for it rather than surprised by it.
Here, the office empties between half five and six, people go home to their own lives, and nobody organises anything. There is no default plan. A team dinner happens perhaps once during a whole visit, usually in the first week, and it is arranged specially rather than assumed.
This is not coldness and it is not about you. It is simply that colleagues here mostly do not socialise with colleagues on a weeknight, and the ones who live in London have families and a commute. The practical consequence is the one that matters: if you do not arrange your own evenings, nobody else will arrange them for you, and five o'clock will arrive with nothing in it.
People who come expecting the evening to be provided lose the first two weeks working that out.
03What to sort out before you fly
Work out where you are staying, properly
Look at where your hotel actually is, not just how long it takes to the office. If it is out by the airport or next to an office park, your evenings are a real journey and you should know that now, while you can still ask for something different. A hotel with one direct line into the middle of town is worth more than one ten minutes closer to work.
Pack for damp, not for cold
A London winter is much milder than a Seoul one and feels worse, because it is wet and grey rather than cold and bright. The coat you need is waterproof rather than thick, and you will want shoes you can walk a long way in while it is raining. From late October it is dark by about half four in the afternoon, which surprises people more than the temperature does.
Sort the phone and the money before the plane, not after
Get data working before you land rather than at the airport. Contactless payment works almost everywhere including the whole transport system, and almost nowhere needs cash. Tap in and tap out with the same card and the fare works itself out.
Put one thing in the diary for your first week
This is the recommendation the rest of this page builds to. Something with a time on it, in the first four days, that you have committed to from Seoul while you are still motivated. On the Wednesday of week one, tired and eight hours out, you will not organise anything from scratch. You will go to something that already exists.
04A note on food, and on New Malden
Korean food in London is easy to find in the middle of town, and there is a long established Korean community in New Malden, in the south west, which is a train ride from Waterloo rather than a tube journey. It is worth knowing about for a Saturday.
The honest caveat: for a first trip, going out to find familiar food every night is comfortable and it is also how three weeks disappear. Keep it for when you want it rather than making it the default.
05Eating alone here, since it will come up
Eating alone in a restaurant is entirely ordinary in London and nobody will look at you. Counter seats and bar seats exist in a lot of places specifically for one person, and ramen and noodle places are the easiest of all, because sitting alone at a counter is what those rooms are designed for.
What is genuinely true is that doing it every night for three weeks is a different thing from doing it once, and that is the part worth planning against.
06One thing to book from Seoul
Since the advice is to arrive with one evening already committed, here is one option that fits a first week in particular.
KF.Social runs tables of six in London on weeknight evenings, sitting at 19:00, and the London page lists the dates on sale with the night and the area for each. It is 15 pounds for the seat and you pay for your own food at the restaurant. There is no subscription, which matters for a trip rather than a life here.
Why it suits someone arriving from Seoul specifically: 19:00 is early by London standards and is exactly right while you are still on Korean time, because it is over before the hour when your body gives up. It puts you somewhere with a time on it on a weeknight, which is the gap in a London week. And a table of six is small enough that the conversation stays one conversation, which matters a great deal more when you are speaking a second language after a long day.
The practical detail, since a first week is unpredictable: booking closes six hours before the sitting, so you can book on the day. You are told the restaurant six hours before and who is at the table an hour before. If you cancel 72 hours or more ahead the 15 pounds goes back to your card, and inside 72 hours it does not come back.
07The thing to take from this
Everything that goes wrong on this trip goes wrong in the first week, and it goes wrong in two ways: you sleep through the evenings, and you wait for a plan that is never going to be made. Get outside on the first morning, stay up until ten on the first night, and land with one evening already in the diary.
Related Questions
How bad is the jet lag flying from Seoul to London?
Westbound is the easier direction but it fails in a specific way. You will have no trouble falling asleep and a lot of trouble staying awake past nine, and you will be fully alert at half past four in the morning. Since London evenings do not start until seven, your first few days put the good part of the day inside your body's night.
Should I rest on the first evening after landing in London?
No, and this is the opposite of the usual advice. Flying west, an early night on day one means you sleep at eight, wake at three and start day two worse. Something that keeps you upright until about ten on the first night is the highest value thing you can do for the whole trip.
Will colleagues in London organise evenings for me?
Almost certainly not, and it is not personal. The office empties between half five and six, colleagues here mostly do not socialise with colleagues on a weeknight, and the ones who live in London have families and a commute. A team dinner tends to happen once, early, and be arranged specially. If you do not arrange your evenings, nobody will.
What should I pack for London?
Waterproof rather than thick. A London winter is milder than a Seoul one and feels worse because it is wet and grey rather than cold and bright, and you will want shoes you can walk a long way in while it rains. From late October it is dark by about half four in the afternoon, which catches people out more than the temperature.
Is it strange to eat alone in a restaurant in London?
No. It is completely ordinary and nobody will look at you. Counter and bar seats exist in many places for exactly this, and noodle and ramen places are the easiest of all because a counter is what those rooms are built around. Doing it every night for three weeks is the part worth planning against, not doing it once.
KF.Social
