Cosmetic Surgery in Seoul- Hundreds of Clinics

After deciding that i want to get surgery, i am faced with the difficulty of shortlisting the clinics that i wanted to visit.

Some people prefer to bring a translator along with them since they don't speak the language. However I've heard rumors that translator, apart from charging you a daily rate, around USD $100, they get commission from clinics/hospitals. I can't confirm this rumor. I've tried contacting a Chinese translator that i am willing to pay her the same amount for her to help me to book accommodation and fetching me from the airport to the hotel but i will not need her service to help me book appointments and bring me for consultations. She rejected my offer straight away and said that its a entire package which means she needs to bring me for clinic consultation and help me to book all my appointment for consultations. This smells fishy to me, why would she not want to earn the same amount of money with less effort? There can only be two reasons, one, she is very professional and ethical and two, she gets commission from clinics by bringing patients to them and most likely its reason number 2.

Since most famous clinics/hospitals have their own in house translator i decided that i could do without a translator. The money saved could go to my accommodation and daily living expenses.


I am planning to get a zygoma reduction and also a v line surgery. Zygoma reduction is a procedure to reduce the appearance of prominent cheekbone which is a common problem in Asian. Prominent cheekbone makes someone appear older and in a female its makes them too manly. Personally, i think i do not have a very prominent lateral zygoma but my anterior is rather prominent couple with the fact that my face is asymmetrical so a zygoma reduction can help to balance my whole face. Most zygoma operation are conducted intra-oral and from what i've gathered online intra-oral has a higher chance of skin sagging. I do not know how true this is. One of the complication arising from zygoma reduction is skin sagging. I definitely do not want to undergo a surgery and ends up looking older than before but this is a risk one should understand if they decided to go for the surgery. Choosing a reputable and experienced surgeon helps to reduce this risk by a lot.

For V line surgery it helps to shape the lower part of our face. By reducing our mandible and also shaping our chin into a "V-shaped". Both surgeries are major and requires the surgeon to be extremely skilled.

I will be going to Seoul in December and hope to consult as many clinics as i want. Below are the lists of clinics i hope to visit.

 

1. Grand: Supposedly the largest cosmetic surgery hospital in Seoul. They have been very responsive in their email communication. The one i have been contacting is Eunji, her reply was honest and her english is very good, at the very least its way better than mine. I have already booked my appointment with them for a face to face consultation with Dr Seo. I know Grand is popular in Korea. Their 3D rotation malar reduction attracts me, it claims to reduce the risk of sagging and create a more 3 dimension face. The before and after pictures on their website is also another reason why i wanted to go there for a consultation because its simply impressive.
http://www.grandsurgery.com/eng/
http://www.grandsurgery.com/cn/

2. ID: The famous hospital for facial contouring. Dr Park Sang Hoon reported to be the surgeon with the highest IQ. I have read and saw fantastic results from them and of course i have also read negative reviews on them. I understand every famous and popular hospitals will face negative reviews and only by going there personally will i be able to judge it myself on whether the surgeon is reliable and skilled enough to handle my face.He was the one behind the V line surgery. I just hope that fame and increased influx of patients has not compromised on the his quality of work. We shall wait and see....
http://eng.idhospital.com/
http://cn.idhospital.com/

3. Smallface: Its not as big and reputable as Grand or ID but i have read reviews about them being able to produce drastic results hence the reason for their clinic name "Smallface". The name just gets to me, it struck a chord in my heart. I have made my appointment with them as well, this will be the first clinic i will be going when i am in Seoul. They are the only clinic i know which use external approach for zygoma reduction and they don't use screws to secure the bones. Some people who are not big fan of screws and having foreign objects in their body will find their surgery method very very attractive.
http://www.small-face.com/main/main00.htm
http://www.small-face.com/main/language/chn/chn.htm

4. BK: Who can forget about BK hospital? Internationally re-owned hospital which caters and probably the most foreigner friendly hospital. They even have a guest house for patients to stay in. I had a face to face consultation with Dr Kim before when he was in Singapore. Before that i read reviews online saying that he's not friendly and seems to be in a rushed. So when it was my turn to see him i was a bit wary that i might pissed him off. On the contrary, he was really friendly, when he saw me he commented i was very tall and asked jokingly whether i was a model. He even stood up to compare his height with me, he was slightly taller than me, maybe by 0.5cm. Haha. He asked me about my concern and during that time i only wanted to fix my nose and chin, i felt he really listened to me and didn't recommend any other surgery. Therefore, i too made an appointment at BK. Heard that sometimes they give out free pumpkin juice which can help in de-swelling.
http://english.bkhospital.com/
http://chinese.bkhospital.com/

5. Regen: The hospital where "You're beautiful" was filmed. They have some pretty impressive before and after photos too. Its an established clinic but there weren't alot of reviews about them. Maybe they don't do much international marketing.
http://eng.regen.co.kr/
http://regenchina.com/

                                                                      Lee Si Young
6.Cinderella: Rumors had it that Lee Si Young had her two jaw surgery conducted at Cinderella. Obviously it was a major success. Cinderella customer service leaves something to be desired. I dropped them two email and it has been two months and they still hasn't gotten back to me. I guess i should probably call them up but i'm afraid that they will hang up on me. I love to go to this clinic for consultation if time allows.
http://www.globalcindy.com/en/
http://www.globalcindy.com/cn/index.php?language=cn

7. Banobagi: Yet another big hospital which has a building on its own. They too have guest house for patients to stay. Their "all in one" surgery attracts me. So far, i've only read about one person going for facial contouring and she has gone M.I.A on me. This hospital is worthy of a visit, i have contacted them for an appointment and am waiting for a confirmation.
http://www.engbanobagi.com/
http://www.chinabanobagi.com/

There are other clinics i want to visit if time permits

• Dream plastic surgery. (http://www.dreamsurgery.co.kr/about/english/about.aspx) 
• Jewelry. Can't find their website
• Wonjin.http://www.wonjin.co.kr/en/index.asp
• Teium, for eyes surgery only. (http://english.teuimps.co.kr/english/03_plastic/plastic10.html）

The seven hospitals are the must visit for me, the rest i will try to go for consultation only if i have enough time. Each hospital has its pros and cons and ultimately whichever hospital i am going to choose it's entirely my own choice. I will not be pressurize by the sales consultant there. In fact, over enthusiastic sales consultants are a big turn off. I know most clinics have exceptionally beautiful receptionist, all of them are the surgeon's masterpiece, delicately crafted and mighty proud of. It's good to chat with the receptionist, provided they know Mandarin or English.

I am really counting the days to my surgery and hopefully it will be a turning point in my life.

 

Plastic Surgeries at Korea-My tiny first step in realizing my dream

This is my first post to document my plastic surgery trip this coming December in Seoul. 

My impression of plastic surgery was that it was exclusive to celebrities and the elites. Being insecure is part of the phase most of us will go through during our adolescence, i was not spared as well. It doesn't help that i was best friend with the 'popular girls' in school. I will look at my friends enviously and wonder why can't i look like them. I will often gawked at how some celebrities can become so much prettier suddenly. Of course, people will attribute their magazine-perfect-face to the professional team behind them, make-up artist, hairstylist, photoshop etc but in all honesty there is only  so much make up can do. 

Frankly, the thought of undergoing cosmetic surgeries myself had never really crossed my mind until two years ago when i started working and realized how superficial people are. I realized that being intelligent, hardworking and slogging day in and day out is not enough to make you climb the career ladder. I looked around me only to find good looking people having things easier, bosses tend to overlook and forgive good looking people when they commit mistakes, colleagues offer help to them readily. I am not ugly but i am definitely not one of the good looking people. I was beginning to accept the fact that this is how i will be marginalized for the rest of my life until i research about cosmetic surgeries. 

I started becoming interested in the types of procedures and going to China, USA, Singapore, UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan forums etc to know more about it. All my life, i wanted to be a natural beauty and am proud that i  am natural then it dawned on me, yes i was natural but i wasn't a beauty so basically i have nothing to be proud of, hahaha. How many wonders in the world are really natural? Pyramids and Great Wall of China are all man made but they remained something that Egypt and China are proud of, not because it's natural. The people are proud of it because of how much work was put into it to make it into a beautiful master piece. 

 After one year of researching, i decided that its time to do something about my life. I bought an air ticket and submitted my resignation last year and flew to Taiwan alone for my rhinoplasty and chin implant.

To cut the story short, i only ended up doing rhinoplasty and not chin implant because somehow i don't trust the doctor opinion. Appearance of my nose improved but it still wasn't what i anticipated. I am now eight month post op and doctor had asked me to wait one to two years to see the final result. I know that i have to wait for two years before knowing what my final nose will look like.

After my rhinoplasty, my appearance improved but still something is lacking. MY FACE SHAPE. I am tall and people had asked why i wasn't a model. The answer is obvious but people just want me to say it out loud in their face that "I WASN'T PRETTY ENOUGH!!" Have you seen model with an asymmetrical face and a big face? Hence my main purpose for this trip was to fix my face shape and hopefully a better contoured and smaller face. I might do epicanthoplasty to make my eyes longer if time and budget allow.

I begin to email taiwanese doctors, thailand doctors and korean doctors. All have differing views on what i should do.After much thinking i set my mind on going to Korea. Korea is the epitome of cosmetics surgery. A lot of surgeries techniques especially in regards to facial contouring are pioneered by korean doctors.

If you look at the recent k-pop wave and try to know what makes k-pop famous, you realized it's not only the well synchronized dance movement that makes it unique but how all the idols are good looking,their face are harmonized, with well defined tip and high nose bridge, nice eyes and face shape the size of my fist.

Actually i have two ideal face shape, one is the V-shaped and one is the timeless classic U-shaped. 

For u shaped i love yoona face shape a lot.

For V-shaped, there are a lot that i liked.

But pony the ulzzang has a very nice V-shaped face.

There are many clinics in Korea, if you go to apgujeong you will see lines and lines of clinics there. You will be spoil for choices and at the same time it can posed a danger to potential customer. Iit will be harder for us to differentiate the good ones from the bad ones.

Therefore, its better to go there for a face to face consultation with the doctor before deciding which clinic you want your surgery to be conducted. Sometimes it's very critical that you and the doctor have a common understanding and a certain chemistry to ensure that the surgery goes smoothly.  For foreigners, having a good translator is vital, you want to bond with the translator as well to ensure that what you have in mind is not lost in transit. 

As plastic surgery in Korea is a booming industry, the large influx of patients might compromise on the quality of the operation and the after-care. This is a big No-No, a clinic who really wants the best for the patient should be able to juggle between profit and quality work and not treating patient as a product and just churn them out after they milk enough money from them. 

For me these are the points i look for before deciding on a clinic

1.  The moment i stepped into clinic, i will see how the patients look like. Pretty and satisfied patients warrant a tick while angry patients will get a cross. Of course, most might be swollen but i will chat with the foreign patients to know more about the clinic itself.
2. The amount of time the doctor is willing to spend during consultation. If they seems like they are rushing for time and can't wait to get the consultation over and done with. Then the red siren in your mind should automatically goes off. A doctor who is not even willing to spend time to walk through on how the operation will be conducted, eased the worries and concerns of patient and listen to what the patient wants is not the doctor you want to put your faith in. What makes you think he will do what you want when you are unconscious when he don't even bother about you when you are awake. 
3. The quality of aftercare. You don't want a clinic who ignore you while you are in pain and wants you out asap to free out the space for potential new customers. You don't want a clinic who ignores your post op concern and dismiss you when you approach them.

 I bought my air ticket to Seoul today which is the first step to realizing my dream and also buying an air ticket is sort of like sealing the deal, to ensure i will not procrastinate. I spent nearly a thousand dollar on just the air ticket so this trip better be worth it!

                                                        Korea, here i come!

I will keep blogging about my thoughts from now all the way to my surgery and also the recovery process and of course share some pictures after my surgery.