I am physically incapable of sleeping on an aircraft. This is now confirmed as fact.
After a midnight flight out of LAX and 12 hours in the air over the pacific ocean we arrived at Incheon in Seoul Korea. Incheon has to be the cleanest airport I’ve ever seen. I was able to get a nap (perhaps 45 minutes) on the benches next to immigration after we deplaned. Sam was plotting our day-trip in the city as I tried to sleep. We specifically scheduled a 14 hour layover in Seoul so we could go out and see a bit of the city instead of being cooped up in an airport like last year. Direct flights to Bangkok from Los Angeles are outrageously expensive, so you have to plan in a layover as part of your flight.
Since neither of us spoke Korean it was an interesting exercise is self-survival. We exchanged for about $100 worth of Won and set off for Seoul Station. There were signs at the station that were quite amusing.
The no smoking sign was not amusing, as it was being completely ignored.
We first walked down the street next to the station until we found a small “hole in the wall” Korean restaurant.
The proprietor didn’t speak a word of English, but he was happy to see his first customers of the day. We can both now say we’ve had real kimchi in Korea.
I still don’t like it much. The boiled pork and green sauce is much better.
The heat and humidity in Seoul is actually more (or “worse”, depending on your point of view) than Bangkok. We decided to make the Tv tower our first destination. Of course, when you look at maps everything is flat. Not knowing much about Seoul we didn’t realize we’d be hiking uphill for about a mile. After almost no sleep in over 24 hours and the sun peaking out from behind the clouds it was a challenge. We made it to Namsan Park first by hiking along the outside of the wall.
After checking out the park we walked over the hill to the cable car station. The cable car travels to the base of the tower, where there are cultural displays to peruse or interact with.
We decided to go all the way up to the observation deck at the tv tower, but found that the city was blanketed in fog, so visibility was very low.
After our lunch, cable tickets, tram tickets and observatory tickets our cash was running low as well. We decided to take the subway to the middle of the city to see Bosingak. The structure was observable but closed to entrance. We backtracked a bit and walked along the river Cheonggyecheon.
From there we walked north past this crazy building, which seems to be a central point to Korean modern cultural identity – as they put in the background of all their newscasts. (“all” = the few we saw on tv while we were in the country for 14 hours).
As is known, the Koreans are more wired in than Americans. We saw many Koreans using their Galaxy Notes, apparently not shackled to AT&T and thus actually useful. I had to take a photo of one shop that was missing a regular sign, but simply had a QR code.
Minutes later we found ourselves at the temple of Jogyesa. When we arrived there was a long prayer line winding around in front of the building.
Just another block northwest up the street we came to Gyeongbokgung Palace.
From there we walked down Gwanghwamun Square to the subway.
We took the subway east to Jongmyo.
We kept seeing these strange birds with blue feathers walking and flying around. Perhaps it’s one of these fellows?
Just outside the grounds there was what seemed to be a senior citizen Go game playing festival. There were hundreds of older Korean men playing go.
It was then time to high-tail it to the airport as it was almost 4pm and our plane was set to take off at 6.
Outside of Seoul the countryside on the Airport Railroad becomes very beautiful, if only for the brilliant green everywhere. The architecture is very carefully placed and designed so as to not interfere too much with the natural real estate.
We cleared security with only 15 minutes until boarding We’d heard there were free showers at the airport and we were determined to use them. We ended up taking a 5 minute shower together before hoofing it back down to the gate in our same sweat soaked clothes.
When we hit Bangkok after 10pm Sam’s friend picked us up and took us to her brand new luxury condo, where we’d have the pleasure of staying for a few days. More on that later.
