Asia Trip - Day 1 and 2 - Seoul, Korea

Mon

9

UA #4767 6:07am RIC – IAD 7:01am (54 min) KoreanAirLines #094 11:50am IAD –

The alarm went off at 3:45 am. Gosh it's early. The hotel shuttle brings us to the airport at 4:30. That's why we decided it was not a good time for Sarah or Wade to bring us considering the baby and that they are both working.
The flight left RIC on time and it wasn't even half an hour before we landed in IAD.
Bye-bye Richmond.

We are now sitting in a United Airlines lounge in Washington Dulles and wait until it's time for the next flight.

We probably had two hours in the lounge which is always nice. James had vouchers for that. Then we went over to the gate. When it was finally time to queue for boarding there were four signs to line behind and a bit of chaos. Our seats were In row 50, only 4 rows from the back of the plane. All went smoothly though.

Tue

10

Arrive - 4:30pm 2/10 ICN Seoul, South Korea (14 hr 40 min) 1 of 1 night Pacific Hotel 2, Toegye-ro 20-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, 100-042, South Korea +8227777811

I was surprised how much legroom there was considering that it was Korean Airlines and Asian people are mostly not very tall. The rows were 3, 3 and 3 seats. James and I had the aisle seats in the middle hoping that the one between us was empty. No, unfortunately it was not. A young chinese girl joined us and I would like to name her "yo yo". I gave up counting how often she made us get up to let her out ... and back in ... mainly me. But may be that was good for me, ha-ha. Otherwise, considering it was non-stop 14 1/2 hours it was all pretty good.

We each managed to watch two movies and even the same ones. Otherwise I like to have the flight tracker on. Crossing the date line here.

Landed. There was a nice mural on the outside of our plane but this picture is the best I could do. As you can see though it's not the best of weather. Still winter here of course.

James asked at the info how we would get to our hotel and the lady was most helpful. Bus 6015. James bought the tickets while I waited with the suitcases in the queue.

Now sitting in the bus ready to go.

Typical big city traffic. Standing still here. It took about 1 1/2 hours but it was interesting to watch and get an impression. Signs seem to be all written Korean and Western style.

We were lucky that the stop where we had to get off was also the end of the route so we didn't have to worry.

Don't you love a man with confidence. James "knew" that the hotel was close and right away crossed the street and headed around the first corner. My feeling: shouldn't we ask somebody? James turns, points up and asked if I like this.
Yup, there is our hotel!
We are in the Myungdong area of town.
I should have google on it at home ... it was listed several times at the 9th most expensive shopping street in the world. Good things I don't need anything.

(Btw, we are doing this stopover on our own because we didn't want to do a 14 1/2 hour flight immediately followed by another 6 1/2 hour flight to Yangon.)

Long day but all went well!

The room is nice. More or less as all hotel rooms are but this is new for me. Surprise when you use the toilet. The seat is heated!

We settle and contemplate to go out or just have a light dinner at the hotel. It's cold outside and we are tired. The restaurant has a limited menu but good enough. I have typical Korean oxtail soup. Had to try it. It could do with seasoning.

Sculptures in the lobby. I could be pretty sure that they are from the same artist as a certain one in the Singapore botanical garden but the title and name is not written with our letters.

And now it's lights out early. We just can't keep our eyes open.

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