It is time for a new adventure! Ever since the lockdowns started, I’ve been trying to get back into traveling, starting with visits home, then a weekend in London, then a week in Italy (that one you can read about on this very blog!), but I hadn’t done one of my big trips since I went to India in 2019 (you can also read about that one here). So I’m beyond thrilled to be back in action, this time going to Korea!
The trip is particularly long this time because I have a 5-hour layover in Amsterdam before a 12-hour flight to Seoul. It’s a lot (I’m writing this bit while I wait, having seen all the tulip and cheese stores in Schiphol airport), but the only affordable alternative was a one-hour connection at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and as I always tell everyone who will listen: people can make transfers in CDG, but luggage doesn’t!
Boy that sure was a long flight at the end of a long day! Try as I did to sleep, I barely dozed off a couple of times in the 12-hour flight. To make matters worse, I’d already seen pretty much every movie available on board, and anyway they completely obscured the plane so trying to look at the bright screen in the darkness felt like staring into a lightbulb!
As we finally got off, the Korean guy who had been sitting next to me (the flight population seemed to be about 90% Korean) asked me where I was from and what I would be doing in Korea. He was from Busan, and had some recommendations for when I visit -and then, ominously, told me to “be very careful in Seoul” with something “that is coming in from the north”, except I didn’t understand what it is that I need to be careful about (The wind? The flu? Nuclear war?!) and by that point in the conversation I’d already asked the poor man to repeat himself so many times that I didn’t dare to follow up!
After a long but otherwise uneventful wait for immigration, I went out the other side, found my bag immediately, and then went to buy my bus ticket. Incheon Airport in Seoul is connected by railway or subway or both, but I’m staying at an Airbnb right next to Hapjeong Station, which is served by a bus that goes direct to the airport. When I went to the ticket counter, they were closed, and when I tried the ticket machine it wouldn’t accept my card (this does not bode well for the rest of my trip!), but I found another counter and was able to buy a ticket on a so-called “limousine bus” for 17,000 won (€12). I don’t know that I would call the bus a limousine -I mean, it is long, but then again so are all buses- but it does have very comfy leather armchairs for seats. Because Hapjeong is Bus 6002’s very first stop, I thought I’d be looking at a half-hour ride tops, but it took over an hour! Fifteen minutes just to get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1! Thankfully, the bus announcements all play in English and Japanese as well as Korean, plus the driver and even a nice lady had already memorized that the gormless white guy wanted to get off at Hapjeong.
The ride was mostly a big freeway, which started with a sunset not unblemished by smog before turning into night, so I couldn’t get a view of Seoul one way or another. Once on the street, though, I could see several tall office and apartment blocks. I barely had to cross to streets to get to my apartment building, where I dropped off my stuff and went back out.
It was too early to sleep but too late to go very far, plus I was exhausted, so I just explored a one-block radius around the apartment building. I failed to find an ATM, even though several appeared on my map, but there are plenty of 7-11 and GS25 convenience stores so at least I was able to get myself a sandwich and onigiri for dinner. My way to cope with jetlag is to adjust to the local time instantly upon landing, and it was dinnertime, so I had dinner without paying attention to whether I was hungry or not (I think I was? As if I could tell). There are also a lot of restaurants and bars around, all of them full, some with a queue outside.
I get the vibe that the area is mostly business-oriented, because of how many cafes there are and because the restaurants seem to cater to groups of people: all of them are that kind with the round tables that you see in K-dramas, or big tables with hot plates and fume extractors! Not a single one had a menu outside, let alone in English. Wonder where I’ll end up eating tomorrow!
Right around the corner, too, they had set up a stage and different musicians were playing in it, not to a huge audience so maybe this was just the warmup for a bigger event? I’m sure they’ll manage without me, I definitely don’t have the energy for a rave at a freezing 1°C outdoors!
From this infinitesimal experience I get the first impression that people in Korea speak less English than in Japan, or maybe it’s just the area. The staff for the bus operations didn’t utter a word in English, only “Hapjeong”, and when I came back to the apartment just now I ran into a delivery man who looked at me and went “Oooooh!” like he’d found the panda enclosure at the zoo. He asked me a couple of questions in Korean, and thanks to the 6 lessons I’d taken in preparation for this trip, I was able to understand “Where are you from?” I replied, also in Korean, that I was from Spain, and he went “Woooooow!” like he’d seen the panda do a backflip. Then he said “Sakkaa!” (soccer) with a thumbs up sign, which made me laugh.
Anyway, that’s about all I’ve had time and energy for today. Tomorrow promises to be sunny but cold, the better to visit the palaces if my plan comes together.
The adventure begins!
This Is A Lake 