Global Wanderer

15/11/23 – 17/11/23

No qualms about the AirAsia flight, everything ran smoothly, and I’d pre-ordered a nasi lemak for $7 which I thought, compared to airport pricing, was pretty good. We landed on time at klia2, which I found to be much better stocked and maintained than the main terminal at KLIA. Given I had a 7.5 hour layover, I decided to make use of the Travel Club Lounge, located upstairs next to the Sama Sama Express Hotel. For about $80AUD I was able to sit in a comfy seat with charging plugs and fast WIFI, and have access to complimentary food and drinks! Honestly, given my previous experiences with airport layovers, this seemed to work out very cost effectively!

Despite having only paid for 4 hours, nobody asked me to move out, and given I was engrossed in the book I was reading, I barely noticed the time, until I looked up and noticed that my flight was departing in 40 minutes! I headed over to the gate, and boarded leg number 2, again with AirAsia, bound for Seoul. 6 or so hours later, we landed at Seoul Incheon Airport. I’d ordered a SIM and T-Money (local transport card) in advance, which I went and picked up at the LG U+ stall after immigration, took 30,000 won out of the ATM as backup, and headed downstairs to take the train into Seoul.

There are a variety of options to get to the city from Incheon, but the most cost effective are the two AREX trains – one is Express, stopping at the airport and then straight on to Seoul Station, and the other stopping at all stops on the line. There’s a few major differences aside from this: the express train runs at a much more reduced schedule, costs over twice as much, and cannot be paid for using T-Money. The all stop train in contrast can be paid with on your T-Money card, and doesn’t take much longer!

Given I’d never visited Seoul before, I played it safe and took the all stop train all the way to Seoul Station, where I then transferred to the Metro Line 1, disembarking at Yeongdeungpo, the suburb I was staying in. A quick walk, around 10 minutes, led me to my accommodation for the next two nights, the Toyoko Inn (yes, a chain hotel, but one of the cheapest accommodation options in very expensive Seoul). Given at this point, it was only 10am, and check in wasn’t until 4pm, I left my bag in the care of the hotel, and headed out into Seoul armed with my camera and phone charger.

Yeongdeungpo.

Yeongdeungpo is located to the south, on the other side of the river, from the centre of Seoul, so I headed to a different metro station (Singil), and headed north towards Geongbokchung Palace. I didn’t have any particular plans for the day, given I was pretty jet lagged from the red-eye flight, and so after disembarking from the metro, I spent quite some time just ‘wandering’, taking photos of people and streets, and trying to get a feel for the place. First thing that amazed me, however, was queuing. Koreans love to queue, especially when waiting to get onto the metro!

A view from a metro station.

The Palace itself is enormous, and I spent quite some time walking around the exterior of it. It’s actually a rather strange sight – a big traditional Korean building surrounded by skyscrapers and billboards. I wonder what it’s like in the North…? After coasting around for a while, I stopped at an underground cafe whose entire concept was to have a very heated underground room in which you could have a cold drink in the middle of winter. I opted for an iced coffee, and then uploaded some of my camera photos, surrounded by warm air and moss growing on the stone in the walls.

Next item on my agenda, as afternoon was fast approaching, was chimaek – the famous Korean combo of Korean fried chicken and beer (maekju). The resulting portmanteau describes a classic Korean tradition these days!

My fancy underground iced coffee.

If I could tell you where exactly I was, I’d be lying. I honestly had no idea – but I spotted somewhere with beer and chicken in the window, and a bunch of locals sat inside, and decided to try it. Garlic chicken and spicy chicken, plus a pint of beer to wash it down, was exactly what I needed (although the garlic would continue to haunt my stomach and oesophagus for the next 36 hours!).

I decided that a good long walk back through Seoul would be a good chance to see local life in the city, so I put NaverMaps’ 3-hour walking estimate to the test, and headed back to Yeongdeungpo. About 2.5 hours later (take that, walking time estimator!), I was back at the Toyoko Inn. After a shower, I did a quick unpack of electronics so I could change my camera battery, laptop, portable charger… the list goes on and on.

A view of the palace entrance from earlier in the day.

Once sunset hit, I headed down to what locals call Times Square, a beautifully lit-up chunk of Yeongdeungpo full of neon signs, bars, and music. It was thriving, even for a weeknight, and full of local Korean people who, from what I understand about Korean work-life balance, had probably only just finished work for the day.

Backtracking into Times Square, I decided to head back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep. Red-eye flights can have their benefits (cheaper, extra day to see somewhere), but boy do they take a toll on you!

The next morning, I got up, and after some mental prodding to get my brain in functioning order, headed downstairs to level 2 for breakfast. Standard Korean fare was on offer, and I opted for some pork and kimchi, mopped up with bread for those tasty, tasty carbs. Instead of opting for the machine coffee though, I headed downstairs and across the road to a coffee shop, when I acquired a real coffee – not before realising that I was wearing my pyjama shorts, a t-shirt, and the hotel slippers outside in 3°. We live and learn!

Once I was fed and watered, I got dressed into some weather-appropriate clothes, and headed out, this time on Line 5 of the Metro towards the Gangnam District. Yes, like the song Gangnam Style. There’s even a big statue in the district of the ‘gangnam style’ hands, which plays the song as people walk up to it!

Unfortunately for me, the weather was pretty dire – 7° and raining is not a fantastic combination – so I headed to something indoors-y – the Starfield COEX Mall. Apparently, this is the biggest underground mall in all of Asia, and is home to a cinema, an aquarium, a satellite airport terminal where you can clear immigration and customs, and just about everything else you could think of. The main attraction for me though, was the library.

In the middle of the mall, the library is like something out of a movie, escalators going up and down gigantic walls of books (still not sure how to actually *get* the books at that height – either you grab them really quickly whilst on the escalator, or it’s a BYO ladder situation). Anyway, after a tasty bibimbap at a cafe not far from the mall, I decided that I’d had enough dreariness for one day! Knowing I was going to be back in Seoul in 2 weeks made it much easier to spend less time *visiting* things, and more time on just people watching, which is exactly what I did! I sat on the outward facing bench of a random pub in Gangnam for about 2 straight hours, just watching the people rushing around in the wild weather.

The Starfield COEX library.

Once the weather had died off a bit, I headed back to Yeongdeungpo for a short rest, and then once the sun had set, headed out again. This time, feeling brave, I left my jacket inside, opting only for pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. I figured I probably needed to start preparing my body for December in Mongolia! The first 15 minutes or so were quite cold, but then your body settles into it, and it’s actually quite relaxing. I know some people hate feeling cold, but I love it!

I headed back to my suburb’s local haunt of Times Square, and spent a good half hour watching the variety of people wandering up and down the streets. I didn’t eat anything else though – the bibimbap I’d had early in the day was pretty filling, and I was also still feeling over-garlicked from yesterday’s chicken! Given I had to check out by 10 the following morning, I headed back to the hotel for a decent night’s sleep – an 8-hour flight to Tashkent awaited!