Autumn 2022 in South Korea! Day 1 – The Arrival

So the day finally came, we were on our way to South Korea! It has been almost two months since our visa got approved, and we had been excited for weeks for this trip.

Everything was set, including Mon’s sister looking after our beloved cats same as last time. Great thing we already had an automatic litter box to take care of, well, their business. It will be one less chore for her to do while we were away for 5 days.

Our flight to Incheon was not until early afternoon, but we already decided to be there much earlier in the morning. During our flight to Singapore back in September, the queue in the immigration was too long, it almost took us about an hour. We did not take any chances.

Surprisingly, there may not be too many flights that day, so we found ourselves immediately in front of the immigration line. We can do a complete tumbling pass because it was empty.

We, however, had an interesting check after the X-ray machines as we were asked to step aside. I was thinking the whole time if there was something that we packed that should not be there. They swabbed the outside and the inside of the bag (reminiscent of the swabbing that TSA made on my bags in Guam) and found nothing. But alas, they informed us it was just random.

After that, we had almost 2 hours to eat lunch, rest, and wait before our boarding time. It was almost drizzling when our flight finally left, so not enough to call for a cancelled flight.

It was obviously a packed flight that as soon as they announced boarding, the zones printed on the boarding passes were ignored at all.

Not having any in-flight entertainment, we had loads of videos loaded in our iPad. We had one movie and a couple of episodes, enough to last us the 4-hour flight. We also chose the seats so at least one of us will be by the aisle in case we need to make a quick run to the comfort room.

I also had a couple of more recent K-Pop music downloaded on my phone, enough to set me on the mood that we were flying back to South Korea! As soon as I the lights from Incheon, I was so ecstatic.

After the soft thud on the ground by the very capable pilot, I knew we were on. =) After 6 years, we’re back. Hello South Korea! BTS’s Boy With Luv was conveniently playing as we landed. Interestingly, it was my most listened song of 2020 according to Spotify. So I associate that song with the seclusion of the pandemic, and the drive to be back traveling to South Korea again.LOL

I expected that we were to spend at least an hour from arrival, to immigration to the baggage counter. Good thing that we had our QCode filled out before we left, thus it was form we did not have to complete. After clearing the immigration and getting our things, we went straight to the booth to claim our WiFi egg using a Klook voucher.

We also had the AREX Express Train vouchers purchased from Klook, so we did not have to fiddle with the machines, which we no longer recall how to function. We made the mistake of going straight to the all-stop train that did not read the QR code, before we were directed to the other side of the tracks.

We also forgot that the train would have a schedule. It meant we had to wait for another hour just to board the next train to Seoul Station. That also meant we won’t be eating until we arrived at the hotel. This also meant that as we rushed to AREX, we completely forgot to withdraw money. Whoops.

Mon was also so hungry because we were already way behind dinner time. For some reason, we keep on miscalculating the time. The whole trip going to Seoul Station was almost an hour, and some transfers going to our last stop at Euljiro 1-ga Station.

It was worth mentioning that we forgot to look for an ATM at Seoul Station, as I was under the impression that Mon brought his spare KRW 15,000 with him. I looked at my wallet and fortunately, I still had KRW 7,000 inside. That was more than enough to get us from Seoul Station to the hotel.

When we reached Euljiro 1-ga Station, we found a Woori bank ATM and thought that we could just withdraw money there. I tried my BPI, then another card, and then another. None of these worked. I also got nervous that it was talking long for the machine to spew back my cards, that there was a millisecond that I thought it would be stuck inside. Yes, in a foreign country.

It was a long day for the flight, wait, and transfers that it was exactly 10:30 PM Korea time when we arrived at the hotel. Towing our luggage, we missed our hotel with one block. We were just a block away, with a big Apple logo by the street.

We booked again our hotel from Booking.com, and the check-in process was seamless. Took us less than 5 minutes before we made our way to our room. Mon was all smiles in that photo, but he was almost pissed because of hunger.LOL

As soon as we stepped inside, we left our bags and we went straight to Myeongdong. We withdrew money at Woori bank right across Myeongdong Theater, before we looked for food.

It was a Monday evening at almost 11:00 PM, and there’s nothing much going on. No luck with any restaurants open at that hour. We thought that if we were just to walk a couple of minutes around, we’d find one. There was surprisingly none.

Mon wanted a proper meal. I, on the other hand, was okay with anything edible. I finally convinced him that we can have a proper dinner the following day instead, so we better get our hands on the first thing that we can eat from the streets.

We were lucky that a barbeque stand was still open, with 3 sticks left. We then stopped by one of the odeng stands to get at least 4 sticks each. We made it a rule that whenever we go on a trip, we should not be too strict with the food we eat. It was a vacation after all.

We spent at least 45 minutes eating and resting by the streets of Myeongdong, before deciding to buy some bottles of water from a convenience store we could take back to the hotel. I tried checking Google Maps, but forgot that it was not very useful in South Korea with outdated information.

I had Naver installed before leaving the country, and it worked perfectly. We went to 7/11 across Myeongdong near the Exit 2 of Myeongdong Station. While waiting for Mon, I had the opportunity to take a photo with the colorful SEOUL signage, with its colors matching my jacket. =)

It was already a long day, with us surprisingly arriving late. Despite that, I was busy taking in the surroundings, feeling the cold night air, and reminding myself: we’re back in South Korea. =’)

It was, frankly, our happy place. It was the first place we hoped to visit as soon as countries began to open up as the pandemic reeled back. We have always wanted to return for autumn and I could not believe we were back. It felt really surreal to be walking these streets again, alive. Something about Seoul always makes me emotional, even if it was our fourth visit. I had that episode back in 2016 while inside Myeongdong Cathedral.

We had our itinerary on hand, but we also wanted to be flexible. Again, it should NOT be an episode of Amazing Race. But at least for the travel going back, it felt it was.

But we were really back. And it would be our first autumn together.