Arrival in Seoul
- Heike Panagoulias
- Oct 24, 2024
- 3 min read
The flight was long, over 11 hours. And then there was the delay due to bad weather. But the Korean airlines do stretching exercises on the plane with the passengers before landing! And everyone joined in. Almost everyone, Leon was too embarrassed.
Incheon Airport is huge, everything is so clean and well organized. It's easy to find your way around. We had ordered SIM cards in advance via a portal that also offers excursions, workshops and city trips. We just had to pick them up at one of the many counters there. We then went to the supermarket to get a card that can be used for bus and metro travel throughout Korea (!). We loaded some credit onto it straight away so that we were ready to go.
However, after the long flight and late arrival, we didn't want to take the metro. We treated ourselves to a cab to take us to the apartment. Well, it was supposed to take us. He took us to the right street, but somehow the house number was wrong. However, we only noticed this when the cab driver had already left.
On Google Maps, the correct address didn't seem far away, so we set off with our luggage. This was the first time we realized how incredibly huge Seoul is. What seemed like a short walk on Google Maps turned out to be a 15-minute walk - along the same street. The weather was very sunny and hot. And that with a Covid mask. Incidentally, we wore them for the entire flight and in South Korea it was currently only permitted not to wear a mask on the street. However, everyone was wearing one on the streets, so we couldn't avoid wearing them all day. We only actually took the mask off in our apartment. The positive thing about the involuntary walk was that we finally got some exercise after the long flight...
When we arrived at the right building, we stood in front of it and were amazed.
We were amazed at all. These buildings in Seoul are all huge, the streets are usually 10 lanes wide and there are also extra bus lanes. A dimension you can hardly describe.
We found our apartment, but we couldn't open it for a long time. What a struggle we had with this door lock! You have to know that there are no keys here. Every door is opened by a door code. We knew that, we'd seen it thousands of times in all the K-dramas. And yet... it wouldn't open. In the end, of course, we made it. And then this view from our apartment, or more precisely the view from our bed!
We settled in a little and unpacked our suitcases. It was now evening and we went out for dinner. We were right in a very lively neighborhood. Just a few minutes' walk away, there were restaurants as far as the eye could see.
We decided to have some soup. And of course, as in every restaurant, we had kimchi with it. Our first original kimchi! It was so delicious. I had ordered a cold soup, which was a good decision as the temperatures in South Korea are currently around 30 degrees. This soup is served with ice cubes, noodles, vegetables, sesame seeds and of course a bit of gochujang, for the spicy taste.
On the way home, we discovered that there is also a small supermarket right in our apartment complex. You really do find supermarkets like this on every corner here. We bought some water and ramen, of course! We had instant coffee and muesli for breakfast. Korean snacks were also a must, of course.
We were getting tired, really tired. South Korea has a time difference of 7 hours, which naturally made us a little tired. However, according to our internal clock, it was a little too early. We went to sleep to get into Korean time. We were only halfway there. We were awake again at some point during the night, spent a bit of time on our cell phones and then actually fell asleep again. After all, the next day was already waiting and we had a lot planned here...
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