I was flying with Asiana Airlines. I hadn't heard of them at all until I booked a few months back, but was told that they were a 5 star airline. To link up with their service to London, they make you stop over for the night in Seoul and give you transfers and a hotel with meals! This sounded great - I've always wanted to go to Seoul!
The hotel we were taken to, called Hotel June, did provide 'meals', however they were, well crap! Thankfully the food on the flights were so good I didn't mind!
I met up with a girl on the plane who also wanted to go into the city during our stay, so we decided to team up so it wasn't so scary! When we got to the hotel they pretty much laughed at us when we said we wanted to go into the city - this was because we were actually on a island... The airport you go through is called Incheon International Airport, and is actually on a island off the coast. After a quick call to Sean in NZ (Thanks Sean!) we found out that the city was about 40mins drive away, or 1 1/2 hours by train. At about 10pm we decided to make a break for it anyway - you only live once after all!
The trains only ran all the way until midnight, so we could only go in on the train but decided a taxi back would be worth it to see the city
The train was pretty cool, and only cost about $4 for the 90 minute trip, which is cheap!Once in the city we started going for a walk around, and trying to find a: an ATM and b: a quote from a taxi driver...
The ATM's were not easy to work, after failing at 2 of them we were hoping that we could use a Visa in the taxi to get home - stress levels were rising!
The taxi drivers were all fairly old, and didn't speak english - this didn't help stress levels!
Thankfully a young guy helped by doing some translating for us, and we found that some of the taxi's did take visa (although in the end they didn't take our international ones for some reason) and that to get home would cost about 65,000 won (about NZ$80). This wasn't too bad for a 35 min trip, so we felt a bit more relaxed. We also managed to get some help from 2 policemen, who took us to an ATM that actually worked!! I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear the machine make that counting notes noise - AND give me my card back!
After that we had a good look around!
Lots of food tanks - they eat octopus live, with the legs still wriggling!
There were of course lots of brights lights! This building was a big clothes store - I got 3 cool t's there for about $10 each :)
On the way home we found someone who I think must be the only 60 year old taxi driver who speaks english! He was a nice guy, but was a terrible driver... He didn't seem to understand that you could press gently on the accelerator - instead he constantly reved the car, lurching us back and forth the whole time. I don't get sea sick or car sick, but after 35 mins of that we both felt pretty ill!
His terrible driving also meant that my photo attempts of the Han River bridges didn't come out very well!
So here is one I stole from google
The Han River is of course where the AWESOME Korean movie The Host is set, so I really wanted to see it!
After a good sleep, we headed back to the airport for our flight. This was the first time we actually saw how far we were from the mainland - this is the bridge we'd crossed in the taxi the night before!
And again a better google pic taken on a clear day!
The plane was really empty - I'd say only about 20% full - so we had plenty of room to stretch out!
It was also a clear day over much of Russia, so we had great views of Lake Baikal, which is the deepest lake in the world and has a species of freshwater seal which lives there with the coolest whiskers!
I could also see the Jetstream forming off the wing, which I thought was worth a video!
I could also see the Jetstream forming off the wing, which I thought was worth a video!
Lessons learned:
Asiana is a great airline - I'll use them every time for sure!
If you want to go into Seoul, don't hang about and head in straight away to make sure you can get the train home ($4 instead of the taxi for $80!)
Get money out at the airport!!!!
Don't eat live Octopus - its just not cricket
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