To Seoul

We planned to arrive one day early for our guided tour of Korea and Japan. This will allow us to get through the 14 hour time difference. We have been getting up one hour earlier each of the past four days. We get up at 3 am the morning we leave to catch a 3:50 am ride to the airport for our first flight to SFO.

The flight arrived into SFO 19 minutes early and our arrival gate was in F concourse and our flight to Seoul leaves from G concourse. On our trip to Tahiti last fall, the flight arrived in B, and we had to walk all the way around to G, which took much longer. This time we had a shorter connection time, but the flight to Seoul was delayed 70 minutes, giving us time to stop and eat lunch.

There were more delays as there was a wait after pushback and a long line taxiing to the takeoff runway.

When we arrived in Seoul a couple of hours late, there was a long line at immigration. We met two of our tour group that also came in a day early. Got to the hotel and checked in around 8:20pm.

After getting checked in and a little unpacked, we went out and found an ATM and got some cash. We looked at a few convenience stores near the hotel. We had a small breakfast meal (at 3:30 pm Seoul time) on the plane before we got off, but were a little bit hungry. We got Bungeo-ppang, fish shaped snacks traditionally filled Red Bean cream. Donna tried a mango one, I went for the traditional red bean.

Afterwards we went to the Myeong-dong subway station a block south of the hotel. It’s a large station and there are many stores there. Most were still open at 10:15pm on a Saturday night when we went back to the hotel. Staying up a little late on the first night helps us to shift to the local time.

We ended up on other side of Myeong-dong street. Walked through a small portion of the night market there as it was a very pleasant evening.

Saw interesting teas, macadamia sweet potato tea.