4 November 2022
The testing times are over
Arriving in Seoul
It has been a long couple of days but I am now checked into my hotel and typing this.
First up, flight number 2, which was from Singapore to Seoul on an Airbus A350. These are really quiet, but really tight with 9 abreast seating. Still it was only 6 hours because of a tail wind and a desire to land before North Korea starts testing missiles again, so it seemed to go quickly. I caught my head falling over a couple of times indicating I had minimal sleep at some point. Masks are still mandatory on flights to and from South Korea, which was fine with me as I was wearing one anyway. Nearly everyone onboard was Korean or Singaporean, and mostly younger females, watching K-dramas on their phones, which might be the purpose of the people from Singapore visiting, K-drama tourism is huge.
One large Korean girl kept glaring at me all night, no idea why, I was dead silent and had my screen off and barely moved, so I started glaring back and she got very uneasy about it all and started whispering in another girls ear about me. I was thrilled to provide her with some entertainment. It was a risky move as she looked like she could swallow me whole.
Thankfully, they did not serve a meal at 2am, they waited until 6am and served breakfast, this is the opposite to the last time I took an overnight flight.
Now onto the arrival, you still need the KETA visa that is not a visa, you should still do the QCODE quarantine thing even though vaccines are not mandatory, because you can skip another line if you do it, and the best news of all, no more Covid test on arrival. The biggest source of concern I had last time was still testing positive weeks or even months after having Covid, it was happening to a lot of people who were then being taken by ambulance to a quarantine camp, this no longer happens.
So after all that, it was 9am and I can't check into a hotel until 3pm, so it was time to do the aimless wandering routine and snap a few photos. Good photos too, nice clear blue sky, blinding sunlight, and about 2 degrees, lets get onto them as there are a few.
Here is the first photo I took in Korea on this trip. Standing outside the airport realising that 2 degrees is indeed, quite cold.
Here is where I took my test last time. It has now closed down. Good.
The fast train to the city is running again. It costs $10 and does not save much time over the normal train, but you get assigned seating and almost no one is on it, so I took it. The station was a desolate wasteland with no people, just the way I like my mega infrastructure.
Finding my hotel was a challenge. It is in amongst a sea of tiny hardware stores in alleyways, although it is just over the road from the sewer creek park and the main tourist bit of town as you shall see shortly. If you do not know what you want, I am sure this guy will have it anyway.
Here is the famous open drain park that I visit each time I come here, although I normally visit at night. Since it's 50m from my hotel I am sure there will be night shots of it during this visit as well. Look at the clear skies!
I browsed for an orthodolite and a thump pump for a while.
My travels took me to the huge international food market that is between Myeongdong and Dongdaemun. Everywhere is a market along this street but I think this is Gwangjang or Bangsan market.
Every food stall in the market sells exactly the same selection of food, which seems to be mandated by law somehow. Toilet paper is always provided.
The Dongdaemun gate, I am sure I have taken a photo of it before. It is part of the Seoul city wall, bits of it remain in a few spots, but nothing like the wall around nearby Suwon that I went to on my last trip.
Nearby is a shoe market. Nothing but shoes. Miles and miles of shoes. Who buys these no brand shoes? Everyone seems to line up for $500 Nikes, even 100 year old women who cart folded bits of cardboard for a living on their hunchback.
OK, here's more sewer park, but note the buildings on the left, there are a lot more behind me too. These are above things like the shoe market, umbrella market, wedding dress market etc. I presume a lot of stuff was actually made on site many years ago, I doubt much is made on site these days. They all look like places where a lot of people would die in a fire.
Soon after I arrived at the Dongdaemun design plaza, a place I have also been to before, but it makes for great photos. I thought there might be some Autumn leaves.
I pulled off the stance early on this time! I could have gone lower. It looks like my wondrous hair is windswept but in reality its just filled with 2 days of whatever people exhale while seated in a metal tube in the sky.
More Dongdaemun. I do not need to look it up to know its Zaha Hadid. I checked, it is. Basically a design by Zaha Hadid is like the monorail on The Simpsons at this point, Asian cities think they need one to prove something.
You can walk up onto the roof which is cool, especially when you get to walk on already dead grass.
Last shot for scale appreciation.
On my meander back in the direction of my hotel, I started to notice that perhaps the leaves are not at their peak yet. These Japanese style ones are mainly green still. Although there were also bigger trees with very big yellow leaves making a mess everywhere.
And finally, my adequately equipped, competitively priced, well located hotel room, It is called Hotel Nafore.