Korea twice in one year - November 2022 - Page 1

Day 1 - Thursday, 3 November 2022

Korea again? Surely not!

Melbourne airport

This will be an overly long extremely self indulgent introduction so buckle up.
First of all, just a few days ago over 150 people were killed in Itaewon (drunken foreigner suburb of Seoul) during a crush at the Halloween festivities. It is fortunate I was not there, and it is important I make a tragedy all about me. I was booked to go to Japan, from the last week of October, which would have had me in Shibuya on Halloween taking photos as I have done on 3 previous occasions. Japan's indecision as of about 8 weeks ago about their borders due to Covid had me cancel Japan and re book going to Korea, again, a country who had already let the genie out of the bottle and were extremely unlikely to stuff it back in and close the borders again.
My intention was to go to Japan from the last week of October, not because of Halloween specifically, but because of weather, and autumn leaves. However I could not get flights to line up, so I am going 1 week later than originally intended, to a different country (South Korea) than originally intended (Japan).
Had I got flights on the days of my choosing, I would have been in Itaweon on Halloween comparing it to Shibuya.
However, having said all that, the crush occurred after my bed time, it would have been very unlikely I would have been there at the time it occurred, unless I was trapped in a crush of people in a laneway of course.

Now for the next topic... VIGILANT STORM!!!!
Currently the South Korean Air Defence Force, United States Air Force, and for no known reason, the Royal Australian Air Force, are flying hundreds of fighter jets and launching hundreds of bombs and missiles along the No fly zone with North Korea. The operation is called vigilant storm and is the biggest in over a decade. North Korea has responded to this provocation by lobbing a few missiles a few miles further South than they have before.
Obviously I wrote this to read like I am a dirty commie, but in all the reporting I read on the missiles from the North I read nothing about Vigilant Storm and especially nothing about Australia's involvement.

So... after all that, I am indeed heading back to Korea for the second time in a year. It was my 4th choice of destination, but at the time I needed to make a decision, the only one open to tourists, so they get my money.
It will be cold, perhaps in the minuses, it will get dark before my bedtime, unlike my recent May/June trip, so I will be taking some night time neon photos and finally it will be 4 weeks and visiting only cities I have visited before (Seoul, Gwangju, Daejeon), and there will hopefully be lots and lots of hiking, assuming I do not get covid. A nice long running sentence to get us under way.

Now the usual warning, two long flights, via Singapore, buses, trains etc. all leading up to finally being able to check into a hotel and pass out after no sleep for days, so prepare for even more rambling and boring transit pics.

Update from the airport:
I was pulled aside for some extra questions / light interrogation by a customs guy who wanted to know why I was returning to Korea twice in a year as a single middle aged crazy looking man. My website may have saved me, I said I like to go hiking and Japan's indecisive border policy made me select Korea again instead of Japan. He asked me if I was going for business or visiting people, I said no, I am going hiking, alone. He was perplexed, so I pulled out my phone and showed him my website, which already had the above paragraphs written on a hidden page, and LITERALLY millions of photos from previous visits. He noted I am wearing the same top today as I was in May, very observant.