South Korea – Day 1: DC to Seoul

Andrew and I just got back from Korea on Saturday. We spent 11 beautiful, exhausting, eye-opening days traveling around South Korea. It was 11 days packed to the gills. We were asleep before we hit the pillow each night after a day of seeing new things, trying new foods, and trying to adapt to a foreign culture. I took approximately 12425534575456 pictures while we were away and I’m going to share them here over the next two weeks or so. Let’s kick it off with a 14 hour flight…

Our first day in Korea was more like two days, owing to the 14 hours of flying time and crossing the international dateline.

Andrew’s mom gave us a ride to the airport (thanks!) and we managed to get checked in and through security with relative ease. After some duty-free shopping (with some intense pressure to buy face cream from the sales lady) we boarded our plane and got settled in for the long flight ahead of us.

We managed to snag a row of only two seats which meant lots of leg room for Andrew and no guilt on my part if I had to get up a few times.

Fairly quickly into the flight they came around and served dinner. There were three options to choose from and both of us chose the Korean option. Airplane bipbimbap was really pretty good.

My favorite part was the travel-sized tube of gochujung. I wish I had a little tube of spicy red pepper paste to carry around with me all the time.

They kept the food coming throughout the flight. This was some sort of meat-filled bun and it was delicious. We had another meal and countless beverage services over the course of the flight. They would shut the lights to let you sleep and then flip them on so you could groggily order another beverage as they walked by.

Then, nearly 14 hours after we took off, we made it to Korea!

I was a little tired, but Andrew was perked up and ready to go! After deplaning, we headed to the immigration line and managed to hit the line precisely at its longest. The benefit to this was, by the time we got through and got our inaugural stamps in our new passports, our luggage was already waiting for us at baggage claim.

From there we navigated to the high speed train to Seoul and after finding some seats, we promptly fell asleep.

Both us of managed to jolt awake as we were pulling into Seoul Station. Dr. Henry (our friend in Korea), told us he would meet us at the taxi stand outside of Seoul Station. After a series of miscommunications and lots of waiting we decided to just take the metro to our hotel.

It was a quick ride on the metro and an even shorter walk to hotel. Nearly 22 hours after we left our house, we made it! And when we got there – Dr. Henry was waiting in the lobby! After a quick shower and change of clothes, we followed Dr. Henry into the bustling streets of Myeongdong to find some dinner. Later, with bellies full of spicy chicken and bean sprouts, we collapsed in bed after our first day in Korea.