Thursday’s agenda was to travel to Korea. Japan and Korea are not that far apart, but wow, are they far apart. Narita airport is absolutely nowhere near Tokyo. Nowhere. It took us about 90 minutes to get from the airport to the city when we arrived, and we budgeted a little more for our return trip to the airport for our flight to Seoul, but that wasn’t enough. After taking a subway to a different subway to catch the train, we realized we were going to be cutting it close to make the flight check-in time, especially sine we have a bag to check, so we accepted our fate and called a taxi. I will not disclose how much we paid for that taxi, but I will say that I have had multi-course dinners for less. But it was worth it because we got there in time – barely.
Narita’s terminal 3 has a gashapon wall, which made up for all stress from the journey to the airport. Kiddo picked out 2 little capsule toys, which were adorable, and we all reminisced about when she was little and we bribed her with dangly toys. Some things never change. 🙂
After a horribly turbulent flight, we arrived in Seoul’s Incheon Airport. We were so hungry that we stopped to each lunch in the airport since Incheon is nowhere near Seoul proper. Sadly, lunch for me was a small bowl of plain white rice because Korea and I do not see we-to-eye when it comes to food. They are effectively the opposite of vegetarian, with meat being the core (and frequently ONLY) component of a meal. When there isn’t meat, there is shellfish. So rice it is.
A train and a subway later, and we were at the hotel. Luke seems to have caught a cold, and I was much more tired than I thought was reasonable, so we chilled in our hotel for a bit. Anna-Sophia and I walked around in the evening once the temperatures were a tad bit more reasonable.
At night, every other street corner becomes an outdoor dining space. Street vendors set up shop, selling all manner of things that I can’t identify, and the streets are abuzz with the sounds of people enjoying their meals. It seems to be customary for restaurants to set up tanks outside to showcase the live seafood on offer, and we saw everything from eels and squid to octopus and skate.
After strolling the streets, kiddo and I hit a mini-mart (as ubiquitous here as in Tokyo) where I found GREEN TEA KIT KAT! These are by far my most favorite candy on this planet – beating out even peanut butter cups – and they are super hard to find in the US. I savored every second of that treat from our hotel’s rooftop deck.
All in all, Seoul feels a little more real than Tokyo. Both are insane, bustling, and humming, but Tokyo feels almost too perfect to be real. Seoul has a little bit more grit, and it wears that proudly. I think we are going to like it here (if I don’t starve). 🙂
Vacation Days 