After booking our tickets, processing our visas (I should say that this was the most crucial part for me! My first time!), shopping/preparing for autumn clothes, ironing the itinerary, and plotting our schedules, me, Donna, Miong, Noche, Biboy and Cindy were set to conquer SEOUL!
October 31 2011, Flight 5J194 had it's touchdown by 20:24 in the runway of Incheon International Airport (considered as one of the best airports in the world). The flight just took four hours including the one hour difference between Incheon and Manila.
We all passed through the immigration smoothly except for one - Cindy! hahaha... She also spent quite some time in the immigration during our trip to HK last year. Well, this might be her last time to encounter such inconvenience since she will be renewing her passport soon! (If you know what I mean...)
Seoul can be reached from Incheon via bus, subway, or taxi. In our case, we took the bus (6015 - 10000KW/pax) to Travelers A in Euljiro 4. The whole trip took more than an hour. Good thing our place was near the bus stop and was easy to find. The place was unexpectedly above average compared to where we stayed in HK. The rooms were clean, new and spacious. Even the bathroom was big enough.
Since we checked in ahead of time, we still had time to stroll around the neighborhood. As we stroll, we noticed the downside of Travelers A - there were no open restaurants or shops nearby at that time. The nearest was Dongdaemun which is 15 to 20 minutes walk away from Euljiro 4.
Upon reaching Dongdaemun, we immediately exchanged our USD to KW (1100won for 1USD) and then looked for a place to eat. Since I had heavy late lunch and ate some more on the plane, I wanted to try something light and some Soju along the road. We found one or two but we were hesitant for some reasons. So, we ended in an authentic Korean barbeque restaurant named Baek Jeong. It was located in the second floor and the place had that Korean feel.
A friendly attendant who speaks English well quickly welcomed us and introduced us to their menu. Initially, we were planning to share one order of meat in two since their servings are quite big. However, the attendant told us that each of us needs to order one serving of meat if we want to use the burner. Since we wanted to try it as well, then all of us agreed to order. We ordered pork and beef and all of them were delicious and tender! Our welcome dinner cost around 11000-12000 KW per person and it was all worth it!
After dinner, we head back to our place. Although the distance was far from normal for me, I, or should I say all of us enjoyed the stroll. The air temp that night was below 10 degrees and it was something we cant experience back in the tropics so I savored every moment!
Miong wanted to buy a drink along the way however the stores nearby were all closed so we decided to call it a night to prepare for our first full day in SEOUL.
Some photos courtesy of Noche :)
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