Twelve Hours in Seoul, South Korea

I arrived at the beautiful Incheon International Airport outside Seoul, South Korea about 4 am the next day; meaning the 30 minutes prior to my 12:30 am August 10th departure time where the only 30 minutes of that entire day that I witnessed because of a long flight and forward progression into time. I was now 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. By the time I get through customs, pick up my boarding pass for my next flight departing 12 hours later, and get the lay of the airport, it’s still only about 5 am but I’m wide awake. So then I have to devise a plan. Looking at the map, Incheon is easily an hour’s ride away from downtown Seoul where the sightseeing action is. The prices reflected that fact: a bus ride to Center City was 14000 Won (about $12 USD), a cab ride into town was 1700 Won (more like $14), a 5-hour Seoul City tour costs $50 USD (only listed in USD oddly enough, guess they know who the target base is), and even smaller one or two venue tours charged $20-$35 USD to show you around a site or two and bring you back to the airport. I originally was going to nap or chill until about 8 am as I felt nothing was open so early, so I looked around the airport and saw some interesting things (such as unrefrigerated anchovies and meat in bags available for purchase in the convenient stores) but I got bored and decided I needed to maximize my layover. After swapping out some currency, I opted for the charter bus (or ‘Airport Limousine’) ride into the city. After consulting the list of possible Seoul points of interest in my iPod, I opted to first check the Dongdaemun Food and Fashion Market. From an architectural standpoint, there is much to see on the hour-plus ride from Incheon through Gimpo into downtown Seoul. I came to find the city was very overpopulated and therefore to every skyscraper that was an office building, there were 6 buildings its height or taller that were residential. Literally, there was often a complex of 3-5 identical 65-story buildings, which were all apartments or condos; Asia is very fond of multiple identical buildings. Donald Trump has a handful of high-rise condos with his name in big letters on the outside too. Even in what would qualify as suburban areas in the states, there are many high-rise residential complexes countered by low-income shanty style housing. I saw very little ‘middle class’ single-family housing development that I’m used to back home. I arrive at the Market at about 6:45 am and start exploring. Even at this time of the morning when most stores aren’t open, the street food vendors are already setting up and starting to cook. I see things such as tanks of energetic fish sitting right on the street at you walk by, colorful cartoon displays on the sides of buildings, a barbeque and fried chicken kitchen (the only English words on the building, international I guess), a casino, and I stumble across an underground shopping mall called Seoul Square. The mall is nice, there are boutiques, restaurants and at last free wi-fi Internet; this enables my International texting to begin. But my most interesting discover was in the bathroom. There is push-button bidet and other toilet sprinkler control right on the side of the toilet bowl. Interesting. I leave there and go to one of the huge supermarkets to look around for a while. Then I decide I can’t leave Seoul without seeing something with some historical significance. So upon talking to some taxi drivers, con men there just as back at home, I get a slightly over-priced ride (all I had was a 10000 Won, about $8.75) to the Korean War History Memorial. The structure is already impressive visually with two intricate sculptures of soldiers helping everyday people to go with a tall, obelisk-like structure right at the front signs. Somehow or another, the customer service rep gets me a free admissions ticket; I didn’t ask any questions. But the museum is spectacular. I can’t help but think how much my father and grandfather, both retired from the US Air Force, would have loved it. There is not only tons of information, although much of it in Korean, but there are well-crafted models, demonstrations, videos (with an English option) and life-size jungle and refugee camp scenes. Although I’m pretty sure it was not allowed, I snapped hundreds of pictures in the museum. There are actual planes, cannons, boats, tanks, and other equipment outside the museum. After leaving the museum I cross the courtyard to find the most authentic of the eating options; I didn’t come halfway around the world to eat McDonald’s or KFC no matter how popular they are locally. I arrive at an unnamed (or more accurately, unsigned) cafeteria-style location where I’m the only foreigner; authentic enough. I order a dish I believe was called (Man, I’m about to mess this up. I should’ve taken a picture) Jyangdamyeoung. It was noodles in a brown sauce with vegetables and small cuts of meat. Each meal also comes with complementary soup and slices of some yellow fruit/vegetable about the consistency of beets. It all went well together, I was happy. By this point, it is about 1:15 and I decide to head back early to be in place for this 4:35 flight; partially because I’m tired of walking around and sweating with this heavy ass book bag and partially because I don’t want to spend any more money there. Little did I know how difficult this would become. I talk to the same taxi drivers about a ride back to Incheon Airport. $80 US? He recalculates $65 US? For the same ride that costs about $14 the other way? I’m foreign, but I’m not stupid. The bus schedule says that the bus I took there isn’t going back the other way until 5:20 pm, which is too late obviously. I check the subway map to see how hard it would be to make it that way. A helpful older gentleman also at the map asked me where I’m going. I tell him and he starts laughing, he says I’d better find a different way; there would probably be 15 train transfers on the way to that airport. I look back at the map. He was right. I’ve never seen such a confusing lattice of lines and intersections. 15 may have been an exaggeration, but not by much. He says there is another bus that goes directly there. So I go back up to the bus stop, where the same taxi driver that tried to charge me $65 to go to the airport tells me about the bus I need to get on and even eliminates my currency problem as I don’t have enough Won for the return trip. So I actually get a discount for the return trip by paying with a US $20 bill. Bad math on the ticket salesman’s part? I don’t know, I didn’t ask questions. I also meet a cute Korean woman who starts up conversation with me while we wait for the same bus. She’s a flight attendant for Air Asia and use to be a flight attendant for Korean Air. She’s headed to the other airport along the way. We talk about Korea and her one trip to Atlanta while we ride. She says that the nightlife in Seoul doesn’t close until 6-7 am, unlike Atlanta, which she said all the nightlife closed down at 10 pm when she went. I don’t know what nightspot she went to but that’s blatantly wrong; but I’m not in an argumentative mood. She gives me her information and asks me to hit her up if I’m every back in Seoul. I also find out that a friend of mine from college is teaching right outside of Seoul; good to have options in other places if I do feel adventurous. Enough talking, check out the photos: