Tuesday, August 29, 2017

SE Asia 2017 - Day 15 (8/28/2017) - Stopover in Seoul on the way home

The flight from Bangkok to Seoul departed at 12:10am and lasted about 5 hours.  After arriving at the Incheon Airport I bumbled my way to a Korea Transit Tour stand, where the kind lady informed me that I could join the 9am tour to Seoul.  This tour had shown as full when I tried to make a reservation online (which is why I had reserved the Incheon Temple Tour instead), but I thought that I could check if there were any openings on the morning tours to Seoul.  Apparently, and happily for me, they allocate half the slots for reservations and half for in-person first-come.  Anyway, she helped me fill out the form for going through immigration and pointed me toward the main transit tour desk.

I made it to the transit tour desk at 8:45am and was able to make a quick stop at the ATM before the group departed.  The bus ride into Seoul lasted a little more than an hour, where we headed to Bukchon Hanok Village to walk around for about 40 minutes.  After that we headed to Gwangjang Market, where we had over an hour to walk around and grab lunch.  I had some gimbap (basically, the Korean version of sushi) and bean curd soup for a measly 3000 Won (less than USD $3) from one of the many stands.  After the market we took the bus back to the airport, making it there right at the scheduled 2pm end time.

Bukchon Hanok Village

After going back through security I found the nap room in the transfer lounge and napped for about 90 minutes.  I should point out that Incheon Airport is very nice and has a ton of amenities.  The flight to Atlanta left a little later than the scheduled 6:35pm departure time, but only lasted a little more than 13 hours instead of the scheduled 14, so we arrived a little early.  I had requested vegetarian meals through the Delta website for this flight, so I had no dietary issues - they actually brought out a special item for me for each of the two meals and the mid-flight snack.  I almost made it the whole time without going to the restroom again, but both of the guys next to me (I had the window seat, as usual) went at the same time a couple of hours before we arrived so I took the opportunity as well.  I took advantage of my Global Entry status to quickly get through immigration, and then had about 3 hours before my flight to St. Louis.  I made it back to the Lou before 11:30pm, ending a long day of traveling.

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Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/GBb3cDWVzQCR9oyFA

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