Into Seoul

We take a bus from Incheon airport into Seoul. It begins with a largely uninteresting freeway. I had been battling an upset stomach from playing too much Nintendo DS on the flight, it had eased off while we were in the airport, but was now back with a vengence.

The bus was a comfortable temperature, except for every 15 minutes or so when a blast of hot air filled the bus, making it quite unconfortable and providing no assistance to my upset stomach. The girls chattered away amongst themselves for a while before tiredness and motion sickness got the best of Jiran and I and the next 30minutes on the freeway seemed to draw on forever.

Suddenly we a re thrust into the midst of Seoul, bright neon lights adorning tall buildings everywhere. I'm looking around wide eyed, helping to make my car sickness a bit worse. Jiran notices that I'm turning a whiter shade of pale and opens the window just a touch. The chilly night air helps to ease my stomach somewhat.

Seoul it turns out is a really big place. Duh, one of the worlds mega-cities, with a population of > 10mil people. It takes about another 25 minutes to get to our stop. I'm estimating that I can stop myself being sick for about another 5 minutes when we finally arrive at our stop. We pile off quickly, retrieve our bags from the undercarriage and suddenly the bright lights and bustling action of Seoul is all around me.



We check into a 'Love Motel' (more on these later) and then head back out into the city to get dinner. One of the many nearby BBQ restuarants serves us for the evening. Having been to a decent selection of Korean BBQ places in Melbourne, I knew the basic type of cuisine, but the authenticity and range of side dishes (also more on the cuisine at a later date) was superior to anything I had previously sampled. It is finally starting to sink into my head that I am actually sitting in a restaurant in Seoul eating Korean BBQ, it all seems a bit surreal.


After the meal, we wish Eun-mi a good night and head off to catch the one of the final days of the light shows that adorn the large creek that runs through the downtown of Seoul. We have walked about halfway down the display when they start turning the lights off for the evening. I start to realise that it is really cold and my bottom is freezing. We make a hasty retreat back to the warmth of our accomodation.