August 28, 2012
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Trip to Seoul (Korea Day 9)
We were up at 5.30am for the most beautiful sunrise, started preparing and last things to pack up (generally I would have packed the evening before). I noticed the cab waiting downstairs already – did we specify the correct time to innkeeper? Apparently cab driver was very early indeed and we left about 15mins before our scheduled 6.45am departure. The weather was still sunny but on the way, we started seeing storm clouds. Suddenly visibility turned near zero (but still no rain), and then after ten mins, rain started pouring. It was about 40mins ride back to airport, costing 30,000won (fare price) but possibly can get at 20,000won.
Flight back to Seoul was uneventful, and Seoul was sunny as ever. We followed some very specific instructions from our Airbnb host to get to his place at Hongdae are near Hongik University. We were in the middle of street shopping area, music was blasting on the Sunday when we arrived and we could hear that clearly from our room on the 5th floor. Good thing was, travel wasn’t a problem – the Hongik Uni line is one of the stops for AREX (Airport Express or Korail Airport Railway) so getting from Gimpo and leaving for Incheon was taken care. It also connected to the Digital Media line and Seoul Station, and it also has a Green line (line 2) which is a few stops to Lotte Hotel.
That was where we went in the evening as we wanted to head to DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) because no one was picking up the phone when we called to book.
http://www.dmztours.com/seoul_dmz_tours.htm
So we went down to the Hotel Lotte (supposed to have pickup here) which was the same area as the Korea Tourism, both located at Euljiro (1) il-ga on the green line. At Lotte Hotel concierge, we managed to get reservations for Tuesday (tour does not operate Sun and Mon) so planned for next day to head to Premium Outlet instead.
Walked around Lotte Shopping Mall basement a bit, where we found kimchi and stuff, also a large foodcourt. I had a Krispy Kreme donut going for 1,200won. Wife was tired so we got back to our area where I went shopping for food takeaways, ending up with dumpings and noodles. And a snack of some fried spicy fish which neither of us liked.
The room wasn’t ideal for several reasons – any movement on the bed affected the other, there was constant music in the background until 11pm (or later) and constant light also from outside as the blinds didn’t stop much of the it. Otherwise, it wasn’t too bad. There was a washing machine and we managed to get a clothsline up. Area had small shop shopping which wife loved and lots of food which I loved, and we were located right in front of a lovely Japanese ramen shop that was very popular.
