Today was basically a travel day as even though my flight from Shanghai to Seoul was only 2 hours, it actually took me 7 hours to get from point A to point B.
I left my hostel in Shanghai at 10am this morning and it wasn’t until 7pm tonight that I finally checked into my new hostel here in Seoul.
Yeah, it was a long travel day…
Getting to the airport in Shanghai was kinda cool as part of the trip involved a trip on the Maglev train, a magnetic levitation line, that travels 30km in just 8 minutes going at a speed of 300km/hr.
I checked into the airport in Shanghai around 11:30 and to my shock they took away my little bottle of hand sanitizer I carry everywhere because it’s flammable.
I’ve actually checked into probably more than a dozen flights with that little bottle with no problem.
Poor little bottle. Never hurt anyone!
The silliness of it all is that anyone can then go buy bottles of highly flammable booze at the duty free.
But whatever, stupid airport security.
After landing here in Seoul, I took an airport express train to the downtown about an hour away.
From there it was a nice crowded subway ride to my hostel.
It actually got so packed I was trying to figure out how I was going to get across the car to the exit door on the other side with my big backpack.
Luckily the stop I got off at opened the doors at my side so I left out a huge sigh of relief.
A few steps later and I was here in downtown Seoul.
Lights everywhere, people everywhere.
So nice to see.
Everyone seems friendly and the hostel I’m at had a nice social vibe coming from it as I waiting to checkin.
And Olympic fever is in the air.
The hostel had it on the big screen in the common room and different restaurants I passed on the street had it on as well.
After setting up my stuff in my room, I headed out around 8 to grab some dinner.
Korean BBQ!
Of course, finding food and figuring out what to order is actually a challenge here compared to when I had Korean food last week in North Korea.
There everything was ordered for me but here I gotta figure it out on my own.
I ordered pork BBQ and what I thought was a picture of a side of rice.
The rice turned out to be a dish of egg soufle.
Not that I’m complaining cause it was actually really good.
By 9:30 I was back at the hostel and spent the next couple of hours in the common room playing cards and telling others about my time in the north.
A travel day but a good day.
Excited to be in South Korea!
It’s crazy to think that this time next week I’ll be home.
Here’s to a great last week…
