M&C: Korea

We left LA the morning of the 15th, spent a not-as-long-as-it-could-have-been 13 hours on the plane, and arrived in Seoul at about 5PM on the 16th, pretty discombobulated. Everything was super smooth with immigration, finding the correct train into the city, negotiating the subway, and walking the final couple blocks to our little hotel in Jongno-gu. We were very tired and dramatically underprepared for the 20-degree weather, but managed to rally and walk dazedly around the block for a simple soup meal before crashing out.

Next morning, we were up by about 6AM and so got to spend a long half day exploring a little bit. We walked a few blocks over to Gwangjang Market, wandered through the stalls, and ate some little tidbits here and there, including a hand-pulled noodle soup featured on the Netflix series "Street Food."

We wandered around the neighborhood for a while, walking through the little alleyways that are so distinctively Korean-feeling, and stopping at a completely empty cafe to eat a totally unseasonal and hunger-unnecessary shaved-ice-milk dessert called bingsoo. The temperature was still hovering right around freezing, though, and we were starting to hit our first (overeating-induced) crash of the day, so we went back to the hotel to chill for the last hour or so before we had to check out.

Napped and stomachs mostly settled, we went back into the world to kill the last few hours before we had to head back to the airport. We wound south through a mix of cutesy hipster neighborhoods and bustling business districts towards the iconic Namsan hill that dominates central Seoul. After a $7 cable car trip to the top, we found nice views and a bit of sunshiney warmth despite the smog and the K-pop blaring over tinny speakers. We walked down on the opposite side towards Seoul Station, where we mazed our way through what felt like several kilometers of train station before getting on the train back to the airport.

Everything went super smoothly once again, and we slept some on the flight to Bangkok, getting in around 9PM local time, 11PM in Seoul, 6AM in LA. We immediately started sweating as we waited for our taxi outside the airport but seamlessly made it to a simple hotel near the airport and crashed out.

Next steps: Get into central Bangkok today and spend a couple days exploring the city before heading north towards Chiang Mai.