As we mentioned in the first post, while you can fly direct from Bangkok back to Vancouver, it would be on Air Canada, which I recently described to a zoomer coworker as “mid”.  The coworker pretended to be very impressed that I had used “mid” correctly.

We chose Korean Air Lines instead, as it allowed us to use our accumulated Sky Team miles to cover the entire airfare.  And unsurprisingly , flying KAL involves a stopover in Seoul.  (Technically Incheon, FWIW)

Specifically, a nine hour stopover in Seoul, which actually gave us enough time to take the 50 minute train from the airport into the city and see a few things before coming back to make our flight.

Now, the airport itself runs excursions for tourists in exactly our situation.  They even provide appropriate winter clothes for said tourists.  Sadly, those excursions all leave at 9 AM, and we didn’t clear immigration until 9:20.

So we went looking for our second airport bag storage in two days.  On the way, we encountered ANOTHER paparazzi intensive situation.  First we saw a bunch of people standing around with remarkably high powered camera equipment in the camera hall.  Then, what was clearly an entourage entered, and all the cameras started whirring, and a group of nearby teen girls started jumping up and down excitedly.

And then there was some running around and general fuss as people tried to get better glimpses of whoever it was.  It was all very exciting. Our best guess is that it was probably this person.

But at any rate, we disposed of our luggage and headed into town.  Where we were confronted with the fact that it was -5 C in Seoul at the moment.  Remember I said the airport tours provided parkas?  Remember I said we weren’t on one of those?

Yeah.

So not a lot of pictures, because it’s hard to take photos when your hands are jammed firmly into your pockets, and you’re shivering so hard you can’t hold the camera still.

We want to the Namdaemun market, because a) it sounded interesting, and b) it was directly adjacent to the train station.

It was interesting.  A different vibe from the markets in Thailand, possibly due to the cold, who knows.  We got some coffee, we got some snacks, we considered just flat out buying parkas, and then we made our way to a narrow alley in the food market section that specialized in one particular type of food – cutlassfish stew, or Galchi Jorim. All along this narrow, covered path, was shop after shop with grills outside in the hallway, and tiny little seating areas inside.

We picked a likely looking one, and discovered that there was exactly one menu item.  This stew for two, plus side dishes.  Sounds good to us!

There were a million bones, but absolutely worth the effort. So good.

We then went and saw the nearby sight.  Here is the sight.

Apparently this is the Sungnyemun Gate.  It was very, very cold.  Let’s go back inside now, OK?

We went back inside.  We had coffee.  We went back to the airport.  We went home.

I would very much like to come back to Korea some day wearing appropriate clothing.  But the one meal we had was a banger, so I’m looking forward to it.

Also, we once again landed well before we took off.