Day 237: No Seoul After 15 Hour Flight

Kidding, we are ecstatic to be in South Korea!!! This was Mary’s third round and Kieran’s first so it’s exciting to share this country with him. And of course, we must mention how sad we are that Andrea is not here to party with us. She has been such an integral part of these Seoul trips and could never imagine South Korea without her. She just “had to move back to America 😒”

Woke up 7am after Tom’s wedding and got to Dulles airport with plenty of time. We had a 56 minute layover in Montreal (risky) but it payed off because the flight out of Dulles left on time. It’s 15 hours to Seoul and being slightly hungover from the wedding played nicely into passing out asleep on the plane. Mary got 7 hours in; Kieran not so much.

We landed 4:30pm Seoul time and made our sleepy way through the metro system (for real, Mary’s a pro now). Previously setting home base in Hongdae and Itaewon, we went with older neighborhood Jongno-3 this time. We climbed out of the subway into colorful flashing lights with young people eating out in little stands and K-BBQs. Mary paused and made Kieran take it all in with an official “Welcome to Korea.”

After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we went to dinner in an attempt to stay awake until 9:30/10:00pm. We navigated through the colorful back alleyways and smelled the amazing food from all directions. Picked a food stall back on the main street and enjoyed tteok-bokki (rice cakes), grilled pork, and plum water alcoholic beverage. It felt so good to be back in South Korea; threw in some old pictures for memories and thankfulness to Andrea as well as Catie, Madison, and Hannah joining in 2019 ❤️

Food:
Tteok-bokki
Grilled Pork

Spots:
Jongno-3Read more