After arriving at the airport, we took a shuttle bus to the Incheon Airport Hotel where we could get some rest before trekking into Seoul on Friday morning. Although we were tired, and somewhat frustrated (me) due to cell phone failure while trying to contact our hotel (more of a user error than a technology issue – I blame the exhaustion), we wanted to go out for our first meal in Korea. Incheon was so lovely that we could not resist walking around a bit at night and taking in the sights of South Korea. There were many sparkly lights, strange and unfamiliar smells, and an overwhelming curiosity about our new surroundings that needed immediate attention. We pulled up to the hotel, considered going straight to sleep….at least until we saw this:
So many lights and sparkles, so little time! We also had our first experience with “Engrish”, which is really funny/incorrect English translations that appear all over Asia. This was a “Californian Bar” with a Coca-Cola theme:
After taking in some of the sights, we luckily ran into an Australian couple who suggested taking an outdoor seat for dinner and splitting some dishes. We ordered Ramen, Dumplings (one of our favorites so far), Bulgogi, and had (what seems like) a million side dishes. This was our first experience with the obscene amount of side-dishes Koreans serve with meals- most of them being various types of kimchi. We ended up ordering way too much food, but it was a nice introduction to portion sizes and ordering for groups:
Shana trying to figure out the contents of the side-dishes.
Matt nearly too tired to eat – just observing the strangeness!
Jen is pretty satisfied with the Kimchi and fish strips? (at least we think it was some kind of fish!)
Octopus tank with no octopi…I was slightly disappointed but have seen many octopi since then.
Beautiful walk back to the hotel to finally sleep after passing these Koreans who were down to party!
We resisted the urge to pet these adorable kittens in front of our hotel.
Our stay in Incheon was quite short, but was a nice quiet evening before making the journey into Seoul the next morning which was about a 45 minute bus ride from the airport. We all got some much needed rest because the weekend was PACKED with fun & adventure! More to follow….