Friday April 17
After a short night we got up at 4:30am - and headed to the airport to catch our 7am flight to NGO (Nagoya) on UA - all went smoothly - we even had a decent brekkie on the 3.5 hour flight. After a 1.5 hour stop in NGO we boarded our Asiana flight to Seoul - a short 2 hour hop. OZ served a nice lunch with adult refreshments.
We arrived and went through C&I and baggage collection in about 20 minutes and caught the next hotel airport bus to our hotel, the Conrad. It was a quick trip as the traffic was relatively light, given the time of day and the bus was almost empty so the Conrad was the first stop instead of the third. The Conras is location in the Yeouido area - an upmarket business area on an island on the Hangang River overlooking a huge park. It is part of 3 other ofice complexes with a huge shopping center linking them altogether - there is also direct access to 2 subway lines.
We arrived and were all checked in by 3pm (local time, -1 hour from Guam and Japan). While I unpacked Dieter checked out restaurants and activities. We hit the Club Lounge just before the start of the 5-7pm canapés and drinks. After eating lots of canapés we decided to skip dinner and hit the sack early as we were both stuffed after the short night and day’s travels.
Saturday April 18
After a great night’s sleep we got up to a beautiful day - 5℃ but heading for 22℃ with clear skies. We had an excellent breakfast in the club lounge then after some study and consultation with the concierge set out by subway for one of the many areas of this huge metropolis - 20+ million city. Our first planned activity was to visit the Imperial Palace (only a few subway stops away) but it was cordoned off by 100’s if not 1000’s of police (we found out later that today was the anniversary of the ferry disaster and large protests were planned). Instead, against our better judgement, we jumped a hop-on-hop-off tourist bus - our first stop being Namsan park on a hill overlooking the city with a cable car to the top where you can then go up Seoul Tower.
We did this - but the park etc were becoming very crowded with weekend crowds on a beautiful sunny day. There were many cherry trees still blossoming. Back down we re-commenced the bus tour - which was OK but the last 45 minutes was spent in traffic. Back at the starting place, near the Palace, the crowds had increased as had the police presence. There was no way we were going to get anywhere near the Palace today. Since it was already past 3pm - we took the subway back to our hotel and had a look around the attached mall with 100s of shops.
We freshened up and went to the club lounge at 5pm - starving as we had skipped lunch. We had a pizza and pasta in the hotel’s Italian restaurant and off to bed early again. As mentioned before the price in Seoul for F&B are eye-watering - a pizza cost close to $40 as did the pasta - both were OK but certainly not haute cuisine - the same restaurant had a set menu for over $100 - on leaving we checked out the buffet at Zest (the hotel’s all day dining restaurant right beside Atrio) - it look very nice but then it should for $100+ pp (without any beverages).
Sunday April 19
We woke up to cloudy skies with drizzle as forecast; however, unlike Saturday it was already 16℃ with a high of 17℃ forecast.
We left around 9:15am by subway for Insa-dong - an area famous for its traditional Korean village (Bukchon). When we got out of the subway it was raining hard, we had our gortex jackets but no umbrellas so after about 20 minutes we decided to give this area a miss for the time being. At this stage it was either go back to the hotel to borrow unbrellas or go somewhere where we could stay inside. We opted for the Lotte shopping mall and adjacent 5* hotel as it was closer (by subway) in the Myeongdong area. After wandering around the shopping mall and checking out the food hall - amazing stuff we started checking out restaurants - the ones in the Lotte hotel were OTT price-wise and the ones on the 11th and 12th floor of the shopping mall did not inspire us - we’re just not very adventureous food-wise.
We headed back to our hotel arriving around 1:30pm - we opted for a return visit to their Italian restaurant where we shared a pizza.
After lunch we borrowed umbrellas from the hotel (after a bit of a kerfuffle as they only had one left but eventaully the doorman found another) - we then took a long walk in the park along side the river in front of our hotel - while the cherry blossoms were pretty much over the azeleas were in full bloom; the rain even stopped.
We had fives’es in the lounge and skipped dinner - off to bed early.
Monday April 20
We woke up to cloudy skies with drizzle - again - looked like a repeat of the previous day. We went to the Imperial Palace which was huge and really worth the visit - thank goodness we did not miss it. Then we went to a part of the city where there still exists authentic Korean houses (Bukchon) - it was really nice to wonder around these tranditional (but spruced up and still occupied) houses amit trendy shops and cafes.
We even found a French cafe where we stopping for a drink - it was very pleasant as the morning cloud/drizzle had cleared to a fine day.
Back at the hotel we spent happy hour in the lounge then went to the Italian restaurant in the hotel - Dieter had pasta and I had an entree crab salad. Off to bed early again - we’re defintely getting travel weary.
Tuesday April 21
Our last day in Seoul and it was a wonderfully sunny. Since our flight was only at 8:30pm, after breakfast and packing we headed over to the famous Gagnam area - all in all it was a bit of a fizzer - we really did not have enough time to get to know exactly where the highlights were but we certainly hit the lowlights.
We had arranged a 3pm checkout so back at the hotel we finished off our packing, freshening up and changing then headed to the airport on the 4:09pm bus - by 5:25pm we were relaxing in the Asiana lounge - we even got our isle/middle seat combo changed to a window/isle combo so all’s well, except for the F&B in the lounge which gives the former UA in Sydney a run for it’s money as total garbage. The F&B on the flight to Sydney was also a bit of a disaster, they ran out of western meals so Dieter got a steak served with chopsticks (but no entree) - I had fish was was inedible. The champage was room temperature and the breakast eggs were cold. At least I got 6 hours sleep.