First things first, a four hour redeye is far too short to get anywhere near enough sleep to survive on. But there we were at the Incheon airport feeling very shocked by how cold it suddenly was, and waiting for our bus. If you stay in a reasonably large hotel in Seoul, there's probably a bus that goes most of the way there, and if you stay in the
JW Marriott Seoul it pulls up right out front. The bus system at the airport is really efficient with numbered buses going to many different hotels regularly, and helpful guys out front who can point you in the right direction and help load up your luggage. We got ourselves checked in and since it was still really early and our room was ready, we
went down for a little nap. After waking up the Concierge was nice enough to point us to a really great restaurant walking distance from the hotel. I really wish I could tell you more about it, but it had no roman script at all in the name, and no employees that spoke English. Through a series of points and hand gestures we ended up with one of the lunch specials and only felt kind of awkward about looking kind of out of place and not knowing enough Korean to blend in a little. After lunch we went to a nearby Starbucks for some coffee and hopefully some internet, but couldn't actually get ourselves connected. We took a cab to Itaewon shopping street where we immediately worked on getting W some warmer gear to wear. At some point a guy peeks out from around a corner and says I have NFL and college stuff come look, Surprised that he had college stuff, I was at least willing to check i
t out and sure enough he has a replica Bo Jackson Auburn Jersey. He took us into the deep recesses to a place I'd never have gone into, and the jerseys were clearly not for everyone walking by to see. As an Alum I briefly considered that this guy was probably making a lot of green and Auburn was losing out on the revenue, but when I negotiated the price low enough, I knew the deal was too good to pass up. He was actually pretty agreeable to the price, which means I should have gone lower, but the final price for a replica jersey was a good $$30 less than a recent ebay listing. We then caught a ride on the Downtown Seoul City tour bus, and got off when it stopped at the NSeoul Tower. We hung out at the top for long enough to catch the sunset and get some great picture
s, We caught what turned out to be one of the last buses of the night, because when it reached a spot downtown, it didn't continue on to the stops nearer to our hotel. There was a random Christian church service going on basically in a downtown park, and they were handing out hot coffee to people nearby, which was welcome on this cold strange night. We then decided to try to find something to eat. We found another little place you're not likely to ever see in a guidebook, up a set of stairs, where local businessmen were seated at a floor table shouting and partying. It looked like a good time. By this time we'd found the translation for what do you recommend in Korean, pointed to it and had the waitress bring us a meal of her choice, She picked extremely well. It was getting late after dinner, and we were cold and tired, but we were going to try to take a bus home. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out the bus signs at all, and wandered around for a while trying to figure out how the heck to get back to our hotel. Since I was cold and miserable, we finally decided to find some more cash, and grab a cab. The ride back to the hotel turned out to be reasonable, so we'd wandered around a lot for no reason. Oh well, we saw parts of Seoul we'd never have explored otherwise. We made it back to the hotel, and went to the bar, for a sapphire & tonic accompanied by live jazz. It was a nice way to end the evening.
First things first, a four hour redeye is far too short to get anywhere near enough sleep to survive on. But there we were at the Incheon airport feeling very shocked by how cold it suddenly was, and waiting for our bus. If you stay in a reasonably large hotel in Seoul, there's probably a bus that goes most of the way there, and if you stay in the JW Marriott Seoul it pulls up right out front. The bus system at the airport is really efficient with numbered buses going to many different hotels regularly, and helpful guys out front who can point you in the right direction and help load up your luggage. We got ourselves checked in and since it was still really early and our room was ready, we 
went down for a little nap. After waking up the Concierge was nice enough to point us to a really great restaurant walking distance from the hotel. I really wish I could tell you more about it, but it had no roman script at all in the name, and no employees that spoke English. Through a series of points and hand gestures we ended up with one of the lunch specials and only felt kind of awkward about looking kind of out of place and not knowing enough Korean to blend in a little. After lunch we went to a nearby Starbucks for some coffee and hopefully some internet, but couldn't actually get ourselves connected. We took a cab to Itaewon shopping street where we immediately worked on getting W some warmer gear to wear. At some point a guy peeks out from around a corner and says I have NFL and college stuff come look, Surprised that he had college stuff, I was at least willing to check i
t out and sure enough he has a replica Bo Jackson Auburn Jersey. He took us into the deep recesses to a place I'd never have gone into, and the jerseys were clearly not for everyone walking by to see. As an Alum I briefly considered that this guy was probably making a lot of green and Auburn was losing out on the revenue, but when I negotiated the price low enough, I knew the deal was too good to pass up. He was actually pretty agreeable to the price, which means I should have gone lower, but the final price for a replica jersey was a good $$30 less than a recent ebay listing. We then caught a ride on the Downtown Seoul City tour bus, and got off when it stopped at the NSeoul Tower. We hung out at the top for long enough to catch the sunset and get some great picture
s, We caught what turned out to be one of the last buses of the night, because when it reached a spot downtown, it didn't continue on to the stops nearer to our hotel. There was a random Christian church service going on basically in a downtown park, and they were handing out hot coffee to people nearby, which was welcome on this cold strange night. We then decided to try to find something to eat. We found another little place you're not likely to ever see in a guidebook, up a set of stairs, where local businessmen were seated at a floor table shouting and partying. It looked like a good time. By this time we'd found the translation for what do you recommend in Korean, pointed to it and had the waitress bring us a meal of her choice, She picked extremely well. It was getting late after dinner, and we were cold and tired, but we were going to try to take a bus home. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out the bus signs at all, and wandered around for a while trying to figure out how the heck to get back to our hotel. Since I was cold and miserable, we finally decided to find some more cash, and grab a cab. The ride back to the hotel turned out to be reasonable, so we'd wandered around a lot for no reason. Oh well, we saw parts of Seoul we'd never have explored otherwise. We made it back to the hotel, and went to the bar, for a sapphire & tonic accompanied by live jazz. It was a nice way to end the evening.
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