We’re In The Future! Travel June 14th-15th

Hello from Tomorrow!

We made it to 13 hours ahead of home by flying around 14 hours across the Arctic Circle!

It was our first time to the International Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson - it was really nice! Maybe it was because it was Thursday, but it didn’t feel crowded in the slightest. We had our choice of lounges to hang out in, since our credit card gave us access to a general one and the Korean Air tickets we had came with access to the Delta one. We stopped at the general one first and had some snacks:

Then we went on over to the Delta one which had much better views, slightly better food, and really nice restrooms... Overall I think we’d recommend that one despite the fact that most cocktails weren’t covered under the complimentary options.

The flight itself was pretty good - first/business class is SUCH A LIFESAVER when flying for that long. Being able to recline and prop my feet up while we watched some movies and then lay all the way back was pretty awesome, despite the fact that I’m about an inch too tall and couldn’t 100% lay all the way out. Neither Meghan nor I were super successful at sleeping, but I got enough rest that I don’t think I’m jet lagged at all - I felt pretty normal before we went to bed last night.

We both chose the bibimbap for lunch on the plane since we had read that was the best dish they served on the airline - and we forgot to take pictures of it. It was really good for airline food! They gave us some seared tuna as an appetizer, a caprese salad with regular Italian dressing, a selection of cheeses with grapes and crackers, and even a little thing of Häagen-Dazs for dessert. I felt super stuffed after all of that.

Toward the end of the flight we both ordered the udon, which had shrimp and a scallop, which was pretty tasty too:

That came with a salad (which had balsamic dressing, which we were like “why didn’t they serve the balsamic with the caprese like is more normal?”) and a fruit plate for dessert.

We breezed through immigration where they took our fingerprints and pictures, only had to wait like 5 minutes for our bags, didn’t have to stop for customs beyond handing them our declaration (or lack thereof), and made it out into the arrivals and departures. We picked up some contactless payment cards for the subways and trains at the convenience store in the lobby and went down to find our train.

The train culture is definitely different then Japan - less stoic, less organized - but we had no problems riding out and making a transfer with our luggage to get to our Airbnb. We did see a propaganda video amidst the news clips on a screen in the train about the island that both South Korea and Japan claim is theirs, which was kind of interesting.

When we got to the Airbnb neither the room nor the pocket WiFi was working, so I contacted our host on KakaoTalk (the chat app that basically all Korean’s use which has AMAZING mascot emojis) and he said he’d come over in about 15-20 minutes. He showed up about 25 minutes later with iced caramel macchiatos from the local coffee shop and fixed the WiFi issues. He didn’t speak as much English as I expected, but we were able to get our points across and he seemed super nice and apologetic. We gave him the box of Girl Scout cookies we brought for him and he thanked us and left.

We went out walking to find an ATM that we could pull some extra cash out from, and then went strolling through Hongdae, which is a super popular area where there’s tons of clothing stores, restaurants, bars, and clubs. It was pretty crowded since it was a Friday night, and there are a million little side streets that I’m sure we’ll never be able to fully explore. It reminded me a lot of what I remember of Harajuku (minus the black guys hired as exotic people to pull you into stores) in Tokyo. It was also hard to figure out what all the various restaurants on second floors were! I’m sure it’s easier if you are fluent in Korean, but we just had to sound everything out from the signs, which didn’t always help.

We ended up in a dalkalbi place for dinner which had these really great pictures of delicious looking cheese-strewn platters:

(a me for scale - this thing was pretty huge)

After that we continued to walk around to check things out. We decided to grab some dessert in a cute little coffee and pastry shop that had a wall filled with fake flowers:

That strawberry tart was delicious - I think the main part was like a not-super-sweet cheesecake thing. The coffee and milk tea we ordered were really good too.

We saw a bunch of Japanese restaurants while we were walking too, and some of them looked super cool:

We headed back to the Airbnb and FaceTimed with Escher before heading off to bed. The accommodations are about what you’d expect for the price we paid, which is to say, serviceable... But I think we’ll be fine. I slept fine, though Meghan is a little sore from the very firm bed.

We’re heading out soon for our first full day soon!