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Korea 2025: Arriving in style
posted : Sunday, May 25, 2025
Seoul trip proper!
Picking up where I left off, I returned to airport bright and early. Not as early as the day before (a full hour later!), but enough to spend some time in the lounge before my 8am flight. Having gone home and re-read lounge reviews I found out about the existence of the larger wing and this time I duly made my way there.
 Checked in my bag for the second leg of the flight…and still no J cardstock  Live station at the other wing of SKL J lounge  Breakfast offerings, of course there’s laksa too  Too early for alcohol I guess  Larger dining area with more seating space  Bustling in the morning too 6 hour flight to ICN, and I think by now I’m somewhat well versed on flight proceedings in this cabin. Intended to sleep, but somehow morning coffee worked and I couldn’t sleep. Or maybe it’s all the adrenaline from the day or even the week before. But I was wide awake save for maybe a half an hour nap, and somehow this Boeing 787 had a different IFE selection that was not updated as compared to the A350 the night before because I couldn’t find Emerald Hill to watch.  More familiar with this seat, wuiseh  Lunch menu, I ordered BTC instead because ex-SIN had the most choices  Went for an orange juice for PDB  Mandatory photo?  Missed the satay  Starter of hot smoked salmon salad  Suzuki Teriyaki - grilled Chilean bass marinated in a savory teriyaki sauce, accompanied by tender boiled vegetables in a fragrant dashi stock and served with shimeiji mushroom flavored rice  Mascarpone cream cake with strawberry compote  The new Le Labo amenity kit  Yay a pair of bears! They weren’t stingy Anyway, landed in Seoul! Third time here, with the second one just slightly less than two years ago. Arriving on premium class means first out, and for some reason there wasn’t much of a queue at immigration, bags are prioritized so I was out in 20 minutes which must be some sort of record at somewhere not named Changi. AREX downtown as usual, and switched to subway to Hongdae once again. I really liked the vibes of the area so opted to stay there again this time round, for the first leg of the Seoul trip. Got a good discount and cashback off Expedia so thought I’d up the comfort level to a mid tier hotel, pricing wise, and ended up with Mercure.  Immigration queue  Heading down to the AREX platforms  On the way to town  Checking in! Room tour  Room view I was actually quite wowed by the room! Good size, only awkward for the sink to be located outside the bathroom. And actually on the second night two out of the three lifts broke down simultaneously and there was a queue just to go up to our rooms on that one functional lift. I actually promised trainer to maybe try to squeeze in workout sessions seeing that my hotels sound quite decent but the gym here was kinda sad (and I never really found time for it) so yeah. Rested a bit, tried to shuteye a bit but didn’t work out too well again so ended up doing a bit of planning to see where I can go for the evening and dinner, then actually executing it.  Streets of Hongdae  First stop  First meal, K-BBQ! Place is called Cheongdonok  Contemplated kimchi but nah  Ambience  Meattttt  Strolling around the area after dinner  Hongdae is always a vibe  Cold  Post dinner snack  Heading back to the hotel Decided to just head back and call it a day - I wasn’t fully equipped for a 0 deg temperature and I told myself I can’t catch anything this trip so better to force myself to rest. |
