After years of waiting... it was finally time for our Korea trip!
Well... almost.
Before we could even think about packing, we still had to check in online and apply for Korea's electronic travel authorization. The application itself was pretty straightforward... until it asked for our hotel address.
I copied the address in English. Nothing. I copied it again. Still nothing...
After several attempts, I finally realized it also wanted the address in Korean. Great... because reading Korean is definitely one of my hidden talents. 😅
At that point I was just copying and pasting random-looking characters, hoping I hadn't accidentally booked us into someone's apartment instead of a hotel.
Luckily, the K-ETA was approved in the end, so all that stress turned out to be unnecessary.
We drove from Toufen, Miaoli to the airport and left our car at the airport parking lot. It made getting to the airport much easier than taking public transport with luggage.
For this trip we flew with Asiana Airlines. I have to admit, it wasn't quite what I expected.
Maybe Taiwanese airlines have simply spoiled me, because we've flown with them many times and have never been separated as a family. We never even paid to choose seats, we were always automatically seated together.
With Asiana, even though there was an option to select seats, we still would have been split up and placed between strangers. While waiting to board, I noticed several other families having exactly the same problem, so it definitely wasn't just us.
Perhaps this is normal for many airlines, but after mostly flying with Taiwanese and Polish airlines, it felt quite strange.
One thing Adrian absolutely loved was the gift from the airline. He received a little origami animal set. I originally planned to spend the flight watching a movie, but instead I ended up folding paper animals with him. 😂
The flight itself was short, only about two and a half hours, so before we knew it, we had landed in Seoul.
Originally I wanted to take an airport bus into the city, but my husband thought taking a taxi would be much easier, especially since it was our first visit to Korea and it was already close to 10 PM.
The taxi certainly wasn't cheap - 100,000 won (around NT$2,000), but at that hour there weren't many attractive alternatives. We also noticed signs saying Uber was available, although my husband thought you couldn't order one directly from the airport. In the end, we simply took one of the official airport taxis waiting outside. It was a larger vehicle, and my husband also felt it wasn't fair to walk past the first taxi waiting in line just to look for a different one.
Not long later we arrived at the Courtyard by Marriott Seoul Namdaemun and checked into our room.
The first thing that caught my attention wasn't the room itself - it was the view.
Right outside our window stood Namdaemun Gate, beautifully illuminated against the night sky. I managed to take a photo just before the lights were switched off at around 11 PM.
When we booked the hotel, there weren't many affordable rooms with more than one proper bed. Most had two small beds, so we ended up choosing one king-size bed for the three of us.
Let's just say... I'm not the biggest fan of sharing a bed with Adrian. He has an amazing talent for kicking people in his sleep. 😆
After a long day of travelling, we finally settled in and got some rest.
Tomorrow, the real adventure would begin.
My goal for this trip?
To visit every palace in Seoul!
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