As of recently, I'm fortunately eligible to take interline flights as a standby passenger. Despite being on the bottom of the priority list, it does open doors to more places around the world. With all that said, it allowed us to travel from Tokyo to Seoul for a fraction of the cost of a normal ticket. We were trying to catch a 9 AM flight, so we got up at around 5 AM to do one last pack before leaving. We also had some snacks to finish, so I got busy working on that while she did most of the packing haha.
The subway to Haneda Airport was busier than I expected at 6 AM. I was expecting most passengers to get off at earlier stations, but it turned out that a lot of them didn't get off till the last terminal. We got off one station before hand and headed straight to Korean Air's kiosks to check in our luggage and see what seats we got. Since we were standby, they customer service agent had to double check with her manager to get the go-ahead to place us onto the 9 AM flight. Luckily, there were enough seats and we were able to sit beside one another on the flight. After dropping off our bags, we headed to get breakfast at an ochazuke restaurant, Hitoshinaya. For those of you not familiar with ochazuke, it's hot tea, dashi or simply just water on top of rice. We both opted for the "Rice soaked in Japanese broth set meal", which had a bunch of side dishes that I don't know all the names of, but each was quite delicious. The thing with Japanese cuisine, in my opinion, is that it's mostly subtle flavors working together in harmony with one another. No one flavor typically stands out. I can safely say that each of the 8 side dishes did that just right. The broth seemed to be made out of mostly dashi (this I'm quite sure), and it complemented the rice well. You could ask for an extra bowl of rice, but I didn't want to feel too full before a flight.
Once we finished eating, we headed to go through security so that we can go to our gate. Boarding went quite smoothly. The configuration on the plane was 2-4-2, so we both ended up sitting in the middle in the middle set of seats. Fortunately the plane ride was relatively short, so it wasn't too much of a deal. I ended up just listening to music as the plane flew to Gimpo airport. I was surprised that they offered us a meal, making me thankful that I didn't eat too much breakfast.
When we arrived at Gimpo, I believe there were at least 3 other flights that landed around the same time as us. There was an enormous line trying to get through immigrations. I was going to go line up, but my girlfriend told me to follow her through their SES line. I was under the impression that I couldn't go through the SES line since I didn't apply for mine, but they allowed me to enter through the priority/crew line which quite literally saved me an hour. I'm guessing this is how long it took to get through immigrations since we had to wait at least 30 minutes to get our luggage. While waiting for luggage, there was barely anyone standing by us to collect.
With our luggage in hand, my girlfriend booked us a taxi to take us to our hotel: Dormy Inn Seoul Gangnam. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the hotel, yet it only was about $40 CAD. Dormy Inn is a Japanese hotel chain that I feel is an upscaled APA. When we got to the hotel, I heard a bunch of guests speaking Japanese. For a second, I thought I was still in Japan. Since it was only around 11 AM, we weren't allowed to check in yet, so we dropped our bags and headed down to Gangnam-daero. Thank goodness we took a taxi, for Dormy Inn is located halfway up a hill. I would not want to walk up a hill lugging luggage behind me! We stopped by a contact store called Hapa Kristin. This particular store seemed to have a collaboration (or perhaps the entire brand has a collaboration) with Jang Wonyoung. I can't say I know much about her since I don't listen to as much Kpop nowadays, but I'm assuming she's the new or current It girl in South Korea. After browsing a bit, we decided it was time for lunch.
We found a Korean BBQ Beef/Hanwoo restaurant called Iipyeon Sirloin Gangnam. We got one set lunch meal that came with two pieces of meat. Besides that, we had a cold noodle dish (forgot the name) and tofu stew. A wide variety of side dishes was also provided and I got myself a grapefruit soda to sip on while we ate. The nice thing about this restaurant was a staff member grilled the meat and vegetables for us, so I didn't have to worry about not cooking the meat properly (brings back bad memories of 2017 Saga Beef). The beef was quite tasty that was accented with a variety of seasonings that you can pick: salt, wasabi or mustard. I had to say that the mustard was my favorite seasoning to use as I ate my portion of the set. The cold noodles and tofu stew were also quite delectable as well. Once finished, we paid and made our way back to walk down Gangnam-Daero.
After making a quick stop at the local arcade, and back to Hapa Kristin to purchase some contact lenses, we made our way back up the hill to our hotel to check in. I was thoroughly impressed at how nice the room was; we booked a twin room, so we each had our own beds. There was plenty of space left for a loveseat and table, along with your standard desk and chair. After settling in for a while, we went to take a bath at their public bath in the basement. We also had to do laundry, so we packed an APA plastic bag with all of our dirty clothes. Fortunately, washing your clothes was free. We only had to pay 2000 won (about $2 CAD) to use the dryer for 40 minutes.
Like an onsen, the men's side had a few baths for one to try: the standard public bath, soaking tubs and a cold bath. What was unique were they had standing showers, instead of the traditional sit down to shower type stalls I often see in Japan. After our bath, I went over to their small canteen to grab a free popsicle. We headed back to our room to wait for the washer to be done, before I headed back down to load the dryer. I initially didn't have small enough change to use the dryer so I made a purchase at a nearby vending machine for small change. With the dryer full and set to run at high, I headed back upstairs to wait.
Once the dryer was done, I headed back down to collect our clothes. Due to my error at setting it high, some of our clothes shrunk a bit or got damaged by the high heat sadly. After surveying the damage, and folded the clothes, we headed back out for the night. Maybe because we were located in Gangnam, but I felt the city really came alive during the night unlike the constant droves of people in Tokyo. We stopped by an ArtBox (like The Loft), grabbed some bubble tea from Hey Tea and went back to the arcade. The arcade was a lot busier than I expected, and the arcade game we wanted to play (Bishi Bashi) was occupied. We ended up playing some other mini games (ie: shooting hoops, buggy racing, and a VR horse obstacle course) before heading out to the Olive Young across the street. We purchased a bunch of snacks (low calorie and quite well made) before heading back out. Instead of heading to a restaurant for dinner, due to it being somewhat early (around 8 PM), we decided to head back to the hotel first since we didn't want to wait in line.
We packed what we purchased into our luggage before deciding to not go out for dinner. I was feeling tired from all that walking, so we decided to get dinner at the hotel. Every night, they offer free ramen. I took a quick shower and we headed on down for our meal. For being free, the ramen and side dishes offered (kimchi and pickled radish) was quite good. After eating, we headed back to our room to wind down for the night.
Another busy day with traveling included! Seoul didn't feel as hot as Tokyo, which was welcoming. As I get older, I feel less inclined to travel during the heat of summer in Asia. Just a couple more days left in our short, but jampacked trip!
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