Day 1 and 2: Liftoff!

Hey, here is the first blogpost of Age of Technology. In the coming 20(-ish) days you’ll find daily updates and information about our coming and going around South-Korea. You can also follow us on our Polarsteps and LinkedIn where you can see our routes and photos of the trip.

After packing the last few things into our bags, we headed for Schiphol. After an uneventful journey by train we met up at the airport, where we took our first group picture of the trip. The check-in procedure went as expected, meaning that we had to wait a lot. Passing through security was however somewhat troublesome, since half of the bags were separated for further examination by the security staff. The reason for this was however not that serious, it turns out the travel guides absorb or reflect much of the x-rays. After this we still had some time to kill at the airport, especially since our flight was delayed by 20 minutes. After splitting up and searching for a restaurant, most ended up simply going to McDonald’s. When it was almost time to get to the gate, some went to a pub along the way to get their last taste of some Dutch craft beers. After boarding each person got a water bottle, blanket, flip flops and a pillow, after which we took off heading for South-Korea.

The flight, Korean Air: KE926, was delayed by 20 minutes and consequently we left dutch soil behind us at 21:40. During the flight no further hiccups were able to delay us any further and we arrived at Incheon Air a little past 16:30 local time. Clear weather resulted in a stunning overview of Incheon before landing at terminal 2 of the airport. From here a brief train ride to Seoul Train Station would take us within walking distance to our destination, Guesthouse Aroha. For dinner, several people tried the local Korean cuisine, featuring bibimbap and a peculair dish named Korean Hangover Soup. The blinding lights of the billboards and lit up skyscrapers of downtown Seoul in addition to the neverending supply of convience stores, snackbars left an immediate impression. Since the following morning we had to get up quite early we didn’t go to bed too late, although the jetlag did not help to get a good nights sleep.

That was it for the first two days, tomorrow we’ll feature an exciting trip to the DMZ amongst other things.