Dodging disasters in Korea and Japan

[offshore171]

This recent trip had us dodging one disaster after another, including near misses with:

An earthquake
A political assassination attempt
A major plane crash

And then finally our luck ran out and we experienced a real life earthquake!

Travelling party is a family of 2 adults 2 kids, and the travel occurred in Dec '23 to Jan '24

The plan:

• QF From SYD to ICN (Seoul Incheon)
• 8 days in Korea including NYE in Seoul
• Visits to Busan and the DMZ with North Korea!
• JAL from GMP (Seoul Gimpo) to HND (Tokyo Haneda)
• Few days in Tokyo
• Few days in Myoko Kogen
• Couple more days in Tokyo
• QF from HND to SYD

Views from the lounge on departure day. Not our plane, but it's going in the right direction:

 

[offshore171]

Sydney Airport was super busy. There was some sort of international boyscouts event on somewhere and there seemed to be thousands of them trying to check in.

Qantas Lounge also super busy, with a long wait for a table. To be expected during a peak travel period though, so all good.

Eventually we head down to the gate. The adjacent gate is a flight to Chile. It's been heavily delayed as some passengers failed to board. They are paged repeatedly, then an announcement is made that the gate is closed and the baggage handlers must now remove their bags from the plane.

Just as I'm thinking "I'm glad that's not our flight..." the same thing ends up happening to our flight.

Our flight, QF87 is a day flight scheduled for an 11:40 takeoff, and it takes off about an hour late due to the no show passengers. Why does this happen?

Anyway, it's an older A330, and for despite the majority off the trip being in the daytime, they black out the entire cabin for the whole flight.

They made up a bit of time enroute and we arrived in Seoul Incheon at 21:00 (about 30 mins late)

The airport was reasonably busy and we clear immigration, baggage and customs formalities in about 45 mins.

Normally I prefer getting an airport train downtown, but it's now about 10pm and there's 4 of us with luggage, so we get what the refer to a a "Jumbo Taxi". The drive into Seoul takes about an hour or so

Our digs for this part of the trip: The Westin Josun, which is in the Myeong-Dong district.

This is a popular area and quite close to Seoul Town Hall, Seoul main station etc.

 

[offshore171]

Next morning we have breakfast at The Ninth Gate, one of the hotel's restaurants. It overlooks an historic temple and some ramparts.



Then we head out to explore Seoul for the first time.

First order of business is to get "Tmoney" cards. These are smart cards for public transport. but they can also be used for payments at convenience stores, cafes, vending machines etc. Very similar to the SUICA or PASMO cards in Japan.

In Korea you get these cards at your nearest convenience store. There's a 7-11 across the road, so we get the cards and charge them up (cash only).

We get on the metro at City Hall station and head for the Korean National Museum.

It had been "proper cold" in Seoul a few days before our arrival (-15C) and the lake outside the museum was completely frozen over.



Then we approach the museum




There are robot guides

 

[Matt_01]

I am liking this already, we have been to both countries before and in April we are going back but doing it the reverse order 14 days in Japan and 5 Days in South Korea.

 

[offshore171]

After the museum we jump on the metro back to City Hall.

At this time I managed to do one of the dumbest things I can recall while travelling.

I tapped on to the metro and entered the station. This station had no turnstile to enter - just tap and walk through. The machine made a different beep to what I was expecting. As I was boarding the train, I worked out that I had tapped on with my hotel room keycard, instead of the Tmoney transit card.

And of course at the destination station (City Hall) there were turnstiles to exit and my Tmoney card wouldn't let me out because I hadn't tapped on in the first place. I ended up crawling under the turnstile. Living the dream.

At city hall, an ice rink was set up for new years eve

 

[offshore171]

Next to the hotel is the Lotte main department store.

In the basement, is hands-down the best food market and food court I have seen anywhere

There are dozens of sit down restaurants, as well as produce merchants, bakeries, wine merchants. It just stretches on as far as the eye can see.

It was filled with locals getting supplies for the new years holiday period.




Back in the lift at the hotel a very excited American guy says "hey have you seen the food court next door? Never saw anything like it!"

Then, the snow arrived. And kept arriving

In the evening we take a walk along Myeong-Dong walking street

 

[offshore171]

And then the snow arrived

And kept arrving

 

[offshore171]

We checked out the Starfield Library, which is quite a sight. It frequently appears in netflix Kdramas and the 'gram, and is definitely worth a visit.




Outside, the snow continues.


Dinner was KBBQ at a small place in a basement near the city hall ice rink. Good meal and reasonably priced.

 

[offshore171]

And this brought us to New Years Eve.

This starts with a visit to Lotte World - a large them park near Lotte Tower

It's very busy, long lines for the rides, as to be expected during a holiday period.



The imposing sight of Lotte Tower with the top disappearing into the cloud deck.

 

[offshore171]

And our attention turned to the question of what to do for NYE dinner.

Quite a few restaurants were booked out, I guess to be expected. Including most of the in-house restaurants in the Westin.

However on the top floor is a Michelin guide sushi restaurant: Sushi Cho

Sushi Cho – Seoul - a MICHELIN Guide Restaurant

Sushi Cho – a restaurant in the 2024 MICHELIN Guide South Korea. The MICHELIN inspectors’ point of view, information on prices, types of cuisine and opening hours on the MICHELIN Guide's official website

guide.michelin.com

They are doing set menus for NYE, which look to be impressive, albeit pretty pricey. They are "sort of" booked out, but they say they have a private room for 4 for an extra charge of about $30 per head.

Heck it's NYE, we'll take it.

The room has a view across Seoul and overlooks the Ice Rink, which is a hive of activity.


There was about 5 different set menus on offer, ranging from about $200 to $350. Certainly not cheap, but it's a special occasion and the quality was very high.

Some of the menus were heavy on the Fugu (toxic puffer fish). Not trusting the chef to that degree, we went for the Bishamonten which was around $250, and didn't have Fugu.

 

[Justinf]

After the museum we jump on the metro back to City Hall.

At this time I managed to do one of the dumbest things I can recall while travelling.

I tapped on to the metro and entered the station. This station had no turnstile to enter - just tap and walk through. The machine made a different beep to what I was expecting. As I was boarding the train, I worked out that I had tapped on with my hotel room keycard, instead of the Tmoney transit card.

And of course at the destination station (City Hall) there were turnstiles to exit and my Tmoney card wouldn't let me out because I hadn't tapped on in the first place. I ended up crawling under the turnstile. Living the dream.

At city hall, an ice rink was set up for new years eve


View attachment 369446

I had tapped on with my hotel room keycard

don’t feel bad, I did this yesterday in Sapporo

 

[offshore171]

I had tapped on with my hotel room keycard

don’t feel bad, I did this yesterday in Sapporo

Haha awesome, so I'm not the only one!

 

[offshore171]

After NYE dinner, it's a walk down Myeong-Dong walking street, which is bustling with food vendors.



Then onto city hall and the ice rink

Here it is between skating sessions

 

[offshore171]

New years day is clear and sunny. A good day to check out the views from Seoul Tower

This is walking distance from downtown, so we set off early.

The tower is busy with locals out enjoying the public holiday, and no doubt the great weather




The cable car station is nestled among the seoul old city walls

 

[offshore171]

Late in the day, news filtered through of the earthquake in Japan. This was disaster near miss #1

2024 Noto earthquake - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This was a very significant event that affected Ishikawa and Niigata prefectures, and took over 240 lives. Our plans had us visiting Niigata the following week and we felt terrible for those killed or the 1300 displaced. Japan gets more than its share of natural disasters.

The next morning, 2nd of January, we caught the fast train to Busan, Korea's second city, on the south coast.

The fast train system in Korea is the KTX. Here's Seoul Station






Luggage storage is a bit better than Japan's shinkansen for those familiar. Each carriage has a couple of these larger suitcase storage bays, plus the overhead racks in the seating area.

 

[offshore171]

Then disaster #2.

Browsing the news on the train journey to Busan, there's a breaking news update.

Attempted assassination of Lee Jae-myung - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There's been an assassination attempt on the Korean opposition leader. In Busan, where we are headed... He was making a press conference when an assassin managed to stab him.

What are we in for? A city in lockdown, swarming with Police?

Everything seems ok as we emerge from the Busan KTX station

 

[offshore171]

One of the main drawcards in Busan is Haeundae Beach and the surround beachfront areas.

The KTX fast train station is surprisingly far from the centre of the action, so we grab a cab.

We pass Busan's busy dockyards.


And soon arrive at Haeundae Beach.

It's looking absolutely terrific, even now it mid winter. Weather is perfection.


The beach is adorned with a number of sculptures.

 

[offshore171]

We explore Busan, which is apparently hosting the world ping pong championships this year!



Tsunami info, just in case



There are two imposing looking statues offshore, which face out to sea. One is a mermaid, and the other, shown here is a mariner.

 

[offshore171]

So a great day in Busan, with superb winter sun, and thankfully no signs of any chaos from that morning's assassination attempt!

We make our way back to Busan station, and find an excellent sit-down restaurant upstairs. It's a really good terminal with plenty of shops and restaurants to choose from while you wait for your train.

Then it's the KTX back to Seoul



Unlike Europe and Japan, the KTX doesn't have a speed display in the cabin. So I pulled out Waze on my phone and clocked it at 293kph. Not too shabby!

 

[offshore171]

That was when news filtered in of dodged disaster #3. The Haneda airport collision between an A350 and a Dash 8. We were supposed to fly into Haneda a couple of days later.

2024 Haneda Airport runway collision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Many readers would be aware of this incident which made the news around the world, but briefly, the Dash 8 was a JP Coastguard aircraft, doing disaster relief operations for the previous day's quake.

I fired up FlightRadar 24 and there was almost nothing coming or going into Haneda.

Planes were being diverted all over the place. Interesting times.

Sadly, several crew members on the Dash8 were killed, however, every single passenger on the A350 survived despite a full destruction of the aircraft. This must be the most successful evacuation of a wide body airliner ever?