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First TR & Surprise Babymoon to Korea

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First TR & Surprise Babymoon to Korea

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Old May 6, 2018, 5:35 pm
  #1  
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Talking First TR & Surprise Babymoon to Korea



This is going to be my first TR here and a nice little surprise for a babymoon.
We originally planned to fly to BKK and HKT May. However, we found out the MRS. was pregnant and our family physician recommended against all travel due to the risk of Zika.
So with limited options since we wanted to see a country in SE Asia, we decided on Korea. Our original plan was to sit in front of a nice beach in HKT with a couple of drinks and relax for a week. Now the MRS wants to eat her way from Seoul to Busan........

Flights:
May 09 - YVR - ICN J AC063 Seats 2D 2G
May 21 - YVR - PEK J CA124 Seats ?? ??
May 21 - PEK - YVR J AC030 Seats 2D 2G

Last edited by YVRStarFlyer; May 6, 2018 at 11:02 pm
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Old May 6, 2018, 7:22 pm
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Something wrong in your flight/dates. You are flying to ICN twice - once non-stop and once via PEK, without returning home???
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Old May 6, 2018, 11:03 pm
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Talking

Originally Posted by IluvSQ
Something wrong in your flight/dates. You are flying to ICN twice - once non-stop and once via PEK, without returning home???
HAHA thx
Told you its my first!
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Old May 8, 2018, 12:51 pm
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Looking forward to this. Don't worry if it is your first. This will be interesting!
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Old May 13, 2018, 6:55 pm
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So Lets Get This Started.
May 9th Morning - We decided to leave a little early so my wife could eat a small breakfast in the YVR MLL before we got onto the flight. Online checked-in the night before and just had to drop off our 1 checked bag at the AC counter. There is not fast track for J passengers at YVR so you could either take 5 mins or 50 mins going through security if it just happened everyone arrived at the airport at the same time. We were lucky and it took 5 mins so we were on our way to the MLL lounge. Lets just say we should've paid for breakfast somewhere else. It was 9AM in the morning and food tasted like garbage. Sausages were soggy, scrambled eggs tasted like scrambled yellowly goop from powder eggs which was left sitting to long so they threw some more powder in their and called it a day and the hash browns were rock hard. The best thing was a cup of latte.......never thought I would want to get on the plane that bad........





FINALLY! It was time to get on my first Long Haul flight in a 787 J Class, I've never had a chance since for some reason I always manage to get on a 777-300 flying to SE Asia.
This is just weeks after AC introduced their "Signature Class". So what's new in the "Signature Class", a mattress pad thats almost as thing as my bedsheets, I'm pretty sure they are their for sanitary reasons rather than comfort; and a new amenity kit from "Want Les Essentiels".





Time to Eat!

Getting on this flight I got the feeling this was going to be a great Crew! They started meal service pretty much as soon as we took-off, reached cruising attitude and the seat-belt sign turned off. Appetizer Lobster, prawns, olive salsa verde, tomato confit, marinated artichokes, roasted garlic aioli Mixed greens, grape tomatoes, vinaigrette REALLY SOGGY GARLIC BREAD........ I had a glass of Jean-François Mérieau L'arpent des Vaudons Sauvignon Blanc 2016, Touraine, France


Main Course Spicy beef bibimbap, steamed rice, fried egg, mixed vegetables I thought, why not start off our Korea trip with a Korean inflight meal......then I thought, why not I start thinking a bit more before I order........it tasted nothing like bibimbap....it was just edible......


Next up Oka, Camembert, medium Cheddar, crackers & Fresh Seasonal Fruit and a glass of Dow’s Port, Portugal


And finally Brown sugar tart, vanilla custard Overall, the lunch was alright, nothing tasted great and nothing tasted horrible and most important of all, nothing made my wife puke......



Next Up
How to keep your pregnant wife fed in flight and still manage to get some sleep.....
We managed to get about 2 hours of sleep after this meal until 1 crying baby and 1 crying little girl woke us up. .....They were so cute when we boarded........little did we know....when one cries.....the other will harmonize.....this went on for about another 4ish hours before I just passed out cause I was so tired.
But lets look at how the Mrs took full advantage of all the food offered to J pax.




First you order the Dim sum selection of siu mai, har gau, spinach and shrimp dumpling which tasted like rubber......


then Hot noodle soup, shrimp and pork wontons, gai-lan which she thought was the best meal inflight......


And of course she jacked my kit kat......

So I had set my seat controls for the FA to wake me up for Breakfast. The Mrs. had the Spicy Korean beef, yam noodles which tasted alright.....as long as she is kept fed....I don't really care at this point....



I decided not to continue to Korean thing...until we were actually in Korea....so I got the Chicken schnitzel, gnocchi, bocconcini cheese, tomato sauce....it tasted much better than that rice plate thingy I had for lunch.....


Last note on the flight, the lavs were in J were kept pretty clean thru out the flight. Its a bit small compared to some others I've seen. My wife is 15-16 weeks and she said she barely fits and has trouble turning in there, she couldn't imagine trying to use the lavs if she was any bigger.





Next Up: Train to Busan & Eating our way thru the streets of Busan

Last edited by YVRStarFlyer; May 14, 2018 at 5:02 am
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Old May 14, 2018, 5:00 am
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Train to Busan & Day 1 of Eating

After a tiring 11 hour flight with 2 crying kids in J, now we got to hop on the train to Busan. Luckily, security was breeze and we were thru the line in less than 5 mins, grabbed a pair of Non-Stop AREX from ICN to Seoul Station. At Seoul Station, we picked up a pair of First Class KTX tix from Seoul Station to Busan Station under the advice from some friends who grew up in Korea......also they told me I would be disappointed as their won't be any zombies on board.....

I only ended up snapping a quick and crappy pic with my Iphone since we were both dead tired......and yes.....she is eating.....i was also instructed to block out her face because I managed to capture her with a weird face on

The KTX train reached speeds upwards of 280 km/hr and it was pretty stable as well. I managed to sleep for almost 2 hours and the ride was around 2 hours and 30mins. Its a great way to get from ICN to Busan if you didn't want to fly.

We booked a 3 night stay at Ibis Ambassador Busan City Centre, your typical 3 star hotel in Asia. We weren't staying for too long and the price included breakfast which was a "Must Have" for my wife. The only thing I didn't realize was the hotel was quite a bit away from the Busan KTX station. The metro station in Busan is very convenient, but the stairwell which led from the metro station beside the hotel was quite steep, there was no escalator and the elevator goes up to the other side of the street which is like a 8 lane high traffic street, jaywalking was not an option and carrying our luggages up that stairwell was going to be near impossible since my wife couldn't really help me.
Our only option was to take a taxi from the KTX station to the hotel, the only issue is, we were warned about this ahead of time, taxi drivers in Busan dont speak a lick of english and they can get very impatient. Which is exactly what happened, I tried to use google maps which gave him the address in English and Hangul and I'm not not too sure why he still didn't know where it was. I can feel some frustration so I opened up google translate and typed in English to translate to Hangul "please take us to this address (insert hotel address)" and pressed the speak button for the phone to say it in Korean, after that, he typed some Hangul into his own smartphone GPS app and started driving away. In about 15 minutes, we arrived at our hotel. Check-in at the Ibis was on the 17th Floor, the only hotel restaurant is also on the same floor, and this is where we will be having our daily breakfast. We got up to our room and immediately unpacked the necessities, showered, forgot about dinner and passed the F* out. Overall, the hotel is what you would expect from a 3 star hotel in Asia, teeny-tiny room size, small bathroom which only had a standup shower in the shape of a triangle, my wife had a hard time turning in the shower without hitting the wall or the glass. Staff spoke minimum english. We tried asking them for restaurant recommendations and things to do but we could clearly tell they struggled with English. When we checked-out and asked the hotel staff to call a cab for us, I had to use google translate....yes this again....to translate "Busan KTX station" into Hangul for him to tell our taxi driver. Would I recommend this hotel? Not unless you are looking for value.

I was so exhausted so only remembered to snap a pic of the room with all our crap and forgot about a pic of the bathroom


Our breakfast for the next few mornings. Limited selection but at least there was a mixture of hot and cold food. Food quality was as good as what you expect from a 3 star hotel. It was edible but nothing rave about.


Next Up: Day 1 of Eating thru Busan.....Is it Day 1....or should it be Day 2.....still jet-legged....who cares?
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Old May 14, 2018, 4:57 pm
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Sometimes you have to block something (or better someone) out
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Old May 14, 2018, 9:27 pm
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Looking forward to this...but just one note: Korea is definitely not "southeast" Asia. That term is generally reserved for Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Lao PDR-Myanmar-etc. If anything, Korea is East Asia.
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Old May 15, 2018, 1:38 am
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Originally Posted by ironmanjt
Looking forward to this...but just one note: Korea is definitely not "southeast" Asia. That term is generally reserved for Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand-Lao PDR-Myanmar-etc. If anything, Korea is East Asia.
Didn't even occur to me.....guess we were supposedly going to SE Asia - Thailand......
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Old May 15, 2018, 2:33 am
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Day 1 of Eating thru Busan

So some of you will find this very odd, when I'm on vacation, I like to wake up early, early as in 6A - 6:30A; have breakfast, read the local and international newspaper if its available in English; if not, I'll burn my eyes with my Iphone. My wife hates that because I usually wake her up to have breakfast with me and her idea of vacation is sleeping in till 10A-11A.
Normally, when I'm going to work and I have to be in my shop at 9A......I don't get up till 8A and I have a minimum 30 minute drive.....hahahaha

So of course, I wake up around 6ish in the morning, the room is so small so even the slightest movement and using the washroom will wake someone up. So the Mrs. gets up and drags herself up to the 17/F hotel restaurant to have breakfast with me. After that ordeal, we get ready to eat our way thru Busan.

Of course, I forgot, just because I don't have to go work doesn't mean others don't, so when we were roaming the streets, not many restaurants were opened and the food stalls were definitely still closed. This was around 9:30ish. EPIC FAIL! So we continued walking around as the Mrs. wanted to walk off her breakfast in preparation for Lunch. At around 1030ish, the restaurants start opening and the streets started to fill with more people. One reason I do like this hotel is the LOCATION. We were steps away from Seomyeon Food Alley where the food stalls and many really delicious restaurants were.

We were warned, most restaurant staff and food stall operators do not speak english but we were ok with that. Whatever she saw, she would point, show quantity with fingers and then the person behind the food stall would show with fingers how much Won we owed them. As for restaurants, the Mrs would look at the posters and pictures on the exterior, if it looked good, we went in and just pointed at pictures on the menu. This worked very well! We learned a couple basic phrases in Korean and even though the restaurant staff could tell we were tourist from a mile away, the minute they heard us try to speak the butchered Korean we knew, they smiled, laughed and handed us a menu with pictures. All the staff were usually very friendly when we greeted them in butchered Korean.

The first restaurant we went in I forgot the name and don't have pictures of the exterior because the Mrs saw the pictures on their window and immediately dragged us in. Apparently she was starving even though it was only 2 hours after breakfast.
I did manage to snap a couple pictures of the menu and food before it was devoured.



Side dishes included kimchi, i think daikon, and miso soup with UNLIMITED REFILLS......As you can see, the Mrs. was ready to grab the utensils and start eating...I had to be quick whenever food showed up


we ordered some Korean style dumplings, beef bibimbap and a spicy chicken bibimbap. Everything tasted amazing!




After lunch, we walked around a little bit more so I could snap a few pics.....that was until the food stalls started to open....the smell guided the Mrs. towards them and I think you can guess what happened next. From lunch to me snapping a few pics and walking around Seomyeon to following the food stall scent and arriving in front of the food stalls...I would say it was only an hour after lunch. I was still stuffed from lunch but the Mrs. looks like she could devour the entire street. Whatever....guess I'll just follow her around with my camera and see where this goes.

I have a thing for small narrow alleys in Black & White, you guys will see what I mean as we go


We reached the food street! Unfortunately the Mrs. is still in denier won't let me post any pics of her racing around from stall to stall eating up the street......


So I picked up a Olympus E-M10ii before this trip, one of the features of this camera is the tilt screen which I thought was just for kicks until I was able to snap a bunch of pics with the camera off my waist and the tilt screen allowed me to see what I was pointing at. Most of the shop and stall owners never noticed I had a camera on me and just continued doing their thing. And I also lost the Mrs. in the mist of food stalls, people, moving carts, mopeds....yes mopeds in the middle of pedestrian areas are quite common in Korea. When I found her, I could tell she was very satisfied and very well fed.

Just a few pics of the street, I never actually ate anything as the Mrs. just dashed from end to end ordering, paying, eating and forgot I was trying to take pics of the food because by the time I caught up to her all she had in her hands was the garbage......






After the food alley, we walked around some more and checked out all the small local shops in the area. When the Mrs. got tired, we headed back to the hotel. There was a 24 hour convenient store on the G/F of the hotel, I grabbed some drinks and some instant noodles and went upstairs. Now you may ask, why on earth would I grab instant noodles when we are in Korea and there is so many food options. Well.....as soon as we got upstairs we were so tired that we just pasted out and when we woke up it was around midnight. Most restaurants in the area was closed and I wasn't comfortable taking a pregnant Mrs. into the bar area full of drunk peeps. So we ate instant noodles and I had a couple beers and called it a night.

Next Up - Eating thru Busan Day 2
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Old May 15, 2018, 4:36 am
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I was up at 6:30A....a little later than yesterday. Dragged the wife upstairs for breakfast and back down to our room to get ready to go out. We took a little longer this time knowing most things don't open so early.
And back to Seomyeon area again for more eating!

This time I got the a pic of the front of the restaurant!


There was a pictured menu but why look at that when they get one on the wall? Same idea; to order, just point and use your finger to show how many


[i}We got the Spicy Tofu Kimchi Soup, Gimbap (Korean style Sushi Roll), Korean Leek Pancake and of course, unlimited side dishes
[img]https://qyptpa.ch.files.1drv.com/y4mS6GW7yGlKkg06shsIBpURYKBnGN7BO6nEILTw1cXnRt2z1B eAjHYqasAvhPZZJq3nKWGGkm83uWLrKSufnC3amQxNHuJct8zi jyFH0-cp6IDihmf9g9xAj_PZ2x5SqmtvLfeyoLOi16wKH477y4XqDC6s SyH8Vv3dyR23lI5qsV2gc8yEziWfTKNx8_Epnjot7Tk0NLYXCC W5zIm77e6yw?width=800&height=473&cropmode=none



Some friends told me about the Lotte Department Store which had a whole food court inside, at least this time she would be confined to one floor and there weren't any mopeds zipping around. She shop and eat than shop than eat some more........

Found this guy in the Lotte Department Store and managed to snap a quick one before he/she was attacked by kids


Cakes cakes cakes.....I have no idea what she ordered.....



time for ice cream....the amount of time and effort it took the girl behind the counter is impressive....wonder what happens if their is a rush? And today, she is allowing post with her eyes blacked out....we are getting there[/i}



We decided to walk outside and take a seat as it was getting crowded and super stuff inside. Then I asked "umm....could I try some of the ice cream......it was mango something else....I didn't get to try the something else......just what was left in the cone....."


After that, we decided to walk the streets again. There was just too many people inside that department store.
So...I say within an hour...I heard "Lets try this place....I'm getting hungry"
Why not? I got pulled in not knowing what I was walking into....so again, forgot to snap a pic of the front when we were leaving. I believe it was a Korean fast food joint?

Anyways, I decided to try the hamburger steak with prawn tempera and rice. Mrs. got a spicy ramen (guess instant noodles is ramen in Korea?)


After that, we strolled around for a bit longer and decided to head back to the hotel before rush hour started.
I told ya...I'm into alleys......


We ended up passing out again and woke up around 1030ish. Needed to feed the Mrs. and the only thing I found near the hotel was this place. It was a pasta, burger and pizza joint. I think its a franchise chain and they were about to close up shop for the night so we grabbed 2 pastas to go and headed to the 24 hour convenient store to grab some drinks and headed back up to the room for the night. I only ended up getting a picture of the front of the shop and not the food. I wanted to take a quick shower before eating dinner....late night snack...I lost track of how many meals we had. Mrs. said she would wait for me.....well she lied.....after I jumped out of the shower she was half way into both the pastas...so I decided to jump in finish what was left.



We pretty much had to pack up and call it a night since we were checking out the next day

Day 3 - Bye-Bye Busan....Oooops....

Same routine, we had breakfast and checked-out.
Took a cab to Busan KTX Station and we were going to buy our KTX tickets back to Seoul.
And this is when it came crashing down on me. My friends told me don't worry about tickets from Seoul to Busan, it was later in the day and on a Thursday. Plus, there was a train that departs every 30 minutes and there was a back up train that takes a longer route.
What I forgot to ask was.....what about the train tickets on our way back on a Sunday late morning when the locals who decided on a short vacation in Busan is also looking to head back into Seoul. O CRAP! the only First Class tickets left was a 9PM which means we wouldn't get into Seoul until 11ish at night and we couldn't really go anywhere with our luggage. However, there was a pair of economy tickets departing at 1P (current time 11:30ish in the morning) which took the longer route, that route takes about 3Hours and 30mins compared to our 2ish Hour ride to Busan and it was a smaller seat with less legroom. O Boy....the Mrs. didn't look happy. We took those tickets, at least we would be in Seoul earlier. Unhappy pregnant wife? FEED HER.....

We went to the Lotteria in the KTX station which is a Korean Chain Burger Joint, I think it actually tasted better than some of the North American fast food Burger places. And before I could grab my camera out, someone already took a bite and I had to wrestle it out of her to get a picture. She had a double patty burger and I had a single patty.


Next Up - Seoul - Lotte Hotel Seoul - Myeongdong Food Street(s)
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Old May 15, 2018, 5:20 am
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Great first trip report - I am looking forward to the rest! Congratulations on growing your family ^^
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Old May 15, 2018, 6:16 am
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It was Daikon, the yellow pickled radish you ate, The dumplings are called Mandu

Looking forward to my Korea trip in August
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Old May 16, 2018, 12:11 pm
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Wow - extremely impressed by the amount of eating you're getting in! Looks to be a delicious trip!
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Old May 17, 2018, 10:49 pm
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That's a lot of food! Currently living in Seoul for 7 years now.

Yes, oddly, your AC bibimbap is missing the very necessary sesame oil and gochujang red pepper paste.

Lotte Department Store basement food courts are always a WILD mob scene!

That pizza burger place is definitely not a popular chain haha. It's most definitely a relic from old Korea when they didn't have big American chains and made their own version of what a pizza, hamburger and pasta place should be. Aka completely different (and I bet the pasta sauce was kind of sweet, too)!

And yes KTX First Class has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fewer seats so they do sell out much more quickly.
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