Seoul, South Korea

I arrived at Seoul Incheon airport just before 5am on a red-eye from Hong Kong.  I had bought my ticket with a built in fifteen hour layover in Seoul, just so I could pick up another country for my list.  I spent the first hour sitting in the arrival terminal in a daze, chugging coffee and trying to get enough motivation to figure out how to buy a train ticket into downtown Seoul.  I sat on the hour long train-ride that started before dawn half-filled with Koreans on their way to work.  Nearly all of them were asleep. 

 I finally arrived at Seoul Station, and exited to the near-freezing autumn air.  I walked and walked and walked and shivered, and looked at big buildings.  Then back into the station to ride over to Changdeokgung Palace

Changdeokgung Palace,  a World Heritage Site.

The World Heritage Site palace was an enjoyable diversion, though the guided tour seemed to go on about an hour longer than it needed to in the bitter cold.

Gangnam Style!

After the palace, I made a pilgrimage over to the Gangnam section of Seoul, made famous by Psy in 2012.  I had plans of asking some locals to do the horsey dance with me in front of the sign, while someone else took video.  But, every Korean looked really busy and serious and on their way to work in a hurry, so I chickened out.

 

In my 15 hours in Seoul, I didn't see anything of much interest to tourists.  It strikes me as a working mans city.