Traveling Applejax

After 32 hours of traveling (Phoenix > Vancouver, 15-hour layover + 2-hour delay, Vancouver > Seoul) we made it to Seoul only a little worse for wear. Sure, Air Canada left our bikes in Phoenix, we had to sleep in the Vancouver airport, and the in-flight entertainment system didn’t work at all, but we did get to our destination. At least our Airbnb host made travel to our apartment incredibly simple. We checked in and crashed.

The next morning we were up early and hitting the streets. It was surprising to find that few were out in a metro of 26M, but we learned that it was a national holiday—Buddha’s Birthday (more on that later).

We loaded up some T-money cards and navigated the metro to Gwangjang Market, made extra popular by Street Food: Asia, a show on Netflix. Markets anywhere are our favorites, so we wandered and sampled a dumpling soup at a stall from the show. We didn’t have to wait at all, but a big line was forming by the time we left.

Next, we headed toward Jogyesa Buddhist Temple to celebrate Buddha,’s birthday. It was packed and decorated with thousands of paper lanterns. We randomly ended up in a line to bathe a Buddha statue, and then we got into a line for food. It is a tradition for all of the Buddhist temples to offer a free meal on this holiday.

With rain in the afternoon forecast and some jet lag kicking in, we went back to our Airbnb and crashed early.