20250818-19 South Korea and China Trip
Our daughter Ciara had her wedding 2 weeks ago but because her new In-Laws have extended family in China, she is also doing a wedding in Shenyang, China. This is in the northeast part of China, and is adjacent to North Korea. Our last trip to China was in 2006, before the Beijing Olympics, so we figured it was time to go back to China. Viking Cruises has China tour itineraries that include overland excursions so following the Chinese wedding ceremony, we will take a high speed rail train from Shenyang to Beijing and see a few tourist sights there, and then join the Viking Cruises pre-cruise extension overland tour to Mongolia before flying from Mongolia to Hong Kong to board the Viking Yi-Dun ocean cruise ship. This ship will take us down the Chinese coast to Beijing (Tianjin) with 7 ports of call, including an overland excursions to Fujian Province and an overnight stay in Shanghai. From Beijing, Viking will fly us to Chengdu, Lhasa (Tibet), and Xi’an (terra cotta warriors) before returning us to Beijing for our flights back to the US.
In order to get to Shenyang, we will fly into Seoul, South Korea, and spend a day touring Seoul and getting over jet lag, before continuing on to Shenyang, which is a fairly short flight from Seoul.
Some of our immediate family will join us for the Shenyang wedding and Beijing tour. China has recently implemented a 10 day visa free tourism option so most of them will be heading back to the US within that 10 day window. Because we will be taking the Viking Cruise and overland tours, we did have to make a trip to San Francisco to obtain real Chinese tourism visas.
We flew business class while our children John and Price are flying economy along with Ben’s brother Franklin. The plane was a 777-200. The business class pods were certainly nicer than economy or premium economy, with seats that convert into lie flat beds, but the age of this plane is apparent from the outdated entertainment system and lack of in-flight WiFi. The business class pods we have more recently flown in on Delta and Emirates were nicer and more up to date. Both of those had Bose noise canceling headphones and free inflight texting, while this flight has basic over the ear headphones without noise cancellation.
The flight attendants all appear to be young and attractive Korean women. On Emirates, we were surprised to find that the flight attendants were mostly Filipino, but in retrospect, it makes sense that Arabs in the UAE routinely hire foreigners to work in the service industries, so their staffing is more like what you’d find on cruise ships.
The meal service in business class was good with cloth napkins and steel utensils. The dinner was served within the first hour of the flight. The first course was a salad with fancy greens, stone crab claws, prosciutto, melon and a selection of fancy rolls. There was a choice of a salmon, beef tenderloin or chicken breast entree, served with wine and sides of asparagus and potatoes. We both had the tenderloin, which came out medium rare with a tiny bit of mushroom gravy. The meat was properly prepared but a little bit grisly. The tenderloins we had on the Princess and Oceana cruises tours were better, but these were OK. The entrees were followed by both a fruit and cheese plate and chocolate mousse with a port wine and coffee or tea.
The cabin was dimmed and the window blinds were pulled after the meal service, even though it was full daylight outside.
It’s hard to know how to best deal with traveling over multiple time zones and jumping over the International Date line, but these international air carriers would know best. We got off the ground about a half hour later than the original scheduled departure of 2:30pm. So we left Seattle at 3:00pm on Monday. We arrived in Seoul at 6:30pm after about 11 hrs in the air.
We had a second meal service which would have been around 9pm Seattle time with a choice of sandwiches or ramen. Most people went for the ramen which was spicy.
The lights came up about an hour before landing, which would have been around 2:00am Seattle time for third and final meal service with coffee and juice, salad and Janet had Beef stroganoff while Ben had a shrimp congee.
We got through customs about 7:15pm. The customs counter was well staffed and we encountered no trouble getting through. All of our bags made it to Seoul without a hitch. We picked up a Jumbo taxi at the taxi stand, which just barely got all our luggage in the back. If we had brought one more suitcase, it would have ended up in someone’s lap. But the Jumbo Taxi had 4 luxury leather captain’s seats in the back and Ben rode shotgun in the front. It took a little over an hour to get from the airport to Fraser Place Namdaemun Seoul. The roadways were very modern and extremely well maintained. The fare was 87,800 KRW, which is $63 USD. That seems super reasonable for an hour ride with 5 passengers and a huge pile of luggage.
The hotel front desk staff spoke fluent English and got us all checked in quickly. They did take photocopies of all of our passports. The rooms we got are actually huge suites with a partitionable queen bed on one end, and two twin beds in a studio apartment with washer/dryer, full sized refrigerator/freezer and induction cooktop. The apartments are furnished with pots, pans and even a rice maker so it would be quite possible to do all our own cooking. The Hotels.com fare did not include the breakfast but there is a hotel restaurant that offers a full American breakfast for $23USD.
We were able to contact our Tours By Locals Seoul tour guide through WhatsApp to confirm our 9am pickup for a full day tour tomorrow.
Franklin and John headed out into the night to explore the neighborhood around the hotel while the rest of us pretty much showered and crashed. We’ll be sure to set alarms for the morning.
