Time to leave Seoul! We got up and headed out for breakfast at our “usual” place. Then pack up the last stuff, check out, and head towards the subway and Seoul station. The board for departures only showed the upcoming six trains and since I like to travel with margins, we had about 45 minutes left until our train was scheduled to depart so we found a place to sit down and wait. Three other scouts who were going with the same train joined us in the waiting and after a while, we got assigned track 13, which happened to be the same as our train car, number 13.
The train itself wasn’t as modern as I might have expected, it was the KTX which is their high-speed train but it was functional and a decent air conditioner. One hour and 25 minutes later we arrived in Iksan and went looking for some lunch. It was a clear difference between how many signs that was in English in Seoul, compared to Iksan. We took a picture of the posted menu, so we could point to the cashier what we wanted to order.
The food was however delicious and when we had finished our meal we went outside in the heat to find ourselves a taxi. The driver didn’t speak a word of English (that we could understand) but with the address from Airbnb, we found the right apartment complex and the correct building where our host (or some sort of manager) met us. Tenth floor, a really nice apartment with two bedrooms. The floor in the living room had some thick plastic/rubber carpet which was quite nice to walk on but weird. Think like the thin mattresses from gym class, but maybe a bit sturdier.
After some instructions via Google Translate we said thanks and goodbye and then just relaxed on the couch. Jonas has a document of some 80 pages to read through regarding his job at the Jamboree and I went through looking for funny pictures to fill out this post since not much will happen today 🙂 Jonas has been pretty good at capturing a lot of funny stuff so I steal them to publish here.
In the evening we went out in the heat to find some dinner and landed in a small place two blocks away. No English but Papago helped us translate and we ordered some delicious food. Apparently, a popular place to order food from because there were several food delivery guys coming and going.
Afterward, we passed by a Paris Baguette to get some breakfast and then back to the apartment to get a good night’s sleep. Jonas did a demonstration of a budgeting app called YNAB (You Need A Budget) which I might try. Tomorrow will meet all the Swedish ISTs when we gather for some last-minute pep rally before leaving for the campsite on Saturday morning.
