Korea in Winter Day 1: Lotte Hotel World

December 2015 was going to be our first family holiday to Korea in winter, and after months of planning and preparation, the day finally arrived to board the midnight flight to Incheon. The girls seemed more excited about  reuniting with Mummy than the holiday itself. Mummy arrived earlier to help out in a children's camp the week before.

The service on the Singapore Airlines flight was  exceptional that night. They paid special attention to the children in our group, and ensured that they had everything they might need. The trio from Korean pop idol group, Girls Generation's TTS were on board and we had a brief encounter with them in the bus shuttling us to the airline parking bay before they were whisked off into their First Class cabins.

The children had special servings of milo and biscuits for supper.

After supper, the kids managed to catch a short cartoon before drifting off to sleep. It was good that they had a little more for supper as they couldn't get up for breakfast just 3 hours later. To brace ourselves for temperatures just under zero degrees, we  layered up before taking our time to clear the immigration and pick up our luggage. Although sluggish due to the cold and the interrupted sleep, the kids perked up once they saw their Mummy and dashed into her open arms. We then moved on to catch the airport bus 6705 to our accommodation. As we had to take the KAL Limousine, tickets are priced at 16,000 won for adult and 10,000 won for child, rather than 10,000 won and 8000 won for adult and child tickets for the normal airport buses.

We had booked a week's stay at Lotte World Hotel, situated right next-door to at one point in time the holder of the Guiness World Record for World's largest indoor amusement park - Lotte World Adventure! In addition, the entire kilometre long complex includes malls, department stores, supermarkets, cinemas and the still under construction Lotte World Tower. When completed, it will be the tallest building in the Korean peninsular and the sixth tallest in the world.

Our view from the cousin's hotel room. 

Hotel lobby

Hotel Lobby

Intricate designs inside the elevator.

The view of Lotte World's indoor park with the dome-like glass roof from our room!

View from our hotel room, Magic Island: the outdoor theme-park of Lotte World surrounded by the scenic Seokchon Lake.

A study table, complete with stationery in each room.

It had been a long night and the adults succumbed to a short nap while the kids turned up the gears and played in the room. Mummy went to change currency for the whole gang at her favourite money-changer, and when she got back, it was just in time for lunch. We decided to explore options at Lotte Mart so we could make a trip to the supermarket and stock up on snacks and other essentials, such as diapers for the youngest in our troupe.

Lotte Mart had a pet section that kept our kids engaged while the adults shopped. There were many interesting critters not usually seen in Singapore.

Hedgehogs?

The Bearded Dragon seemed like something you'd find in a zoo.

Small mammals, reptiles, birds and fish! Sounds like a chapter from my daughter's science textbook.

The grown-ups look forward to the shopping, and the not-so-grown-ups look forward to the food samples! Samples are cooked on the spot and taste so good.

After dumping our shopping back in the room, we decided that since the flight was still taking its toll on us, we'd take it easy and nap before dinner. The kids proved to be much more energetic, and we took them downstairs to the food court beside the supermarket for dinner. They served sets of mainly Korean and fusion food.

Plastic mock-ups of the various sets were on display next to a counter where everything is ordered centrally.

After ordering centrally from the counter at the entrance, we waited for the buzzers to ring and collect the food from the respective stalls.

Black bean noodles with fried rice.

Seaweed soup with rice.

Spicy kimchi soup with rice.

After this we trouped back to the room hoping to rest early. Tomorrow we will make the most of Lotte World! It'll be interesting to see what rides the girls choose this time now that they are older, bolder and have been here a number of times. Will the adults recover enough to keep up with the kids? Stay tuned to find out!