It is probably going to take me longer than the trip lasted to remember and write down everything that happened. Before I start though, I should tell you that I consider the entire trip to be a complete success - I totally styled it out that I'm incapable of using chopsticks, I didn't knock anyone over or fall over myself, and I even got away scot-free from the accidental shoplifting incident.
By local times, I left the UK at 7am on Thursday morning and arrived in Seoul at 7am on Friday morning. I was too excited to sleep on the plane so I had already been awake longer than is usual by the time I met up with the people who had kindly but perhaps foolishly volunteered to be responsible for me for the next week. This might provide some excuse for the fact that the first time they set eyes on me was as I tried to squeeze my suitcase through a gap that was patently too small for it. Trying to forget that first impressions are the most important, I collapsed into a seat at a table and introduced myself to Hin, Jac, and Fadilah, who are all from Singapore.
Fortunately they were in better shape than I was (and are just generally more capable adults) so were able to get us on the right bus heading to our hotel in Gangnam. My first impression of Seoul was the weight of the air... it was so hot and humid that my knees almost buckled as we came out of the air conditioned terminal building. My second impression was of the traffic - there are so many motor vehicles and the roads are chockablock 24 hours a day.
From Tree J, which is essentially just a building, we took the metro to Grévin. On the way we encountered some steps at Euljiro station that were a giant piano - they lit up and played notes when you stood on them. I don't know whether I'd have been as excited by this if I hadn't been awake for well over 24 hours but in my semi-zombiefied state it was one of the best things I'd ever seen.
Anyway, Grévin. I was only there for lunch and shopping because waxworks freak me out but the others went to take a variety of risqué photos with the scary wax JKS. I occupied myself by starting the trend of spending far too much money that I would continue throughout the trip. From Grévin we went to Myeongdong where we (I) bought lots of cheap knock-off JKS goodies. We stopped for coffee and cake and then almost immediately went for bingsu because, as I was informed several times during the trip, eating is the national pastime of Singapore. The weather was pretty appalling. It was seriously hot but also tipping it down with rain (which at least made it feel slightly more likely that I would be seeing JKS in the near future).
We finished this first day at a barbecue restaurant in Insadong, where I ate quite a lot of meat for someone who is supposedly flirting with vegetarianism. In my defence I was very hungry and had been awake for over 36 hours. Back at the hotel I took a much needed shower and then collapsed into unconsciousness for the next ten hours.