August 21, 2012
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Trip to Korea Day 1
Day 1: midnight travel from S’pore to HK to Incheon to Gimpo to Seocho
We took a cab at 10.30pm because it was a bit too late to take the MRT but reached the airport by 10.40pm, leaving us with too much time after we checked in by 10.40pm (not quite the 1hr 20mins queue I had just three weeks ago to Japan). We spent time at the bookshop and walked around a bit before heading in about 12.30am, for our 1.15am departure. We managed to finish our water from 500ml bottle and security check will let you in with an empty bottle apparently. Good to know!
It was nearly 4 hours of travel to HOng Kong where we were supposed to be making our connecting flight. Wife took the aisle seat while I was next to an old man. Cathay Airways, not quite SIA – at 2am I needed to get the bottle filled with drinking water but didn’t manage to get anyone to respond till 2.30am, and because of the long wait, I went from sleepy to awake watching movie trying not to miss the attention of any stewardess who might respond to my Call Button pressed. In the end, it was wife who managed a bit of sleep but 2.45am they started serving food. Still I managed to catch a bit of sleep before touchdown at HK.
The problem was the flights to Seoul was quite full from Hong Kong thus in S’pore they issued me a ticket but wife was supposed to get another ticket on arrival at HK. At the gate, her name was printed together with another person’s, presumably also without confirmed tickets. Back in S’pore, there were actually calls for people who were willing to stay back with accommodation provided because the flight was overbooked – so I guess it’s the same in HK. We were warned thatwere may not get the same seatings next to each other which would not have worked for us. True enough, we were given tickets with different seatings but told we could have changed seats by the time we boarded. We didn’t want to chance it so went to the transfer counter but same answer.
The transfer involves moving from one side of the airport to another via security check and there was a long queue! Again, the same empty bottle trick worked. Didn’t have any HK Dollars so we had to find breakfast which accepted credit card but the shop which told us we could, had its credit card machine faulty. After some “discussions” we left our breakfwithin the counter and just walked away – no we were not going thru the hassle of changing money, not after checking with the staff that they will accept credit card. In the end we had nice breakfast at another place.
We did get our new seats when we reached the boarding gate and asked.
and good seats nearer the front too plus only two seats next to window and aisle. Crowded aircraft, full but we were together still, for another 3.5 hours travel to Seoul. Watched a movie which wife said was good but both of us falling asleep. Managed to get in an hour before touchdown.At Incheon Airport we managed to get through immigration very quickly, but had to wait a while for luggage to come out. Through customs very quickly and then first thing I saw was this Olleh “Wibro” thingie which I knew straightaway was what we would need to survive for the next 12 days in Korea! Asked for price, for KRW8000 a day, not much thought needed. It was far cheaper than Starhub’s $20 per dunno-how-MB and it could run both me and wife’s phone plus iPad. Trust me, this is the THING to get for Internet connectivity while in Seoul. (and good thing it was the first counter we saw coming out – the other counters had other offerings like phone, etc). Oh yeah, it runs on 4G, not 3G so you get much faster speed from any wifi device connected to it, not dependent on the device’s 3G limitations. Woot!
Next search for MRT card. Decided not to take the KRW10,000 per day offer but went to buy a normal top up card. Without knowing how much the MRT cost I couldn’t have made an informed decision. On hindsight, the normal top up card would do except for the first day, as any travel away from Incheon to any station would have eaten up too much money. So take the 10,000 all travel card for the first day (and possibly last).
Wifi, water, travel card and then we travelled down to Gimpo to check/make bookings for our Jeju trip. We already have hotel bookings from 22-24 Aug so found out various trips available (apparently some started from Incheon so it could be possible we may have made the bookings from Incheon). Trips quoted at max pricing so it could be cheaper weekday. We will end up with three days instead of two in Jeju because the Sun trip was quite full. Go to a counter Asiana and get the list of flights printed. It was the same price quoted by Korean airways (with less flights) but it was not as cheap as expected. Found out that summer holidays (July to end Aug) is when flight fare almost doubles. So now you know. Anyway because we opted to travel on Mon instead of Sun back, fare dropped a bit.
Trip from Gimpo to Seocho where we were to be staying. Luckily for 4G, managed to find out that traveling one further stop down then transfer to another train for one stop, we would be much (MUCH!) nearer to hotel. Coming to 7pm now when we arrived at Hotel California, apparently one of the higher end love motels in the Gangnam area. Smokey room and we managed to get transferred to a less smokey room, even extended another day at KRW80,000. By the time we managed to get out it was near 9pm, so a lot of eating places was closed and started to drizzle but we managed to get into a nice looking place for chicken just as it started to pour. Lucky us, plus the 2 chicken we ordered were HUGE (whole chicken so we finished 2 chickens between the two of us). By the time we finished, the rain had stopped and we got water plus bakery from Paris Baguatte and went back for zzz.
End Day 1
HongKong Airport
Incheon Airport
The Olleh (Hello spelt backwards) Egg that saved us for the entire trip. In the end, it just costs us 88,000won for 12 days of use.
Our dinner/supper on the first day – already past 10pm when we got to this.
Compliments of the Hotels… errr… -_-”
