Yesterday was a long day. No really; it was a long day because it was one day to me but really two days since it’s still Wednesday in Boston and it’s Thursday in Seoul when I’m writing this.

Maybe, I should begin each entry with what date I’m writing about, for this trip is taking place in a country, South Korea, that is 14 hours ahead of my hometown and another country that is 12 hours ahead, Indonesia. It could get confusing when I’m talking about yesterday which might be today for some of you, depending on when you read it.

Update: I literally feel asleep while writing this on Thursday, February 15 Korea time! But I’m forging ahead now (3 am February 16 Korea time). I will actually try to do two days before I go out today to try to catch up. I’m sure my mom is wondering where I am. My friend, Eric, is also worried about the cheese!

Tuesday, February 13

I followed the plan I had: going down to breakfast at 6:30 am to get what I am now referring to as my hotel vacation breakfast of Eggs Benedict. I started that when I went on my Canadian train trip, and now I think of it this way because really the only time I get this dish seems to be at hotels while on vacation. I told my mom that I will probably never make it for myself because Hollandaise sauce doesn’t keep well (and if you freeze it, it separates–at least mine does), so why would I go through all that effort to make it just for myself when I really only want to eat the dish once in awhile?

I love going to breakfast when it first opens because there is almost never anyone there except for maybe a couple of older people who are generally silent or even reading a hard copy of a newspaper. I wonder how long that, newspapers in hard copy, will last?

Afterwards, I went back up to my room and took a two-hour bath. I don’t have enough hot water in my apartment water heater to take baths anymore since they replaced the water heaters with energy efficient ones (the one thing I dislike about my apartment). But a shout out to my mom because she gave me bath crystals and bubble bath for Christmas which I used while I was visiting, but I’ve had enough left to be able to use the buble bath while at an institute last month and the last of it in a delightful bath at the Hilton. Another benefit of the fake snowmageddon!

I had to check out at 11, but my flight wasn’t until 3, so instead of heading directly to the airport, I sat in the hotel lobby for awhile with its excellent internet and its nautical theme. Interesting history of the Lady Isabell about whom I knew nothing, but I want to know more now.

Instead of taking the shuttle bus, I walked back to the airport. I figured I wanted to have as much activity as possible since I would be on such a long flight. I took pictures of the sea animal-themed floor decorations on the skybridge. I’m alway interested on the decorative choices in public spaces. These are items that would make a space cheaper to do if they were cut from the budget, so it’s an obvious choice by the designer/architect and client to keep. How many people in a meeting had to decide on these? Did they fifgt over which sea animals to choose?

Checking in was smooth, even though I was worried about the weight of my bag with the cheese. I was still under by 8 kilos, which means I have space to buy as much tea as I want in Korea!

And then I sat there. I didn’t mind. I don’t mind being early at the airport. It gives me time to read webcomics. I even started to watch a show, but then I was interrupted by a new thing for me.

Korean Air texted me to let me know that my bags were on board the flight, which meant the cheese had been able to board two hours before I did.

Later, Korean Air made an announcement that they were sorry about the delay and offered all the people waiting for our flight free snacks.

Yup. I said that right. Free snacks. For a delay that wasn’t their fault. Free snacks.

We were offered muffins, drinks, and chips. Not fancy, but I’ve never been offered anything like this when a flight was delayed, especially when we were still leaving later the same day and were told about it way in advance. I took a picture of the chips for my Thai drama friends since I got the free Lays right after walking to bathroom behind a group of people who looked and sounded like they could have stepped right out of a Thai drama. No one understood why I was laughing seeing those chips.

When we boarded, I continued to do silly things. I showed the flight attendent my boarding pass for her to tell me which aisle I should go down and proceeded to head to the back of plane. I’m always sitting in the back of planes because I always book the cheaper seats. For long flights, I do pay extra to get one of the seats at front of section that is not behind another seat (to allow for ease of stretching out legs in front of me), so I can’t believe I just walked by it.

Suddenly I find myself at the 40s realizing upon looking at ticket again that I was in row 29. I really don’t know how that tiny flight attendant moved the tide to help me swim upstream back to my seat, but she did. Lovely woman. Her friends probably take her to those crazy sales where you have elbow your way through people to get the good bargains.

I was really happy to have the extra space. It’s also helpful getting up and going to the bathroom or taking a walk from the window seat because you really don’t have to disturb your rowmates. There is enough space towalk in front of them.

At my seat, I found free earphones (no need for the little baggie I keep from former free flight earphones just in case), a bottle of water, and a little baby blue/greenish pouch. In the pouch were slippers, a toothbrush, and the tiniest tube of toothpaste I have ever seen.

The other thing I will mention is that in the bathrooms, in addition to regular handwash soap, they also have special face wash foam. Of course, Korean Air is concerned about your skin care.

The flight was really and truly uneventful. It’s just LONG. Before I left, I’d been telling people without any reference to my intinerary that it was around 13 hours; however, I was doing that from memory of the other times I flew to South Korea. Those other times were all with a stop first–either to Dallas-Ft.Worth or Toronto–then boarding a direct flight. Korean Air just added direct flights from Boston, so the total flight time was . . . 16 hours.

I slept a LOT. I really sleep on planes and any moving vehicle, something about the motion and the relief I have about finally getting on any flight has something to do with this I expect. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I slept for at least 9-10 of the hours I was in the air this time.

Once again, I missed a meal, the third one, and when I woke about an hour before we were too land, I found a sticker in front of me saying that they hadn’t been able to serve me while I was resting. Hmm, I thought. Okay. And a flight attendant appeared apologizing (again not her fault, and I would have been mad if she had woken me up) for not being able to get me anything, asking me if I needed a snack at least or something to drink.

It made me wonder. Do people really get mad at them for this?

I’m amazed that people can actually eat all the meals served on these long flights. I never can. We were offered three full meals plus you had the option of asking for ramen if you were hungry in between the meals or slept through a meal. I know I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but they are usually not all full meals with appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert.

I also watched three movies, and spent a lot of time scrolling through the options to narrow down what I seemed to be in the mood for at any one moment. I watched 80 for Brady, The Imitation Game, and Woman Talking. Yes, it’s an odd mix, and looking back, I wonder what the mix says about me and my moods during the different periods of the flight.

Once we landed, I focused on my next concern: getting through customs and picking up my luggage in enough time to get the last airport bus. Incheon aiport has a plethora of transportation options from airport busses to regular buses, subway, and taxis. I like taking the airport bus because there is one that stops exactly in front of the building I have stayed in the last two times I have visited Korea and where I’m staying again. There is a subway stop right below this building as well (one reason why I love the location), but there is no way I want to try to haul two large pieces of luggage plus a backpack on the subway. There is a late night bus, but that only goes to certain places. And taxis from the airport to Seoul can cost up to ₩85,000-90,000/$63-67.

I got off the plane at 9 PM and my last bus was at 9:55. I have had to wait over an hour to get through customs. Ask Jane about our experience at Gatwick airport. I have also had to wait a long time for luggage. And remember my cheese concern.

However, as you can see, the airport was fairly empty. And there were very few foreigners on my flight, so the international customs line was non-existent. Even the baggage claim area wasn’t that busy.

When I come to Seoul, I always wonder which Kdrama star I will see in an advertisement first. This happens because during my very first visit, I saw Hyun Bin in the welcome video at customs. Since my foray into the bigger kdrama world started with My Name is Kim Samsoon where he plays the male lead, I practically squeeled out loud in immigration like the nerdy fangirl I am–nearly ruining my chance of getting into the country the first time.

This time, it was Park Seo-joon for an advertisement for Paradise Casino at the luggage corrale.

Once I got my bags, I booked it through to go find the bus. They have made several additions to the airport since I’ve been five years ago pre-Covid, so I really didn’t recognize much. I also didn’t stop to take any pictures (sorry) because I was on a mission. Fortunately, the one person at the welcome/info desk was in the English speaking booth (sorry to the Chinese and Japanese speakers) who was able to tell me what elevator to take to find the bus loading area. I rushe there, ignoring the kiosks (this was no time for me to learn something new) and went to the ticket counter. I got my bus ticket with 15 minutes to spare!

So I took a couple of pictures of the area before boarding the bus. I didn’t take any pictures from the bus because it was so foggy out that you really couldn’t see anything.

My next item of concern was my Airbnb. I knew that it was in the same location as I stayed before, but there are lots of tall buildings on this corner, and if you know anything about Korea just having an address is not enough. The host had updated my information with specific directions and pictures, but for some reason I was not able to get the pictures along with the directions. I also knew that the host was “offline,” so my worst case scenario was that the passcode wouldn’t work, and I’d be sitting in the hall until the host woke up the next day.

Nothing like that happened. Turns out, location is exactly the same; however, I was in building 102 not 101 like before. I was able to write down the number for the elderly security guard (the ones they have for this building have always been super friendly and helpful whenever I have come, probably used to foreigners being lost). He waved me in the direction and watched to make sure I was making the correct turns.

The passcode worked (why don’t we have passcode locks in all apartments in the US? Why don’t we do that for resident hall rooms?). And voila, I was in my little apartment!!

I picked this place because I could tell it was in same spot because all of the apartments are similar although I feel as though this one might be a bit bigger than the others. It’s clean and plain with heated floors, but it’s great. I know AirBnB gets a bad rap for a lot of things, some deserved, especially what it can do to local renters. I don’t think that is the case in Korea because of the way the rental structure is here, but someone can correct me if I’m wrong about this. But I do know that even though the price has gone up since the last time I was here, it is still a major bargain and in an excellent location.

It’s not as fancy as a hotelroom, but it’s just the kind of space I needed when I was studying because not only do these apartments have free wifi and typical hotel amenities, but they also have decent sized bathrooms and kitchens and washer/dryers.

The first time I came to study in Seoul, I stayed in a goshiwon which was 6ft by 12ft with a tiny atached bath/shower. Some of the rooms were even smaller and without bathrooms. The people staying/living in those rooms shared a bathroom and shower space down the hall. The whole building shared a kitchen, which included kimchi, free eggs, and free ramen. I’m glad I had the experience, but I never wanted to do it again. See this great post that has lots of pictures of goshiwons: https://straywithsarah.com/goshiwon-in-seoul/.

It wasn’t just the size of the room; I’m not into shared kitchens. After having to spend much effort talking and figuring things out in a foreign country, my introvert self doesn’t want to have to socialize while I’m cooking. I’m not a person who likes sharing my cooking space even at home, so . . .

In any case, you can imagine why I think a space like this are perfect and cozy, and it’s only $65 a night! Even with taxes and cleaning fees, it is only $78 a night.

I remember the first time I stayed here in this location. I messaged the host so thankful and hoped to stay with her again. She even messaged me when she sold her apartment, and when I wanted to come again, told me about a family who owned one of the other apartments in the building. It was going to be great for them because the dad was ill and this was their only source of income for awhile.

There is even a grocery store within walking distance, or at least there used to be.

So you can imagine how exhausted and relieved I was upon entering this space. All I wanted to to was take a shower and go to bed. But before that, I called my mom like I promised, and of course, I had to take care of the cheese!

The other thing about being here rather than a hotel is that you have a regular-sized fridge. But even that could not close on the whole bag, so I took all the cheese out and put it in the freezer with the ice packs. I’m keeping the bag in the fridge, too, so everything stays as cold as possible for the trip to Indonesia which is only 300 miles south of the equator. I feel a huge responsibilty for this cheese.

I also put in the muffin from my free snack and the apple slices I had also brought with me (because I don’t count on free snacks) in the fridge ready for my breakfast the following morning.

With my cheese put to bed and my breakfast plan all set, I took a shower and went to bed really happy and truly thankful.