16 July: Brisbane to Seoul

Let the adventure begin! Be warned, this may be the longest blog entry for this entire trip, mainly because I am ‘movie-d’ out and we’re currently flying over Russia – so typing is my entertainment at the moment.

It was a long, dry plane trip yesterday with lots of food, and a giant movie marathon. We were watching ‘Red Riding Hood’ and it was pretty tense, so when we hit a few big patches of turbulence, I didn’t really notice! We all agree that Korean airlines was/is pretty worthwhile though. I made the mistake of sitting between Mark and Jamie on the flight. It was necessary to separate them as they were mucking around a lot. Mark might view this statement differently, but I am the author here so you get my version of the story.

We arrived in Seoul, and it was hot and humid as soon as we got into the terminal. What a terminal too – we all thought Changi (Singapore) was big, but this just seemed to go on forever. We worked our way out of immigration, and found the information desk to arrange the transfer to our hotel. I asked two people along the way how to say ‘thank you’ in Korean (as there was not much happening in English anywhere we went) and was told two different things. Maybe they didn’t quite understand my question, even though I accompanied it with a bow once (there’s a lot of bowing happening in Korea). Both answers contained more than six syllables though, so I figured I’d stick with ‘thank you’ and do a polite bow to get the point across whenever I needed to.

We were herded onto a bus and off we went, to the ‘Royal Seoul Motel’ via four and five lane highways with cars about an inch away from the bus, on the wrong side of the road. The bus driver turned on his TV (sitting where a satnav would in our car) and as I looked at all the cars that were next to us, it would seem that everyone had a TV on, everyone watching either the news or some strange version of Korean ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Mark pointed out later that 85% of the cars were white, black or silver – the only difference being the odd dark blue car or orange taxi. I saw a sign on the highway that looked like a deer, or an antelope, or maybe an Impala leaping, an equivalent to roo signs no doubt, but I didn’t see any animals leap out onto the busy roads.

There was construction happening everywhere, water everywhere else, and enormous bridges over all of the water and construction. Jamie pointed out that every bridge was different, and we saw a red mini Sydney Harbour bridge not too far from the airport. It was a bit difficult to see anything as it was getting dark, and it was pouring rain but about 45 minutes later, we arrived in downtown Seoul. There was more neon signs hanging off the buildings than I had ever seen in my life, about 300 times more than there are in Kings Cross (surely). It was 8:30pm on a Friday night and there were people, cars and signs galore. The ‘crossing man’ sign at lights (I can’t think of what they are officially called, but the signs that have a green man walking and a red flashing man when you shouldn’t walk, oops, person, not man *rolls eyes*) were huge. They are about three times the size of ours and have another one underneath that counts down how much longer people can cross for.

We arrived at the hotel, and decided to shower before heading down to (the included) dinner. I was not ready for the toilet of perception. I was looking at all the different buttons, blah blah (seriously, I think this thing had a computer chip in it)… I won’t go into too many details, but I will say there is something pretty appealing about a heated toilet seat. Down for dinner, Jamie and Mark went with the American sounding food (chicken, hamburger steak) and I had something. No idea what it was, but it was meat and it had an excellent sauce, and I enjoyed it very much.

We went for a little walk then, but it was pouring and we had no umbrella, so it really was just a little walk. The smell of the food from the cafes and street stalls was amazing though. We got back to the motel to witness ‘Glee’ in Korean and for Mark to try a ‘Hite’ (cool and fresh) beer!

Nothing really special happened in the morning, but it was still pretty amazing just waking up in a different country, knowing that we would be in a different one again the next night. Buffet brekkie: bad coffee, sweet toast, bacon, eggs and YUMMY mackerel filled us up and then back on the highway for the trip to the airport. We had hoped to see more, but it was still pouring! We passed some sort of fields, we’re intrigued as to what they were. They looked like salt fields really, with grasses in patches that were a lovely crimson. That’s one to check out on google when we can.

Since then, we’ve been on the plane for the past six hours with another five to go until we land at Heathrow. I am again seated between Mark and Jamie, but they are behaving themselves much better this time!

Check out the photos here