Incheon (The airport city next to Seoul) - Seoul, South Korea
visited Jun 30, 2006
I'm sitting in the Hyatt Regency Incheon, Not Using their internet. I'm too cheap to pay 20000won (whatever that means) for a day's access. Just as I was too cheap to pay US$10 an hour to use the inflight wireless internet (I had heard they had it now, but didn't really believe it!). So this will just have to wait until I next get a connection - hopefully in Stansted or Heathrow, where I think there might be free wireless. Finally got away from Brisbane - I should remember not to arrange such early flights when I don't have any family in town! The wonderful james came to my rescue, giving me half a lift to the airport. I still had to be on a train to Bowen Hills at 6am, but if I had caught the train the whole way, it would have been 5am. At the checkin, they told me their weren't any exit row seats left, and found my an aisle bulkhead instead - I wasn't looking forward to it. I was, however, directed to the reservations desk to make a reservation for an aisle seat for the next flight, and discovered a wonderful thing. Korean air reserves the exit row seats for people who go and specifically ask for them at a separate counter, and they easily changed my first flight to a window exit row. This system means that any spare seats on the plane end up in the exit rows, so there's extra space in all directions! I was most pleased, and the flight was rather pleasant. No individual tvs on this flight, and the drawback of the exit row seat was a small screen too far away to read subtitles, so I skipped the korean movie and read instead. I should have brought another book as carry on, as I've finished the first one. I hope I can find someone to swap with, as I dare say the next flight will have the same problems! I did get to watch the second movie - Failure to Launch. Yay. One moment of excitement - I happened to glance out the window just as we were flying over the chesterfields. I wouldn't have expected to see them, being just two small reefs and islands in the middle of the coral sea, inhabited only by birds, pretty much, but obviously we were in just the right spot. I last saw them in 1991 when we stopped there on praxis. I'm pretty sure it was the chesterfields, anyway! On arrival, I discovered that they don't make it too easy to work out where you are supposed to go for the Hyatt (I get free accomodation here because the flights don't meet up, which is nice), but managed anyway. I've explored the hotel, been for a walk down the street to a few shops that are nearby, had the set menu dinner (my opinion of korean food is improving slightly) and soaked in a deep hot bath. I'm now wrapped in the white terry bathrobe loungng in the armchair with my feet up, and I'm about to crawl into the king size bed and crash. get 10 hours sleep, have the buffet breakfast (which I've heard is very nice) and then take the free bus 2 minutes down the road to the airport at the nice civilised hour of 11.15 or so. Hopefully I'll feel relaxed and slept enough to survive the 24 hours after that - still dreading this night on the floor of stansted...