December was spent looking forward to this year end trip to Korea. I was excited to leave everything aside and close the year on a good note. Sometimes it's important to have a sweet ending. Ties up nicely to a sweet beginning.
There was time to spare after checking in, hence I persuaded-forced my dad to take a family photo in front of a Christmas tree haha. This photo is so blur and there are so many flaws but I cherish this because it's our first family photo in a decade, no joke. My dad kept grumbling and forbade me from Facebook-ing this... because... HE WORE HIS SHIRT THE WRONG WAY AROUND *shhh*. Now you know where I inherited my blur genes from.
Family.
Tadah, my inflight entertainment. I loathe morning / afternoon flights because I can't get to sleep on the plane, unlike early morning or late night flights, where I basically sleep the entire journey. But, I was well prepared with my book and a couple of videos loaded into my phone.. but smart me dropped my phone when we stopped-over in Taiwan, and it died. The LCD screen cracked, though that deserves a story of it own.
"Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.
"Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer."
Happy faces abound in Taoyuan Airport
After an 8 hours flight, we landed in Korea (:. I'm not a fan of Korea's airports, but Incheon Airport is REALLY CLEAN, perhaps to the point of clinical. The floor's gleaming, and there's a really cold approach to the design. Also, I was busy taking photos while in the immigration queue forgetting that photography was prohibited and got stopped by a security guard who made me delete everything.
According to our itinerary, we were supposed to catch a transit 6am flight to Jeju Island. Because we landed at 12 midnight, we thought that it wouldn't be necessary to book a hotel room just for 5 hours. Six hours at an airport seemed tedious but doable. Unfortunately, the flight was at Gimpo Airport... WHICH ISN'T OPEN 24/7. SMART.
Guess what's worse, THEY DON'T HAVE LIFTS IN THE AIRPORT. And the escalators were off too. Good job.
Struggling to get all the luggages up the stairs.
We ended up loitering around the area hoping to find somewhere warm to go. The situation would actually have been mangeable in the summer, but in winter when the temperature dips to negative degrees Celsius, I was positive we would all freeze in the open.
At 2AM, we roamed around the area with our huge luggages and tried to hobo at the entrance of Gimpo Airport until the security guard at the airport had enough of us and started chasing us away. In the end we gave up and took two taxis to a nearby Korean Bath House, Jjimjilbang. A big issue with this was that we would have to separate because our luggages couldn't fit into one taxi, and we couldn't speak Korean. Like, what if they brought us to two different places !?! If I were alone I wouldn't really care, but paranoia and worry is always high when the two younger brothers are around. Maybe it's the older sibling syndrome, but I always worry something will happen to them, and that everything isn't perfect.
Took the chance to play with some icy, dirty snow
The bathouse is really interesting. They're gender separated, though the sleeping area is common. For a very cheap price, at about 9000 or less won, you get to have a hot bath and sleep overnight. The common sleeping area came with a food bar. I didn't bathe there though, I have a very high ick factor for public toilets ugh. I feel that.. I get dirtier instead of cleaner.
Here's where the adventure of the night begins. My mom and I were lounging in the girls toilet while the brothers went to the guys toilet. I naively assumed that everything would be alright, until this lady came in and approached us, asking if we were with two friends. My mom panicked a little and went to look for them and discovered they befriended three other Korean friends, two really nice ladies and one slightly strange guy. So, I went up to look for them and we stayed up the whole night eating and attempting to converse in sign language over laughter amidst frustrations of misinterpretations. We couldn't speak Korean and they couldn't speak English, with the exception of one lady who had minimal English knowledge. I'm slightly suspicious of the strange dubious Korean man though, who kept saying my brother was very good looking. LIKE GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM. Not that I mean to be accusing him of anything and I think my brothers are smart enough right yes ok.
It was a beautiful coincidence that I started on The Alchemist that day. Body and sign language can tell you more about a person, a situation, a place, than words.
It was a beautiful coincidence that I started on The Alchemist that day. Body and sign language can tell you more about a person, a situation, a place, than words.
The next morning was another mini heart attack. We were supposed to reach Gimpo Airport (that godforsaken place again) at 5AM. The two really nice ladies were headed to Jeju on the same flight as us. We went in two taxis again, I with the two ladies, and my mom and brothers with the dubious guy. When I reached the airport, my family were nowhere in sight even after 20min or so of waiting, and the bathouse was only a 5 min drive away. My mom was uncontactable and OMG PANIC ATTACK MODE WENT ON. Luckily the nice lady spotted them on the floor below us. I was so worried that the dubious guy was indeed dubious and took them to somewhere else.
I really wouldn't have expected anything of such to happen on a family trip, especially with my mom who prefers to travel more comfortably. It truly is an experience that would hardly come by, though we were amazingly fortunate that day. Everything that could go wrong didn't go wrong. Our guardian angels must have been watching over us (: Angels aren't always on duty though. There's just so much more for me to learn, and so much more to grow street-wise.
Lockers to keep your things safe
Korean version of cha ye dan!
My new friends (:
I write horribly.
But I'm finished writing a naggy account of my first day in Korea. It's a tad over-lengthy, but I think it was a first day that doesn't always happen and I want to pen it down, or rather type it out.
But I'm finished writing a naggy account of my first day in Korea. It's a tad over-lengthy, but I think it was a first day that doesn't always happen and I want to pen it down, or rather type it out.
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