Blog 6    Days 15 & 16   21-22/11/24 Last Days

Woke up around 7.30am a little bit dusty & a very croaky voice from last night’s mini-binge outing but knowing I would be a lot better than some of my fellow drinkers (32 beers in total for us all). Sorted out my backpack & after a wake-up shower in the hope of repacking at the airport for when we leave at 6°C Max Seoul to 29°C for Sydney & Brisbane.

I sat with my favourite travellers, Maria & Ted (78 & 80) for brekky & I will truly miss them. They live in Sydney, Manly. Our check out was set for 10am so we had to log our suitcases into Reception until our bus arrives for the 5pm departure. I somehow missed the bus group after reception, so I didn’t know if anyone had something planned for their day.

Really, today is another wasted day with nothing to shop for or to really see without too much complication & walking so another wandering around to find a great cafe where I can add to my travel blog & watch the rain for 5mins. This is the only rain (drizzle) we have seen on our entire 16day trip to Japan & Korea, so we were truly blessed. Yay!!! However, Korea has been mostly freezing for me.

I walked down a few different streets but nothing to take a photo of and eventually found my way back to my normal main street & the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge where again, I found this area rather surprising & unique. This good stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built a major elevated highway over it.

Over time, the stream became a cesspit & an unsafe area, then a decision was made some decades later to demolish this highway & return the stream to some beauty for the city in a hard landscaping, construction theme (not natural edges of flora but stones, pavers, etc) & now it provides a great attraction for passive walking, city lunch gatherings & festive celebrations. At its western end is a constructed weir & waterfall that provides a good constant flow. Such imagination and ingenuity for this landmark.

With more meandering undertaken I eventually returned to the reception of AMID Hotel where everyone was securing their luggage & in doing so, no-one had any good stories to tell of their day. Mostly just window shopping & a couple of markets. Come 5pm we are all loaded on the bus & finally EVERYONE is on board on time & not lost. First time EVER!!! Looking at my phone I had undertaken 7.61klms of walking.

The traffic to Incheon Airport (2^nd largest port & 3^rd largest city) which services Seoul was insane directly from leaving the hotel being end of work time & with 4hwy lanes each way mostly choked will be a very slow 90klm trip & it was. The airport is massive & amazing & basically taking up the whole island off the coast of Incheon city & even with us reaching the airport at dark, it certainly became obvious when the skyline opened like the full sun just appeared with the airport’s lighting. What a light show!!!

Getting off the bus & saying goodbye to our driver, the airport is so large we had trouble finding the Qantas check-in counter. We eventually found it on Aisle H .. & trust me, there were a lot more letters following beyond your line of sight with such a large airport. With the check-in counter closed for another hour, it gave me time to exchange currency & sort out my duty-free Scotch shopping. I allowed myself to get 2 bottles of my fav scotches (Aberlour & Balvenie). Yummo & Cheers!!!  Going through the security was OK however, one of our couples found quite a security emergency where the wife wore new sneakers she bought yesterday & the shoes tested positive for drugs & eventually was cleared with the new shoes intact. Her husband bought his new shoes at another store & those were OK after showing both purchase receipts. Whew!!

There is still enough time to review a good coffee outlet & notice a popular one down further with people lining up, but as it turned out, only 1 employee is taking the order & making the product. You’re kidding!!! Back to the start of my search & took the chance of the first option & was pleasantly surprised. A good coffee before I start the boarding circus.

Sitting at Gate 9, I was thankful for my bus friend, Ed (same age as my daughter), found me & we had our last catchup before he went to his gate to Melbourne. I’ll miss him & his humour, but he promised to call into my new hometown of Yamba when he comes up north next year. Looking at the boarding lines of both gates there were several people I will truly miss & a couple I certainly will NOT!!! Not group friendly or considerate the entire trip.

My QF88 flight is boarding 10pm, the same time as Ed’s & with a quick wave to him from a far I start to think being in a single seat, dreading sitting next to the bus horror passenger, DS from the G/Coast where I am also heading to .. I can’t print what this man did on the trip. Such disgusting, self-serving behaviour & I called him out on it the other day. He was horrid. With such relief, I had two spare seats between my other young Korean lady passenger (centre aisle of 4 seats). She was happy to take up these 3 seats & had a sleep for 95% of the 10hr flight. The flight gave us our dinner meal at 10.45pm & then lights out of course. The Korean lady had no dinner, nor breakfast & arose of course quite refreshed upon landing, but with bed hair extreme to which she was quickly rectifying.

22/11/24

No sleep, basically for me on the plane (10hrs is a long time) & was awake when the brekky trolley was pushed out around 6am. This was the time I could get to my backpack above to retrieve my pen to fill in the Australian Immigration & Customs Card provided to me when boarding.

Yikes!!!!! While sitting down to start writing, my pen leaked a ‘ton’ of blue ink out everywhere, narrowly missing my open passport, clothes & seats. Blue ink all over my hands. My opposite aisle passenger saw this & gave me a couple of fresh wipes & they were definitely blue when I finished but couldn’t get all the ink removed. That’s going to look suspect to Customs, I’m sure. Lol! I was so thankful for the young couple but now I have no pen.

Alighting from the plane & heading towards Customs/ Immigration, my favourite traveller, Maria was already waiting in line & I explained the pen ink situation & she instantly gave me her pen. Here I am trying to write, move my bag in the cattle grid line & keeping composed. Lol!! Suddenly, a line opens up & Maria & Ted were off like a shot!! I now have inherited her pen. Getting through Sydney Customs was a breeze, despite my fluoro blue hands & straight onto Gate 15, after another security check onto the Qantas inter-airport bus to the domestic terminal for Brisbane. Again, I’m dreading the thought of sitting next to DS & again the universe looked after me. Whew!!!

I again enjoyed the inter-bus trip across the airport adjacent to a taxiway I was heavily involved with in construction back in 1986 & to provide the beauty of Sydney I have uploaded some of my flight photos over the Sydney Domestic Airport, CBD & Harbour Bridge areas. The taxiway I spoke of is basically the centre of the below left photo.

Before long I was landing in Brisbane & was very thankful for my son in law, Jason to pick me up at Brisbane Domestic after his 14hr night work shift & drove me to their home in Canungra for a 2-night stay. The weather & traffic was so bad it took us 2hrs to do the drive. Jason was totally stuffed & went straight to bed after his shower & didn’t see him till later the next morning.

Such a relief to see my family & to chat about the trip & to chill out before heading home although I will spend one night with son, Matthew & his wife Ashlee at Banora Point before heading on a 2hr drive South to Yamba to review their large landscaping project they want me to undertake very soon. Reality starting to hit already.

Cheers to a great trip .. & my next one is Cairns/ Port Douglas (Nthrn Queensland, Australia) in late April. My next big trip will be Europe to catch up with some great friends in October 2025 for about 43days. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. By scrolling down to other posts you can review my entire Japan & Sth Korea trip plus keep scrolling to see my numerous other travel blogs. Happy reading … or sleeping? LOL!!!