Day 1
Saturday
29/11/08
Changi - Incheon - Myongdong
I woke at around 4:30am and got ready for the Maxicab coming to pick us up. It came at around 5:15am. We reached Changi Terminal 3 at 6am and checked-in. Flight SQ608 took off at 7:30am, with a 5 minute delay. I had the sacred economy class window seat under my bum.
I watched the view of early morning Changi as it faded into the horizon. The sun came into being from behind the clouds and I had to close the shutters. Just as well, because the TV screens turned on and displayed the safety message which everyone was forced to watch. I didn’t give a hoot about it. Who needs oxygen masks when the plane is going to crash? I messed with the TV control and unknowingly pressed the call button. A steward came to attend to my non-existent request. I think we both had the same look on our faces. Puzzled.
The TV screens were now activated and I was able to scroll through the movie list. My eyes settled on The Good, The Bad, The Weird. Finally, I was able to watch it with no rating restrictions. Halfway through, a stewardess came with breakfast. I felt like I was in business class. The earphones, although not “active noise cancellation” devices, worked in perfect harmony with my faulty eardrums to block out any and every sound coming from the stewardess. It took a punch on my shoulder from my grandpa beside me to bring my attention to the food.
In fact, the show had no reason to be rated NC16 here. I reckon that the many gunfights could be the cause but still, I found it quite entertaining for a 15-year old. Oh, the aforementioned problem happened again when the stewardess came to collect the trays, and during lunchtime too.
During my selection of another show, I pressed the call button again. Another steward came and asked “Did someone press the call button?” Of course I said no, but I asked which one the call button was. Once armed with that knowledge, I stowed my TV control safely into the holder and pressed OK for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
That show was good enough for me, considering that it was cartoon. Actually, I liked it. However there was still some time before landing, so I chose another movie; Wanted. I had an inkling that it deserved its violence and language rating. It did. In the first scene, there was a swear word. In the next, another swear word. In the third too. Putting those aside, it was quite an enjoyable flick. Action movies catch my attention. It was just too bad that the plane landed when the show was half an hour from ending.
Hello Incheon! We arrived at 3:30pm Korean time and made our way to the arrivals hall. It was a stone’s throw away, if the stone was thrown by a ballista. We had to take a skytrain just to get to the immigrations. And there, we were held up by a Korean at the international passport counter. She delayed us by 15 minutes, and by the time we got to the baggage carousel, all our luggage were on trolleys, ready to be pushed out. It was another hike to the arrival hall’s exit, where we met Mr. Hong, our guide.
He led us out to the carpark, but not before telling us to wear our jackets. I extricated my IPzone jacket from my hand luggage and put it on. Not that it offered much protection against the gale-force wind. Before I even walked three steps, I was frozen. It took two sisters to pull me to the guide’s seven-seater car. It seemed that I would need more than an extra layer of cloth to get me through the next few days.
So there we were, shivering in the car while Mr. Hong drove with the window down. We were headed for our hotel in Myongdong. It took more than an hour to get there due to the worsening traffic conditions as we got nearer to the downtown area. Near the Lotte building, we heard a loud bang, apparently coming from the left side of the car. It shook the entire vehicle, but nobody knew what had caused it. All tires were intact. The car did not break down. So we just drove on until we reached the hotel vicinity.
The access road was so tight that people had to hug the walls to let the cars pass. As we were about to enter, a salon came out. He was going the wrong way! As you would expect, going the wrong way down a one-way street can be quite disastrous. He almost collided with the lamppost on the curb as he tried to turn out. The entrance was not meant for a car to exit and turn right at all.
Finally, we managed to get into the road. Ah, surprise surprise, a van was trying to reverse the flow of traffic. Having nowhere else to go, it had to back up until it reached a t-junction. There, another car was trying to pass. It was hell as the two cars had closer shaves than what their drivers had in the morning. I shall not go into the details, but skip to the part where we arrived at the hotel doorstep at approximately 6:30pm.
Good evening Metro Hotel! It was a small Hotel-81 kind of building, but that was where the similarity ended. The exterior was a smooth concrete design. The lobby was well-lit and warm. The lift was entirely mirrored, with small frosted-glass patterns. The corridors were carpeted and cooling. Best of all, my room had a single bed!
I would be sleeping with my grandparents, so they took the double bed while I took the single. There was a TV set sitting on a rotating table, so I immediately turned it to face my bed. Flipping through the channels, something caught my eye. Was that starcraft? I returned to that channel and sure enough, terrans were at a war with the zerg. Amazing! It had me captivated until it was time to leave for dinner. I quickly put on my undershirt and packed the useless jacket into my fake Billabong bag. Wearing the red-black parka, I picked up the bag and went out into the cold.
The streets were filled with people of all ages, all squeezing past one another in a contest of walking space. Our aim was to get to the metro station. It was a challenge to even get to the next street. People were walking with hands in their pockets, biting their nails as they held a portable TV, watching shows. The aerial was somewhat threatening to the eyes but fortunately, no one lost his or her sense of sight. By turning left and right at the same time, we found the way to the entrance of Euljiro 1-ga station.
It turned out that the entrance we took was one of the many exits. I counted six, but I was positive that there were more. The main reason why we were here was not to count the number of stairwells, however. My parents needed to get the tickets for Friday’s KTX train to Busan. Apparently, we could not get the tickets at the metro station. We were instructed by the service staff to get them at Seoul Station. This, as a result, led to my first ever ride on the subway train.
Getting to the trains was slightly more complicated. The ticket machines could only accept coins, which we didn’t have. Thankfully there was a coin changer nearby, so we received twenty 500-won coins from a 10000-won note. The trip to Seoul Station cost 1000-won apiece. We all got our tickets, which were very tiny slips of paper that looked like parts of a bookmark gone wrong. It was tough holding on to them with gloved hands, so I had to sacrifice a little of my warmth.
We took the train for one stop only, before a transfer of lines was in order. Another stop, and we arrived at Seoul Station. The ticket machines ate up my 1000-won souvenir, but allowed me through its gates. The air was colder in this part of town, so my gloves did not have much use. I stuffed them, together with my hands, in my pockets and shivered all the way to the actual Seoul Station building.
The place was very big. It was a train station, serving “actual” trains, not subway trains. It was there that my parents got the tickets and my body temperature went down by another degree. My stomach was grumbling too, so after the tickets were ours, we sat down at a Korean restaurant for dinner.
Ordering itself was a nightmare. The waitress could not even count in English, and it was up to me to translate “hana” into “one” for the benefit of the family. In the end, the food came in the correct amounts and to the correct people. I had bulgogi with rice, and it tasted many million times better than Singapore’s food-court style.
After dinner, we still had some time on our hands. So we explored the place around the station. There was a shopping area in the nearby building, and we went in there to look for a power socket adapter. A salesgirl directed us to Lotte Mart next door. It was a huge, Carrefour-like store, selling everything from pencils to missiles. There was the famous instant ramyeon, a whole shelf of kimchi, many more shelves of kimchi-seasoned foodstuffs, and a whole floor dedicated to electronics. It was there which we did not find any adapters. However we found it at the Home-DIY section. It cost 2000-won, which is about $2.50 in Singapore. Spread over ten days, it was actually quite cheap. That was not all we bought though. Ten packs of instant ramyeon followed a pack of kimchi.
Somehow, we managed to lug the full basket to the cashier. Paying was easy, since there was a screen to show how much was due. However, the problem came when we had to go. No plastic bags! They were only issued upon request. No donation required though. I’m sure Singapore can follow this method. Also, on the opposite side, there were carts of old cardboard boxes. People were using them to pack their shopping, replacing plastic bags. Incredible! Such was a simple solution to waste over-production, which has evaded us for so long.
It seemed like we were the only ones coming out of the shop carrying plastic bags. How embarrassing. We still had to get back to the hotel, since it was already 10pm. Back to the subway we went. There were three escalators leading to the station. Halfway down the first escalator, I was pushed from behind. I spun round, ready to confront my attacker. To my surprise, there was a huge mass on my right side. I heard people shouting in Korean, and the huge mass fell at my feet. It was an elderly man. Clearly, he had tripped from somewhere above me. Because I turned, he fell further. I tried, along with the man in front and woman behind, to help the old man up. Heavy he was. He remained on the stairs until the escalator ended. I pulled him out of the way, trying to use my shoe as leverage. Finally, he managed to get up by himself. An old lady came to his side and dusted him off. I just patted him on the back, and walked away to my family waiting at the side of the landing. The old lady was saying something, but I didn’t know to whom. Then she tapped my shoulder and I had to turn around again. She seemed very grateful and started spewing strings of Korean which I just smiled and nodded to. Then, our separate ways we went.
The journey home was not eventful at all. We reached our hotel and I immediately collapsed on my bed, exhausted from the day’s activities. I could not believe that so much had happened in just one day. I switched on the TV and watched starcraft till I dozed off.
That concluded Day 1.
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This weblog entry contains confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended reader, please notify me IMMEDIATELY that you have read it. I am not liable for your being offended, intended or otherwise, regarding the contents of this weblog entry.
so this is the end of fantasy.
anyway today was not too bad. morning i played blackjack with the group of girls [which were the oldest (10-12) so i had no choice in their gender] until we had to leave for the build-a-bear shop in vivo. there were so many of them, it took 4 hours to get everyone's bear. ng should have gone. it was free! and the girl group started to kachiao me, which is a common occurence, on many occasions. i wonder why.
so after that we took the hungry kids back to the club and fed them. played an enormous round of blackjack again in which i was the banker (as usual) and i earned a lot of their money (as usual) until the candy floss came and all of them went off to stuff themselves fatter than their bears. and i was quite sian already anyway so we packed up and waited for the telematches to start.
in fact i didn't know what the games were until philemon (not my class one) told me, 10 mins before it started. i managed to trick kim and the rest. good huh.
there were 5 games. all i played before, except one; the quiz. i shouted until i was horse, trying to get them to sit and be quiet. i can't believe i was like that. no way.
and kim's team didn't win anything. and philemon gave me a nike shirt to thank me for my help. *grateful*. and after that i went to the lounge to play cards again, this time taidi and cheat, and just before i left i grabbed some numbers.
on the way home i almost fell asleep. tonight, maybe i'll sleep early. last night i slept at 12+.
tmr maybe going to school. and i may not see this lappy again. aww.
and i totally forgot about the bugis outing. hahahahaha. sorry sam!! hope you can make it on saturday. or if i'm not going school tmr, we'll go.
ok i need to bathe, and unpack my bag. bye
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Disclaimer:
This weblog entry contains confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended reader, please notify me IMMEDIATELY that you have read it. I am not liable for your being offended, intended or otherwise, regarding the contents of this weblog entry.
