Day 1: 22 June 2009, Monday

My night seemed really long. 6 hours seemed like forever. Just after the plane took off, I fell asleep. But one hour later, I was up and awake and I just couldn’t sleep even though I was dead tired. I watched Confessions of a Shopaholic and managed to get a little sleep, but I kept waking up at every x:22am. Maybe I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about my family, about how much I’ll miss them since I’ve never been apart from them for such a long period before.

I reached Incheon International Airport at around 7.20am and after clearing the customs and collecting my HEAVY luggage, I met Pauline, Phyllis and Jeannie at Starbucks before we took the AREX to Gimpo Airport to deposit our luggages.

 

Jeannie and Pauline imitating Kim Yuna with the wrong poses.

Lugging our heavy luggages from the train station to Gimpo Airport. My check-in luggage was 19.1kg and my hand carry was 6kg. Well done Clara.

First sighting of Dunkin’ Donuts in Korea at Gimpo Airport.

Our T-money tokens to take the Seoul Subway. It works like our ez-link card. The mickey mouse T-money mobile phone accessory costs 8,000원 each.

Myeong-dong 명동 where I met my Korean SEP buddy 기홍오빠 and paid him the money for the 제주항공표 and the car rental deposit. He passed me his old phone and brought me to get my pre-paid number.

My Korean phone:

Super delicious mushroom porridge 8,000원 for lunch:

Innisfree and Etude House, 2 of the many cosmetics shops we stepped into in Myeong-dong명동 after lunch:

At about 3.30pm, we took the subway back to Gimpo Airport to meet Yong Kang.

Our flight to Jeju-do 제주도 was at 6.10pm and we arrived in 제주도 at about 7.10pm.

I guess we weren’t the only ones who were tired.

Walking to the taxi stand to take a taxi to our hotel: Ocean Grand Hotel.

We had dinner at a Korean restaurant near our hotel: 뼈전골

We didn’t know it was a pork dish till a few days later when Jeannie asked the taxi driver.

Kimchi 김치