Flying to Korea!

I have been very busy for the past few weeks going around Seoul, hence why I couldn't find time to write any posts. But now I do! Just finished my 3 days of orientation (well 2 to be exact, I'll explain later) and now in the resting period before the semester begins next week on Monday!
How ready am I? -100000%. It still feels like I'm on holiday and am ready to go back to the UK very soon (like in a few days...)

Luggage Woes

I flew to Incheon from London Heathrow Airport (Terminal 5) on Monday 12th August on the 1.40pm British Airways flight with 2 checked-in luggages, a laptop bag, and a weekend bag. Despite paying around £60 extra for the extra checked-in luggage online, I only used 32kg of the 46kg total that I could of taken to Seoul. I didn't know until I got to the bag drop section, so I could of actually brought more clothes and souveniers for my KUBA buddies. But alas, it was too late. I am still regretting till this day...
What makes it worse is that my weekend bag wasn't even full either, it was perhaps just 1/4 full. I hate everything TT TT

Really wish I could turn back time to slap myself in the face, tell myself to be more daring and just pack more. It's not like my parents won't be there to take stuff back home with them if I overpacked...

*heavy sigh*

I parted ways with my parents outside security check at 12.30pm. Surprisingly no tears were shed (well at least I didn't witness any) despite my mum's prediction a few days before that my dad would sob like a baby like he would on my wedding day. Although I did feel sad when I hugged them and bidded them farewell, I had a feeling that time will pass very quickly. It felt like as if I was going on a 1 month holiday and would be back within a few weeks. Plus I was kinda lethargic since I woke up at 7am with 5 hours of sleep, my emotions were a bit slow.

The Flight

Since it was my first flight alone I was very nervous, despite travelling with a friend (who was also incredibly nervous). But we were fine, we managed to board our plane with no problem. Luckily the man who printed out my boarding pass told me that I had to take a bus to my plane from a specific gate, because the one who printed out my friend's boarding pass didn't tell her.

The flight was about 10 hours 45 minutes long. Watched Bling Ring on this tiny little screen (could barely hear anything properly because the earphone jack hole was terrible), 2 episodes of Adventure Time, and ate some decent plane food.
Unfortunately I couldn't sleep throughout the journey, the seats just didn't feel very comfortable for sleeping despite me feeling very tired and sleepy.

Arrival [ohgodohgod]

I arrived at 8am-ish. Stepped out of the plane already feeling the Korean humidity and started to feel like going back home hah.

The admin and immigration process wasn't exactly smooth since I had no idea we had to fill out these paper slips to hand over the the immigration desks. Plus I had no idea what to put in certain fields, like temporary Korean address, phone number in Korea, and details that I had no clue about. So we had to Google our hostel address instead and just write down our British mobile phone numbers that would soon become useless.

The flight's checked-in baggages were delayed so we pretty much spent a good 45 minutes waiting. There was a huge screen that kept replaying Gong Yoo and Suzy's pizza advert in front of us as well...

After having finally collected out luggage we went through one last check (?), where we had to fill out this slip in regards to what we have brought over in our luggages and such. Again we had to provide personal details that were just temporary.

Our 3 other friends, who arrived days before, were supposed to meet us at the airport and take us to the hostel from Incheon, yet when we arrived they were nowhere to be seen. After connecting to the Airport Wifi and Kakaotalk-ing them we found out they had overslept due to the Sokcho concert from the day before, meaning that me and my friend had to make the daunting trip to Hongdae. Thankfully my friends instructed us on what bus to take and where to get the tickets, and that they'll meet us at the bus stop. The ticket booth was just right outside the exit doors of the airport, paid 7,000won each for a ticket to Hongik Uni's bus stop, handed our luggage over to the bus luggage ajusshi's to tag and load onto the bus, and off we go.

Arrived in Hongdae in less than an hour, which was surprising! The journey was perhaps around 40 minutes. However, once we got our luggage off the bus we went into a mode of panic because:

1. Our friends weren't there to meet us at the bus stop
2. We didn't have Wifi to contact them (we had our phones, but my friend couldn't get signal in Seoul, whilst mines would of charged me a fortune to make a call or text)
3. It was hot and humid
4. We could smell something unpleasant from a distance...

See how important technology has become to us these days? Without it we're ruined. How did people live without it in the past for meet ups I don't even know.
But luckily after 15 minutes our friends arrived!


♥ Many thanks to British Council Korea for paying for my flight tickets! ♥