Tag Archives: Incheon

Homeward Bound

Airports, South Africa, Travel, , ,

I spent my last night in Korea at a Seoul backpackers. The next morning I was on my way by 11am, having left a selection of books, heavy jerseys and other bits and pieces behind for fear that my suitcase would be overweight (not that I couldn’t have made a plan if it was but I have an aversion to airport admin and try to avoid it whenever possible).

I rolled my large, heavy case along the uneven pavement (and road where there was no pavement). Two different taxis gawked at the funny-looking foreigner and drove merrily on by. I grumbled under my breath. The third taxi driver was kinder and dropped me at the subway station, even helping me get the large case onto the pavement.

I crossed under the road via the subway (big suitcase + subway steps = fail, btw). I was taking the Airport Limousine to Incheon Airport, the giant airport in the coastal city of Incheon, which is currently being swallowed whole by the capital.  Airport Limousine Buses are a marvellous invention. Although Incheon Airport is connected to Seoul by train and subway, both are a huge mission with luggage. Taxis are an option but are rather expensive. Airport limousine buses run between the airport and most areas of Seoul for a reasonable fee and can handle plane-sized luggage. They also run to all other major cities in Korea (express – no stops in between) so they really are the best way to get to and from Incheon Airport.

I arrived at the airport early and waited for the check-in counters to open. My bag was overweight. Of course. Luckily only a kg or two, so they simply sighed and checked it right through to Joburg. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to do this because my second flight was with SAA but they did – Yay for Cathay Pacific. Sadly, I didn’t get a window seat. I may be alone in this but I deeply resent the new airline policy that allows people to choose seats in advance and links window-seats to ticket-prices. I liked the way it worked before, when I could rock up at the airport early and be guaranteed a window because I was the first person to check in. Window-seats as a reward for being on time – that’s how the world should work! At least I was on the aisle – middle-seats are no fun.

It was lunch time and I was hungry, so I tried to grab lunch before heading through security. The only restaurant that appealed was staffed by a particularly surly Korean who looked me up and down and informed me that they “didn’t seat single diners”. I resisted the urge to punch her in the nose and decided I eat beyond security.

Security check done – and thankfully no taking off of shoes required; next stop immigration. I handed the woman my passport and my Alien Registration Card (ARC) – the card that has been my ID in Korea for the last year. I’d have liked to keep the card as a souvenir but they have to be handed in at departure, I suppose to stop the horrible foreigners coming back. The customs lady asked me if I was returning and warned me in a stern voice that she would have to cancel my visa now. I don’t think she appreciated my broad smile and enthusiastic nod. She scowled and stamped my passport. Filled with joy, I thanked her politely and headed on, into no-mans land and the journey home.

Seoul (Incheon) to Hong Kong
Airhostesses have to be tall. That’s the rule. Or at least it used to be the rule. It’s always seemed arbitrary before. I am more sympathetic to the idea after a tiny, doll-like Cathay Pacific cabin attendant nearly knocked me out trying to stow a suitcase in the overhead compartment above me, while standing on the edge of my seat and swinging it past my head.

The food on Cathay Pacific was fine and the in-flight entertainment was good. It was a short flight – 3 or 4 hours, so not too much time to kill but I find I’m always more restless on a plane when I don’t have a window to look out of. I found some episodes of Glee to watch instead.

In Hong Kong (my 6-hour stop-over) I went through the quick transit security check and set off to explore this sprawling air transportation hub. Hong Kong Airport is one of the busiest in the world. In 2009, over 46 million passengers used the airport. That’s nearly the population of South Africa. Shops, pharmacies, liquor and cigarette duty frees, bars, restaurants, spas and lounges dot the area around the many, many moving walkways. At intervals, electronic signboards show destinations from Paris and Sydney to Beijing and LA. I walked and walked and walked. You hear all the time about people who spend hours and hours travelling and get all sorts of aches and pains from lack of exercise. Do these people not have stops on their flights? Or do they simply not feel the need to wander around the airports where they stop? I like exploring airports. I like airports. This one was spacious and classy, although I did end up having Burger King for dinner, but mostly because I wasn’t sure whether the other restaurants would take the currency I was carrying.

Hong Kong to Johannesburg
I sat down in my aisle seat (again) and waited for the rest of the passengers to board. People came in ones and twos. Eventually, the cabin crew started closing overhead lockers and talking people through safety procedures. There was a window seat next to me. It was empty. I watched and waited and then, before I knew it, they were preparing the doors for take-off. Joy of joys – not only could I claim window but I had two whole seats to spread out across.

I watched a rainy Hong Kong fall away below me and relaxed into the South African accents and languages floating back and forth. In thirteen hours, I would be back in the RSA but already, just being on an SAA flight I was a little bit closer and a little more at home.

The flight to Joburg wasn’t bad. SAA isn’t the world’s best for in-flight entertainment but you can usually find something to watch. My jet-lag kicked in, of course, so I was awake from about 3am SA time. This did mean that I got to watch the sun rise over the stunning clouded edge of Africa. I kept the window blind open for the whole flight and no-one made me shut it, unlike previous east-ward flights, so I was able to watch the whole sky-scape turn from night into dusky-dawn. At one point, a tray of typical SAA breakfast in front of me, I watched the early sun reflecting the SAA colours from the wing-tip across the wing-surface towards me. It could have been an SAA advert.

Joburg. South Africa. ‘My’ airport. I tried to hold back the tears as we dropped, lower and lower, across the highveld but there was no point. As the plane touched down, with the sun slanting through the red winter grass, I cried and cried. I was home. The familiar form of OR Tambo rose before us. The voice, the same voice as always, welcomed us to Joburg with all the words I remember from all those flights.

We disembarked and followed the signs to passport control, which was efficient and organised and clearly very ready for the Soccer World Cup. The whole plane-load must have passed through in about 10 minutes. Baggage claims took a little longer. I suppose that much baggage takes a while to off-load. While we waited a guard, with something like ‘agricultural products control’ on his vest, led a small dog in and out, letting the dog sniff at people’s baggage and clothes. It was unobtrusive and non-invasive and seemed a very efficient way to check things. I loaded my bag onto a trolley and walked out into the circular arrivals area of the new OR Tambo.

The airport was looking great – all sparkly and new and decked out in bright colours for the World Cup. I had several hours to wait for my domestic flight but this wait was more of a home-coming than a delay. I had breakfast at Wimpy and only just managed to avoid crying into my first proper Wimpy coffee. I wandered around a bit to see what they’d done to the place. I found a spot, on the departures level, from where I could comfortably look down on the arrivals circle and people-watch. To my left, a group of police-men stood chatting, interrupting their conversation frequently to give directions or help out lost foreigners. The taxi drivers, the porters, the airport volunteers – everyone was helpful and competent. Down below, a group of Argentineans got into a singing match with some Chile fans. Their hearty singing was complemented by the occasional Vuvuzela blast. Everyone watched and clapped. The atmosphere was fantastic.

Eventually, tired after all the flights, I checked in, went through security (ah, so good to be back at a familiar airport) and spent some quality time in the premier lounge. I was flying 1time but I figured I’d be tired so paid the extra for the lounge – definitely worth it if you want to get work done or have a long wait. Nearly 24 hours after leaving Incheon, I landed in East London, where I was greeted by singing and dancing. The singing and dancing was obviously intended for someone else but it was still pretty awesome. We (my parents and I) stayed in EL for a few hours and did fun things like buying Fest tickets. I should have been exhausted but I was buoyed by the joy and wonder and relief of being home.

I’ve been back for two weeks now. I can’t believe it has been so long. I keep finding things I love about this country and reasons I’m glad to be back. The moment that made me realise just how homesick I was in Korea, the moment I keep coming back to and that I suppose will always be a reminder of why I’m not cut out to be anywhere but Africa, is that joyful, tear-filled moment when the plane touched down in Joburg and the morning rays of sunlight softly touched the winter-red grass.

Journey to a place far, far away

Airports, Travel, , ,

In the last 24 hours, I have managed to get a little bit lost in three different major international airports. Not sufficiently lost for it to be a real problem, just lost enough to wander around reading all the signs with a determined expression and a little bit of a hasty step (particularly in those airports that are big enough to house an indoor marathon).

The most panic-stricken part of the whole journey was probably at the beginning. I know what everyone says and that it’s supposed to be relatively simple to get through check-in, customs, security, etc. and get on the plane. In fact, for most people, I think the plane ride is probably the most annoying part. I think this is partly because they have either forgotten or were too young to remember their first experiences of the terrifying bureaucracy. I hate doing this sort of thing for the first time – when I don’t know what I’m doing and I am terrified of something going wrong. Yes, I’m paranoid. The marvellous friend who took me to the airport just about had to push me through the door.

Once I was on the plane I was fine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a window seat for the first stretch. I am very partial to a window seat. But I was on the aisle and Emirates has a wonderful entertainment selection, so I happily whiled away a good eight hours catching up on movies (Madagascar 2 – finally – and duplicity) and various series. Oh, and good food. And wine. I tasted foreign wines. In the duration of the trip, I tasted an Australian Chardonnay and a Chilean Chardonnay and a French white, the name of which is lost in the mists of time-zone changes. I liked the Australian.

Landing at Dubai was a pleasure, if rather warm. I found myself wandering into the terminal humming ‘hot in the summer’. And then down the stairs. And round the corner. And up the stairs. A bit of a round-about route to get to the departures area when you’re in transit there. That said, Terminal 3 at Emirates is beautiful. It has a beautiful water-feature, elegant design, sunning, high ceilings and beautifully etched windows reaching from floor to roof. All they need to do to make it perfect is get rid of at least half the shops and most of the people. I’m not particularly interested in shopping when in transit. I suppose really, it’s that the thing I love about airports is their emptiness and elegance, and masses of people spoil the effect somewhat. I spent quite a lot of the 3-hour lay-over at Dubai wandering around looking at the building and out of the windows and being looked askance (skeefed out) by slightly more seasoned and shopping-approving flyers. Things became more exciting when I missed an announcement that my gate had changed and returned from my wanderings to find no-one there. A frantic hustle (through the crowds) to the departures board sent me racing from a gate in the 200s to find one in the early 100s. Those who have walked the length of Dubai airport will perhaps understand that this did require some racing. Ok, it probably wasn’t that bad. I was disappointed, however, that I ended up racing past so many of the fascinating and bizarre other sights without being able to take the time to really look. The rest of the airport seems to have picked odd over spacious and elegant, but perhaps that was just my rushed impression.

Having checked my bags right through to destination (again, thank you Emirates), boarding was easy. Although, they do that silly ‘boarding by zone’ thing the Americans do. I’m absolutely unconvinced that it speeds things up in any way or makes them any more efficient. Given that this time I did have a window seat, as well as an empty seat next to me, I got over it quickly. This second flight left Dubai (a whole 15 or so minutes late) at around 3:15am local time. Flying from Joburg to Dubai had eliminated 2 hours (as far as I could figure out) so it was sometime around the middle of the night. It was also sometime around the middle of the night after quite a lot of stressful anticipation and a day of customs and SAA ground staff (my first flight was a code-share), so I was pretty destroyed. Luckily I can sleep on planes. I did. For two whole hours. At which point the sun came up and they woke us up for breakfast. My body was still trying to convince me that it was 3am in South Africa in winter, so it took a few befuzzled moments to figure out what was going on. At which point I got to watch a stunningly beautiful 33 000ft sunrise over the very edge of the Indian subcontinent. Sometimes travelling is amazing.

Once the sun had risen, unfortunately, the airline staff insisted that all the window blinds be closed. This irritates me no end – partly because I’m slightly claustrophobic, mostly because I like watching the pretty world go by  below, and a little because staying awake from sunrise while travelling East seems to me to make sense. When they finally let us open the blinds again – I lose track of how long that took because I was fast asleep – we were flying over China. The second amazing sight of the day, partly just for the bragging value, was watching a huge thunderstorm front develop over China and the Yellow Sea. If you’ve never flown through a thunderstorm that is developing, you can’t imagine the magnificence of the anvil-shaped billows, the light and shadow playing around the edges of this incredible force of nature.

The descent into Seoul (Incheon airport) was quick and steep but not quick enough to prevent my stomach knotting itself into knots of terror. Not because I am scared of landings – and in fact this wasn’t a bad one – but because of the more bureaucracy. In fact, the immigration and customs points were almost disappointingly quick and boring. Almost, not quite. The most entertaining part was a particularly overzealous security guard at immigration who kept moving people from one queue to another to make them get through more quickly. Which was fine but whenever the immigration people sent someone back to be checked through the security point (which was to one side before the counters), this over-enthusiasitic security guard would shout at them in Korean and try and make them get back into the queue. I giggled quietly to myself and exchanged amused looks with the British girl in the queue in front of me and tried not to laugh out loud in case it offended someone and jeopardised my chances of getting into the country.

Incheon Airport feels like it is designed to keep you inside forever (cue sinister music). Seriously – and keep in mind that I’d lost many, many hours and not had much sleep by this stage – we arrived and went along a corridor, along a travellator, down two escalators, into an underground train (Incheon airport has it’s own subway system) and up the steepest, longest escalator ever which makes you feel as thought you’re ascending into some sort of upside-down underworld (c.f. Various world belief systems that think heaven is underneath). Eventually through immigration and baggage collected – perfectly in one piece without wrapping pierced at all – and through customs, you emerge into the less sinister and worrying arrivals area – with actual doors to the outside. At this point, I headed off to find the domestic check-in area to get ready for one more flight. Perhaps I should say at this point that Korea is not really an air-travel-addicted nation. At least not internally. They have a super express and almost-express train system, I am told, as well as regular buses, and the country is actually quite little (smaller than the UK – the South, I mean). So they don’t fly that often. Which means that there aren’t very many domestic flights. It does not mean, however, that there aren’t many check-in counters/areas/black-hole-like-expanses. Because Incheon is a popular transit airport and Koreans generally fly to get overseas – the land route requiring transition through the North and the rest being sea – there are many, many international flights leaving from there, so it is a bit of a needle-in-a-haystack situation to find the one small area dedicated to the few local flights. Particularly when at least 65% of the signs are not written using Western characters – never mind in English.

Standing around looking lost works wonders, however. The friendly staff were able to speak English and point me in the right direction. Eventually I boarded my last flight for the day, this one a Korean Air flight from Incheon to Daegu. It was a 737, which always makes me happy. I realise  it’s a bit odd to have a favourite aeroplane but I’ve just spent so much time flying on 737s that it’s become my happy-plane. I was rather tired by this stage and thought I must have dozed off because after what felt like a ridiculously short time, I opened my eyes and we were on the ground. Turns out we hadn’t taken off yet. I began to wonder if we were taxi-ing to Daegu. By the time we landed, about 35 minutes later, I wondered if it wouldn’t perhaps be less costly and air-polluting to have done so. Daegu airport is about the size of PE but has three sky-walks and is all  glassed in corridors – which appear not to do much other than force you to walk the perimeter of the airport to get to the one luggage carousel (ok, smaller than PE). There is also a military base there, apparently, which would explain the large and army-looking helicopter I noticed on the way in.

Daegu was the end of a rather long and tiring, but largely hassle-free trip to Korea. I’m now here and looking forward to a good long sleep in a non-moving bed – with no midnight stops in the Middle East to change planes