No point in rushing on our day of departure and our usual gone 10 arrival in the Flamingo Cafe (no obvious reason for the name) has us eating breakfast alone. I tried reading the (only) English language paper but the brass rails they attach to, [to] presumably, prevent you waltzing off with it, makes life rather tricky. Woe betide the wine glass (set for lunch) that interferes with me turning to page 7.
Amazingly, Helen was packed even before breakfast so it's just me packing up to noon when the coach is due. We've changed into "winter" clothes in preparation for Seoul, reputedly soaring only to 15C and our bags seem so much lighter. We're the only people on the luxury coach service back. They've stripped the front two rows of seats for some reason -- extra baggage space maybe but it means plenty of legroom for us as we get a free tour of Kowloon on the road to the airport. The docks in HK are enormous. Heaven knows where all those goods go but it can't be for HK alone, surely?
We're in plenty of time for the plane which gives us an opportunity to mooch around the airport with no money in our hands. The airport is surprisingly disappointing, not the plethora of shops you might expect of Hong Kong. It is quiet too, we play bao at our gate and joke about there being more staff at the gate than passengers but come boarding time barely a dozen people get on the Boeing 777. I suppose there's no chance of an upgrade to first class?
was the question I should have asked. Still, food and drink were surprisingly not served in record time with the almost one on one service. No free mask this time, most people had their own, I chose to pass any infection on in the usual manner, even throwing in a short sneezing fit to petrify any hypochondriacs.
We arrived at an almost deserted Incheon International at half seven or so, a very strange feeling to be wandering around empty corridors. My passport was scrutinised with an eyepiece -- my baldy features presumably not quite matching the passport photo from '95. Luckily there was a bit more life in the main concourse and the hotel reservations desk was open. The hotels list looked good, some Astoria place for W380,000 until she did the maths for me: US$300 odd, not US$30 (W1225 to US$1). Yikes! The cheapest was W68,000, some US$52, our budget is US$80, based on, via Lonely Planet's presumably lower class accomodation. Never mind. We try one cash machine which twice reports "Incorrect PIN" before a second machine splashes the cash.
The airport coach into town is W6000 apiece and is quite comfy though the driver speaks as much English as we speak Korean. But, ooh, it's a little nippy out here. The jumper and fleeces are quickly on. We're dropped off and walk 300m up the road to our hotel, host to the "Joy Club" whatever that might be. The road smells of pee and the lift of fish but the room is OK even if supplied with its own emergency rope. 
We head out to look for food finding two sandwich bars, several Korean restaurants (Helen doesn't feel up to it) then trying a bar where we get seated before finding no food on Sundays. Our preferred fallback sandwich shop has just closed so we go over the street to what appears to be a fried chicken joint where we order, um, fried chicken and spicy chicken (fried chicken with sauce) and two 1000ml draft beers, which go down well.
The ever present (in Asia) 7Eleven supplies us with some water and more beer and we retire for the night to try and decifer the pictures on the scrambled CNN channel.
New Oriental Hotel, Seoul N37.56045 E126.98345 Elev. 39m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.