Incheon International Airport

My Time Is Running Out
~

“I bring 3 sets of outfit…enough I guess…” I looked into my backpack and then turned to hubby. “Huh? U gonna wear that sweater for the rest of the trip?”

“A-ah…why?” hubby said.

“Hmmm…then all your pics gonna be sameeeeeee je la…” I laughed. Pity him, when I have too many choices in the closet and don’t know which one to bring along, he just got to pick and bring only one.

Cameras, batteries, charges, checked.
Toiletries, make-ups, accessories, checked.
Tour Cookbook, documents, passports, checked.
Food? ‘Serunding’, mee-in-my-mug, creamy soup packets, checked.

We got our things packed and ready, and drove to our usual parking spot and took train and bus to LCCT. (Sorry, I really can’t reveal the secret hiding place :D)
Departure time to Incheon, Korea was 1.55PM and we were lucky enough to skip all those queuing hassle since we had ourselves web-checked-in from home. All we need to bring was a printed A4-size boarding pass to present it to the web check in counter for verification process. Easy.

Tips : You may want to do web check in if you have no luggage to check in. Make sure you have a printer as the boarding pass need to be printed out.
But too bad, we didn’t know which line to go after (at the security check point), as there was no signage or info board for web check in passengers! There came the power of asking. It was actually on the left and again, they had to re-verify the printed boarding pass and stamped it, which can only be done by them, there and then. (It should be easier and faster, why make it so difficult?)

Tips : Ask whoever officer that you bump into, to speed the process.

Then there was immigration check point. With a little bit of chicken face and anime sweat bubbles on forehead, we got our bag scanned. Thank god, we were fortunate enough and felt so relieved to see our 300grams ‘serunding’ at last, welcomed on board. Hehe!
We took our own sweet time to look for our seats. Yup, the power of buying. We bought ourselves a couple-seater (sorry, again, I can’t reveal the seat numbers :D) for any long haul trip since the day we got kicked off from the hot seats.
Waited to be served with pre-book meals were so stressful and believe it or not, besides having a pre-book meal, I ordered another hot dog and instant noodle as well! I was sooooo lapar!

Tips : Buy seat and pre-book meal for hassle free. You don’t want to seat in between of two stupid assholes who keep on bragging his/her stories to other passenger and struggling waiting for your turn to buy whatever meals left.
I slept almost 4 hours out of 6 hours flight journey. I was awake by one irritating bald Malay guy who bragged about his travel tales to one Malay uncle who flew alone. Haih. Shut up lah!
We then landed safely at Incheon International Airport and walked out towards the connecting aisle between the plane and the terminals.

“HOI! SO COLD!” I shouted and shivered. Lucky I had this artificial furry coat, a gift from Skin that she bought at Melbourne last few years. (Yeah, still fit in it :D)

Tips : Always check the visited country’s temperature at least 5 straight days. Decide to bring less or more, thick or thin, gorgeous or hideous.

It was 10.30PM local time and it was the only flight that landed at Incheon (I don’t understand why AA do late night arrival), so all passengers ran as fast as they can and queued for immigration security check, in order to catch the last bus (varies for different destinations) to Seoul. Scary huh? What if we missed it? It was an hour journey and no hotels nearby the terminals.

Tips : Incheon is located in an island. Do your study by jot down the bus number and where you should stop. Or else, book a hotel at Incheon town and go waste your time the next morning.
AND THIS WOMAN (immigration officer) WAS HELL OF SNAIL! Out of 6 rows, we happened to be stuck in the SLOWEST ROW EVER! She took approximately 5 minutes to process one person, where other lines can process three persons! And we had to catch an 11.30PM bus! Lei mo kao cho waaaaa…sure late one lah! To kill time, I looked around and saw this one strange 'facility'...spectacles? (Whoever is long-sighted will definitely bring his/her own spectacles rite?)
I gave a grumpy face when it came to my turn. Waited for hubby who got processed after me, we walked fast to the main exit. We quickly looked for bus number 6002 to Seoul and lucky there was a bus waited there.

We had to queue and when we just right in front of the bus, we heard,

“One more…one more…” said the bus operator. The other two guys were busy arranging luggage into the bus compartment.

We looked at each other and prayed for them to call for another two persons. But luck wasn’t on our side, we had to wait for another bus in half and hour. AND THANK GOD there was another bus! So we placed down our bags next to the signboard and marked our spot as the first in line. I looked around and found that more and more people approaching the queue, whom most of them were going to Seoul.
“If not because of that slow immigration officer ar, we can go already…haiya, the worst ever la…” said one Chinese uncle who came along with his family. I bet he was in the same row as we were. Hahaha!

Tips : Do not take your time to walk like a beauty queen. Fashionably late is not allowed. You are so unlucky if your bag happens to be the last bag on the conveyor. Threaten the bag operator, the immigration officer, as well as the bus operator if you have to, and get your ass into the bus!

20 minutes later, another bus came and stopped in front of us. We took our bags and got on board. The fee was 10,000won=RM30 and it was a free-seating bus. Exactly 11.25PM, the bus started to move and as expected, no more room, not even a single seat. There was a young lady who almost got into tears when she was told that the bus was full. I bet she had to pay thousands of won to get home by taxi.

The airport limo ride (it was actually a city bus) took almost one and half hour to get to Seoul city. Since we knew that we were going to stop at Dongdaemun Market, we kept ourselves awake (it was 45 minutes past midnight). We finally arrived at this particular stop and hopped down the bus…and it was freaking damn cold!

(We was??? Hahahaha grammar campak laut :D)