For the days leading up to my departure, I had been burning the candle at both ends, packing well into the night and getting up earlier to get last minute things done. I only realised at 5am on the night before my bus ride to Sydney that I hadn't actually booked the bus, even though I knew what time it would be. Unfortunately being in a 5am state of mind I chose a bus that would arrive in Sydney at 11.15 instead of the intended bus departing Canberra at 11. Hence, I had to force myself into bed to wake 2 hours later to rearrange the booking. All was going to schedule to catch the 11am bus but then I started rummaging through my bags for my student card to no avail. So I went to the counter to book the following bus and scramble home to find it. Funnily enough I had packed it, and I had left it behind at the bus station when I went home to look for it. I didn't need the card for anything on the trip except the bus ride itself, and perhaps to add insult to injury they didn't even ask me for it.
The bus ride was largely uneventful apart from a bus change midway, because apparently the air conditioning wasn't working. Upon arrival in Sydney, I proceeded to drag my 30kg bag around the International airport to scope the place out for my flight the following day. I grabbed a cab to my hotel and dumped my gear in my room and headed for central Sydney to share my last couple of drinks in Australia for the year with my friends, Keith and Ollie.
I knew that there could be some problems at baggage claim as I had a 30kg bag whereas it was supposed to be only 20kg. I had originally intended to use some charm and say something along the lines of, "doni eomneun daehaksaeng ineunde bulssanghaeyeo juseyo." (or "I'm just a poor uni student. Please take pity on me.") but the lady taking care of my bags didn't look Korean. I managed to avoid charges by taking half of the stuff out and making a new hand luggage bag.
The flight was long but it was fun. I tried practicing my Korean, but it's very difficult getting people to register that your speaking Korean when you have a white face. They assume you speak English and so the Korean you speak sound like gibberish. At one point they asked me whether I wanted egg or chicken and I responded "dalkeul juseyo." ("I'll have the chicken") and then they started apologizing profusely saying that they were out of egg and I had to have the chicken.
I didn't stick around the airport at Incheon once I got through immigration. I had to meet the manager of the SNU off campus housing to get checked in at my apartment so I didn't want to waste time. I hopped on the airport bus and started chatting with I guy called Zack who grew up in the Philippines but as a Korean citizen, had to come back to do military service. I got off the bus a stop or so early (seoul daehakgyo station (yeok) as opposed to seoul daehagyeo entrance (ibku)) and I reverted to exploratory mode dragging my once-again 30kg bag until my arms couldn't take it. It was a while after I decided to take a taxi that I could find one, I think I had moved off the main road and there were few coming through, but as luck would have it someone got out of a taxi a few feet away and I called out "Taekshi!".
My bag was too big for the trunk and the lid just loosely hung over it. I hopped into the taxi and proceeded to try to communicate my limited understanding of the address I had to get to. The driver couldn't really understand me and as I tried to elaborate in English I discovered that he hadn't two words of English to rub together. After I plug in my what I could of the address into his GPS, we approach the vague vicinity of where I'm supposed to be going and he starts expecting me to give him directions. I had absolutely no idea where I was so, we stopped continually, asking for directions from every man and his dog. After circling all over the hill in which I'm staying we stopped and I could see on the wall opposite, "seonggonghaneun salamdeul" (successful people), the name of my apartment block. I tried to tip the driver as I felt bad for not being able to explain better where I was going, but he refused probably feeling somewhat responsible for our scenic route.
I was 10 minutes late for my appointment and the guy who was supposed to check me in was nowhere to be seen but after knocking on the door for a while and setting off the alarms someone came down to put me out of my misery. My neighbour hearing me fiddle around with the keys thought I was a burglar and came to check it out, but seeing I was just a new tenant helped me get sorted in my room. He even offered me a lift to school the next day which came in handy in developing a mindmap of the area.
Just as I'm about to crash I hear the door knock, and it turns out to be the guy I was supposed to meet. Apparently there was a communication error and he thought he had to go to the school gate and I thought I had to go to the apartment, and he had been waiting for sometime. I felt bad but he said he was happy to know I was okay.
The guy, Sean (or Seungmin), left and I collapsed on my bed like a tone of bricks. That is the story of my physical arrival in Korea, but as it is already tomorrow I'll save the next to days for another time.
Peace out!
"Mr Jeremy Bruce is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Korea Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade".
