[Winter Korea Trip 2010/2011] Day 1: Depart for Korea!

Arriving at Changi International Airport Terminal 3

My watch struck 7 in the morning as I  entered my dad’s car. Having such wonderful parents and siblings, my family was insistent on sending me off at the airport. The day has finally come, months of research and planning have boiled down to this and its now time to press the execute button.

As soon as I arrived at Changi International Airport Terminal 3, I proceeded on to check-in for my flight. For this trip, I decided to travel with China Eastern Airlines as they offered one of the cheapest airfares around. It was a transit flight to Incheon International Airport via Shanghai’s Pudong Airport with a transit time of about 2hrs 30mins.

Thinking that air tickets would be cheaper at the NATAS fair, I waited till then to purchase them. I was so wrong. It would have cost me only $770 if I had purchased them in June. It turned out that the NATAS fair was mainly for tour packages and the majority of the air tickets from the various airlines were allocated for such packages with only a small fraction of air tickets available for stand-alone purchase, which I feel could be the reason for the price hike. A $100 mistake. I purchased the tickets during the NATAS fair for S$870 all-in price.



Oh well, what’s pass has passed and it's time to look ahead ^^. After checking-in, I had about an hour to spare before boarding time and so my family and I decided to have a simple breakfast at the nearby Wang’s Café where I had my Kaya Toast, half-boiled eggs and ice milo - my last meal in Singapore for the year.

Wang's Cafe

Kaya Toast

Half-Boiled Eggs

Time passed rather quickly and it was soon time for me to go. After a quick session of hugs and family portrait shots,  I waved my family goodbye and proceeded for my flight. Bye bye Singapore~!

Changi Airport's Departure Gate

Bye Bye Singapore~!

I did bring along my Ipod touch which explains why I felt there wasn’t a need to fly in an aircraft providing in-flight entertainment. As soon as it was safe to move around the aircraft after take-off, the air-stewardess began serving lunch. I chose the chicken set over the fish and it tasted not too bad. It had zero fats!

Chicken Set

Arriving at Shanghai Airport for my stopover, the aircraft parked at a parking bay where the terminal was way out of reach. I was really fascinated and I do apologize for being so as it was my first time I had to climb down the aircraft using the staircase truck to the shutter bus waiting to bring us the terminal building itself.

 Wheres the terminal? (its on the other side lol)

Climbing down the staircase truck

Shutter bus waiting for us

As soon as I reached the terminal building, I did the transfer procedures and decided to just stay around the waiting lounge and admire the sun set. Besides, I didn’t have any Chinese Yuan to begin with.

Beautiful Shanghai sunset

As scheduled, the gate to the aircraft opened at about 6pm and it was time to say bye bye to shanghai too. The dinner they served on this flight wasn’t as nice as the meal from the first but I wasn’t too bothered by it. I would take occasional peeks through the window and glance at the various Korean cities which looked like patches of lights on the vast land in darkness as the plane flew from the south northwards.

 
I can't remember what set was this >.<

Arriving at around 9pm Korean time (+1 hour from Singapore time), I finally passed through Korean immigration. Because the plane parked at a smaller terminal building separate from Incheon’s famous U-shaped main terminal, I had to take a short tram ride to reach immigration. That was when I learnt that in Korea, people keep right on escalators to give way to the rushing ones instead of left, unlike Singapore. After grabbing my luggage from the belt conveyor,  my first task was to locate a phone rental counter at the arrival hall.

 Passengers quing for the tram bound for the main terminal

 Inside the Tram

In Singapore its left, in Korea please keep right

You might think that renting a phone in Korea is expensive but apparently, it isn’t! With many service providers and phone models to choose from, I decided on a basic call-and-SMS phone with a rental rate of 2700won/day not including call charges. That is only about S$3 a day which I feel is very affordable. Iphone rentals were going at 3000won/day but the data charges were rather exorbitant. Oh and for those who might not know, Korean prepaid cards will never fit into a Singapore phone even with brute force.

 Phone Rental Counters

My rental phone. Comes with the phone, charger, manual and case

It was getting late and I had to find somewhere to rest for the night. My best option was simply to pick a nice bench within the airport terminal to rest. Given the time then, it definitely didn’t appeal to me to risk staying out along the cold streets of Seoul if I were to fail on finding a suitable place to stay. Besides, it just wasn’t worth paying 40,000won (~S$47) just to bunk for 7 hours since I would be traveling southwards to Jeonju first thing in the morning.

잘자...Zzz... (Good night)

Yep and so I found this nice bench at the departure hall among many other resting travelers. From my observations, I quickly learnt that the best way to secure my luggage while sleeping was to just lay my luggage flat and use it as my leg rest. Hugging my camera bag, it was a little uncomfortable but definitely bearable. I fell asleep rather easily as I really needed some rest from the lack of sleep the night before. Zzzz..