Travel Day

Malaysian Airline flight.

As I waited, I watched as my red bag was loaded on.

Sunday, June 24^th.

Today was a travel day. I met Louis, Anthony and Vivien in the Lime Hotel lobby restaurant for breakfast and we said our last goodbyes to Louis. At 8:00 the three of us were picked up by a van and driven to the airport. Anthony and Vivien were heading to Singapore and then back to Canada. Vivien was a bit concerned because she thought they only had one hour between flights, but she read the twenty-four-hour clock wrong and they actually had eleven hours!

First thing in the morning I got an e-mail notifying me that my second flight to Korea was leaving an hour later than booked and therefore I would arrive there at almost eleven in the evening. We checked in when we arrived and then had to say goodbye as they were flying international and my flight to Kuala Lumpur was domestic. They were great traveling companions and hopefully because we both live in Southern Ontario maybe we can meet again. They actually live near my favourite bike riding area.

The flight was delayed over an hour and I began to worry about the time between that one and my connecting flight to Seoul. I needn’t have worried as the second one was even later than the late notice. The upshot was that I finally arrived in Seoul at midnight. I was a little worried about immigration because on the plane there was a video about quarantine for passengers who had been to countries with infectious diseases, and the immigration card asked what the last three countries were that you visited and the total number of countries (I left that blank). However, the only thing I saw was a heat scanner pointed at every passenger as they went down the hall and immigration was no problem. Thankfully my hotel pickup that Denise had arranged was still sitting there (he had waited all through the delays), but he told me that because I was so late we had to wait another forty minutes for another passenger. While I waited I tried to get some Korean money from the ATM, but despite several attempts I couldn’t get any. The ATM which was mostly in Korean of course, didn’t tell me why. He turned out to be an American from New York City. We talked for the duration of the one-hour ride to my hotel. He has travelled quite a lot and goes by himself, but he seems to be mostly interested in the cities in Asia. Quite different from me, I prefer the countryside and smaller places. So, I arrived at the Hotel Unique at 2 am and went to bed shortly thereafter.