Last day! Our final day in Seoul began with a quick breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. This Dunkin' Donuts was connected to a company so we did see a lot of people in formal wear eating here. All in all, the food was a bit bland and dry; we did bought a bit too much for a quick breakfast..and my mango drink was sour so it was difficult to enjoy. ( ╥ω╥ )
Total cost: ₩13100
After breakfast we walked back to our guesthouse and quickly packed and left for the airport as it does take approximately an hour+ to "Incheon International airport" from Myeongdong. We had to take the train to Seoul station and from there we had to transfer and take a commuter train straight to the airport (ticket: ₩4050). The journey to the airport seemed like a continuous streak of bad luck as everything seemed to be going downhill from there. First our luggage were very heavy from all the shopping we did for the past 2 months so you can imagine the effort it took us to drag the luggage down to the train station. There is no elevator or escalators to get down to the station, and our first hurdle were 2 -3 flights of stairs. 〣( ºΔº )〣 Secondly, apparently, we went down the wrong entrance so we had to walk quite far to the correct one, but before that we encountered even more stairs. Why is there so many stairs with no escalators or elevators??!
I spotted a security guard and attempted to ask him if there's any escalator or elevator around, but he did not speak or understand English. So I used hand gestures to convey to him what we needed help with. Well, it was nice of him to "try" and help us carry one of our luggage down stairs, only mid-way though. I could tell it took a toll on him as we were around the same size.
What happened next was that my sister suggested walking to the next station so that we do not have to encounter stairs again and pray that there was an escalator or elevator at the next stop; unfortunately after 10 minutes of walking to the next station there were none, so we were left with no choice but to carry our luggage ourselves one by one down the stairs. I burned a lot of calories. ( ╥ω╥ )
Once we got to Incheon international airport, checking-in was a smooth process, so we had around an hour + to room around. Well, that 's what we thought we had.
We had leftover Korean money, so we went to "Caffe bene" for cake and shaved ice.
Total: ₩14800 (quite pricey, IMO)
Total: ₩14800 (quite pricey, IMO)
The cake was medicore and the shaved ice was also mediocre. The strawberries were too sour and the ice was too thick. It felt like I was literally chewing on ice cubes with no taste. One of the worse shaved ice I've eaten. Even the cake slice was dry and bland. (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞
We left caffe bene with perhaps 15 minutes to spare, so that we had time to search for our terminal. WELL, apparently you had to take the train over to that terminal. I never knew something like "taking a train to another area of the airport" even existed. Well, by this point we were totally panicking as there were a lot of people waiting for the train. Once the train came, we had to move as fast as we could. We had less than 10 minutes when the train door opened. Once we arrived at the other side of the airport, not knowing where the terminal was or where to go, we ran in the only direction possible, which was in front. We ran up 3 flights of escalators and then ran all the way to the very end of the of the aiport as our terminal was the last one. For some reason, our terminal HAD TO BE AT THE OTHER END of the airport. ୧((#Φ益Φ#))୨ I could tell I was in such bad shape as I was literally dead once I reached the top of the escalator and was unable to run on the flat moving rail. I know that you are not allowed to run on there but there was no choice for us. Our plane was already boarding, but once we got there; we sighed with relief as the line was still quite long and we could quickly take a quick toilet break. (￣(ｴ)￣)
Once on the airplane, I sat next to my sister again. The flight to Guangzhou was close to 3 hours long, not too bad, enough time for one movie. Once we landed in Guangzhou (Baiyun International Airport), we could tell from the humidity and heat that we're in China. It was so humid and stuffy in the airport as well as outside, it took some time to adjust.
We wanted to head over to the luggage place first so hurried over to the arrival counter to get our clearance. But because our flight back to Vancouver wasn't till the next day, we had to wait in a separate line for people who needed hotels for the layover. It was a LONG process and I was getting worried that somebody might have stolen our luggage. Also, in order to enter China you need a Visa but we didn't buy the unlimited entries one since we were staying in China for less than 24 hours so this is one of the exceptions to bypass the Visa problem. After a lot of blah blah blah with the arrival clerks and the staff; finally they had somebody come to explain where we needed to go to wait for the bus to pick us up and for some reason the male "staff" needed to put on a number sticker on our clothing. That male "staff" placed a sticker near by breast. (O.O) I was shocked. He could've stuck it on my arm instead... well, what can I do, any commotion and I would've been taken away.
We wanted to head over to the luggage place first so hurried over to the arrival counter to get our clearance. But because our flight back to Vancouver wasn't till the next day, we had to wait in a separate line for people who needed hotels for the layover. It was a LONG process and I was getting worried that somebody might have stolen our luggage. Also, in order to enter China you need a Visa but we didn't buy the unlimited entries one since we were staying in China for less than 24 hours so this is one of the exceptions to bypass the Visa problem. After a lot of blah blah blah with the arrival clerks and the staff; finally they had somebody come to explain where we needed to go to wait for the bus to pick us up and for some reason the male "staff" needed to put on a number sticker on our clothing. That male "staff" placed a sticker near by breast. (O.O) I was shocked. He could've stuck it on my arm instead... well, what can I do, any commotion and I would've been taken away.
We were a bit confused as to where we were supposed to go and we do not even know which hotel we were staying at as they did not notify us. Once we got our luggage, we headed over to the entrance were the people in charge of arranging the hotels were; we waited with a group of people who were in the same predicament as us. When the first shuttle bus came to pick up the travelers, we followed them out and was about to get on till the staff told us to stop as it was not our bus.
We stayed at "Hao Yin Gloria Plaza Hotel" in Guangzhou for that night. I got to say, it's a very nice hotel. We did not need to share a bed. Yay! ╰(*´︶`*)╯Not only did they provide us with free accommodation, they also provided us with free breakfast for the next day. The hotel staff was very nice and friendly (also, very young, teenager looking gal and guys).
The only drawback is the the curtain that covers the bathroom is see-through. So what we did was we improvised and placed another cover over the curtain to hide the silhouette of the person taking a shower.
Once we took a shower, we went out to grab dinner. They have a KFC right around the corner which is very convenient as I saw a lot of locals as well as tourists there. Even at night around 8-9 PM it is so hot and humid, I was sweating profusely. When we went to order, the kids at the counter was pushing each other to take our orders as we were looking at the English menu and speaking English. The young girl spoke English to us and took our order. Once that was done, her coworkers were complimenting her. How very cute lol. I ordered a burger meal while my sister had a rice meal with some kind of meat. We also ordered a oreo ice cream on the side as well The different variety of fast food items in Asia is commandable. In total it cost 55.5 元 and 10.5元 for the oreo ice cream.
Buffet for breakfast! I did not eat that much as I was afraid I might get a stomachache. The selection of food was not large so I ended up with a little bit of food. \(★ω★)/
After breakfast, we packed up and headed back to the lobby to wait for the shuttle bus. Another drawback is that the hotel is not that close to the airport as it did take around 15-25 minutes to get to the airport. Once at the airport, our uncle and aunt as well as our grandma was waiting for us. We paid extra to go back to Guangzhou to pick up our grandma and bring her home, otherwise we would've booked the flight straight from Korea to Vancouver. I forgot how long the flight was, perhaps 15 hours? but I can never really fall asleep on long flights and the tuberlance was bad too. We had a direct flight to Vancouver from Guangzhou on Air China. I guess the good thing with Chinese airport is that they are lenient about overweight baggage as my grandma's luggage was overweight.
Once we got on the airplane, there were thunder and lightning and it was also pouring, so our plane got delayed. I believe we sat there for almost 2 hours before it actually took off. A lot of people were restless, so they were walking around. The stewards and stewardess handed out crackers and drinks, and we also ate our dinner on schedule.
Once we landed we saw the same family who attended the same Beijing-Shanghai tour! What are the odds right? Especially when we went over to Japan and Korea for a month and coincidentally took the same plane back. And to make things more coincidental, they were the only family from Vancouver also.
That concludes the 2 month long Asia trip. (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*
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