Here I am waiting…again. At least I have the option of moving around (as opposed to being stuck on a bus / plane seat) but I’ve chosen instead to purchase a 3,000 won Internet card and sit on my ass for the next half hour until my plane starts boarding. I was hoping to grab breakfast at one of the cafes near the hostel this morning but nothing was open at 6 in the morning! So, I figured I’d just grab something at the airport.
On my way to the bus stop this morning I was stopped by this guy who lives next door to the hostel. I guess he’s really comfortable around foreigners since they’re around all the time but I don’t think all foreigners are quite as comfortable around him (myself included). He was nice enough and wanted to find out all sorts of information and even gave me his business card and asked for my phone number in Taiwan because he was planning on visiting Taiwan for some school thing in the near future. I think he misunderstood me when I said my parents are from Taiwan and thought I lived there which really doesn’t make any sense since I told him I was from Candada. But whatever, the point was that he was a bit too friendly and people need 3 ft of space away from strangers (especially when the hostel is located in an alley way)!
When I got to the airport, I checked in my baggage and proceeded to wander around in search for food and magnets — my friend wanted me to bring back a couple of magnets for her and her mum from Korea (they collect them). The airport is pretty massive but seriously lacking in foreign friendly signs for food! Where’s the “you are here and food is there” directory / map!?!? So still sleep deprived I slouched around and passed a couple of tiny cafes (the Korean’s seem to like cafes that pretend they’re imported from France or Italy) and a fast-food joint called Lotteria (I thought it was a lottery stand when I saw the sign from afar) that has the tallest burgers I’ve ever seen. I ended up going to something that is deceivingly called a “food court.” It’s this cafeteria style place where you order your meal at the cashier and wait until they call your number. I had spicy cold noodles which came with 2 bottles of some kind of sauce and one of the sickest sweet tangy sour-ish plum drinks I’ve ever had. It was $10.20 US! Kind of a rip-off if you ask me but what are you gonna do… there’s nowhere else to go!
So, that was that and I had a bunch of coins that I didn’t want to have to carry around afterwards but weren’t enough to buy anything at the airport except an Internet card.
Oh, and I also bought a box of sweet potato chocolates! They were also a major rip-off ($8 for a little box) but they’re Sweet Potato chocolates! My curiousity got the better of me but I’m going to wait until I’m a little less full to try them.
And that concludes my less than interesting blog of waiting at the airport in Korea.
I almost forgot, there were a couple other things I was going to mention in my last post:
- It’s not cold here at all! It’s supposed to be –5 to –10 degrees outside but it doesn’t feel that bad at all. I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to need that extra sweater in Russia. I almost wish I didn’t bring it because…
- Korea has really cheap clothes! The food may be annoyingly overpriced at times but you can get a decent sweater for $10 and there was one that I was eyeing but just don’t have room for in my pack.
- I don’t think I’ll ever visit this country again. It doesn’t seem to be especially different from any other Asian country and it bothers me that everyone thinks I’m Korean. They keep speaking to me in their mother-tongue expecting me to understand and then probably just writing me off as an idiot when I don’t. BAH! BAH I say!!