DAY 1: The day I arrived in Seoul

Incheon Airport - taken from Business Korea

I reached Brisbane Airport at 6am, sent off by my loving parents (Jamie, my sister, was still in Singapore), feeling nervous yet excited at the 3 week adventure I was about to embark on.

I took Korean Air direct from Brisbane to Incheon Airport in Korea. I decided not travel by cheaper transit options since they would take up more time and I had no place in particular I wanted to stopover at. As such, the whole trip took about 10 hours, and cost about AUD$1891 (!!), probably because it was around Christmas time and the peak period for travelling.

I arrived at in Korea at 5.25pm (Korea time) and went through immigration, where I managed to croak out 감사합니다 (kamsahamnida - thank you) to the person who stamped my passport. I was so proud of myself for using my first Korean phrase in Korea.

I then picked up my luggage, went to the 7-11 at arrivals to purchase my T-money card (Seoul public transport card) and was told quite rudely I could only top it up at the train station within the airport. So off I went, dragging my 15kg luggage and backpack to the top-up machine, where a man must have assumed I was a native, because he asked me something in Korean, presumably about the usage of the top-up machine. And that's when I used my second phrase of Korean: 한국 사람이 아니에요 (hanguksarammi anieyo - I'm not Korean).

I should probably add that I started self-learning Korean at Year 10 (when I was 15) so it was a good few years where I learnt the Korean language, albeit slowly. I would probably put myself down as a beginner/intermediate speaker.

Anyways, after topping up, I also inquired at one of the quieter electronic stores (still at the airport) about the EG SIM card for foreigners, of which I had done some research beforehand. However, the shop had very overpriced plans so I opted to buy the SIM card the next day.

My next to-do was to go back to arrivals where the public payphones were and call my 1-night accommodation, Elvis BnB, to pick me up. After like 10 minutes of redialling, I was finally able to get through to the owner.

As you can imagine, with all the winter layers I was wearing, I was feeling pretty warm as a result of running around the airport getting my errands done. As I stepped out into the winter night, I thought, 'Wow, this is such a nice cool change from the warm airport heat!'. However, due to my inability to read instructions correctly and some communication discrepancies, I was actually waiting at the wrong pick-up area, and ended up waiting almost 45mins in the cold before I realised my mistake and finally made it to the correct spot. I was definitely freezing and was thankful for the heated airport halls then!

It was a short 10-15min drive back to the bed-and-breakfast, but it was then that I got my first experience of Koreans driving (it was kinda scary). I had chicken and beer for dinner (지맥 - typical Korean food) in the 'city' area with another traveller who was staying over at Elvis BnB that night, before I settled down to sleep and marvelled (the first time, with more to come) that I was actually IN Korea, in a foreign country all by myself.

Good night!