Yeti Fan 2011

It’s now 4 o’clock in the morning and Julian and I are in Seoul airport. The flight from Kathmandu was uneventful and arrived here at about 1:15 am. We looked around the airport and found an area with comfy chairs; Julian fell asleep straight away, as usual, and I didn’t, as is increasingly usual. Just near the comfy chairs is a row of free-to-use computers so I just thought I’d type a quick post. Our flight to Shizuoka is at 8:55 this morning and I doubt if I will get any sleep in the next couple of hours. So I suppose my body clock is going to be thrown out for the next few days. Ho-hum.

The day wasn’t all bad. After lunch on the plane the cabin crew came round with tubs of ice cream. But I think that’s definitely Julian’s last ice cream for a month!

There were tearful farewells in Shizuoka airport (except from Liam who was too busy looking forward to a month of ruling the TV, Wii etc) before Julian and I boarded our plane. That wasn’t too difficult; it arrived from Korea about an hour before we took off and even then it was still the only plane in the airport. I half expected tumble-weed to drift across the runway as we took off.
Julian was disappointed with the plane. There was no little screen for games and films in the headrest. He had to resort to plan B which was going to sleep. The landing woke him up and then we strolled through another shiny new airport, Incheon. Following instructions on the hotel website, I asked an information woman if she could call Hotel Sky (yes unfortunate name I know. I didn’t think about the Murdoch connection until it was too late) and we were picked up and safely in our room by 3pm. Unfortunately Julian got hungry at 4 and, like his mother, he tends to get grumpy if not fed. So we went back out into the local area. There were many convenience stores, bars and restaurants but most of these were closed and the ones that were open were Korea barbecue-cook-it-yourself type. Knowing my culinary skills I didn’t really want to try these places but with no other choice we entered one which had a sign outside that said, “Highly recommended for Foreign Visitors”. We pointed at some photographs on the menu and soon the waitress brought three trolleys landed down with what can best be described as “stuff”. Luckily she set us going by cooking some pork and beef, frequently turning the meat over the hot coals. That was nice but then she left and Julian and I had a go with the rest of the stuff. I work out that some was crab and another was fish. There was some kimchi, soup and some other vegetables but it didn’t really matter what it was because all of it was covered with some volcanic sauce! Don’t come to Korea if you value the lining of your mouth! We struggled through it as best we could. Julian drank a litre of water and the beer in the photo really is for medicinal purposes. I’m sure the staff must have had a great laugh watching us. Thank goodness we’re off to Nepal tomorrow. They have more palatable food, don’t they? They do, don’t they? Don’t they?
I’m updating this blog using the wi-fi of this hotel. Julian’s watching one of his favourite Japanese cartoons dubbed into Korean and seems to be having no problem understanding it. We have a Skype call scheduled with Kayo in a short while and then it’s an early night and dreams of a bowl of plain white rice!