Melbourne to Seoul
It’s an early morning start to be on time for Cathay Pacific flight 134 from Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport, the first leg of the flights from Melbourne to Seoul. The automated bag labeling and bag drop that Cathay uses at Melbourne airport work well if a little slow to retrieve bookings. All I ask is that my 20kg suitcase with my Arctic Sport Boots and tripod in it makes the connection to Seoul in Hong Kong. The bag is checked through all the way to Seoul, so please don’t lose my bag or I’ll have wet feet in the Aleutian Islands for 2 weeks :-).
CX134 departs almost on time for it’s 7:30 am departure, and the pilot announces that it will be a quick flight at 8.5 hours rather than the 9+ scheduled duration. Its good news as my connecting flight to Seoul in Hong Kong airport is 75 minutes after scheduled arrival, which would be a brisk dash between the gates in Terminal 1 and 2.
CX134 is on A350 metal, which makes for a quiet flight despite the business class seat I’ve selected being directly alongside the engines. There’s also a trick to picking the right seat on this flight, as the business class cabin is split into one large cabin and a smaller cabin of 8 seats. I opted for a ‘priority’ seat that I run the risk of being reallocated from in favour of mobility-challenged passengers, but as the window seat is in the last row of the 8 seat cabin with a bulkhead/gallery behind me, it is a risk worth taking. It’s quiet and there is little aisle traffic in this cabin. There’s also a toilet in the gallery between the small and large cabin, which the bulk of the larger cabin don’t know exists, so rarely a queue for the loo!
The flight arrives earlier than scheduled in Hong Kong, and gives me some time in the Cathay Pacific Wing lounge in terminal 1, once I’ve wandered around looking for it. It’s a two-level lounge with the business class lounge on the entry-level, and the first-class lounge on the mezzanine level above. The first-class lounge is relatively quiet, the food choices attractive but tasteless, the toilets are clean and the drinks selection is good. It’s also only 50m away from Gate 11 for my Seoul flight. Which is just as well as I roll up to the gate when it’s on final call and find I’m one of the last to board.
Which turns out to be a good thing as the flight is delayed on the tarmac for 20 minutes, without the auxiliary power on which means no air-conditioning. It’s 33 degrees outside and feels like 40 degrees inside. I’m sweltering in a thin long sleeved t-shirt and dripping sweat. It’s a credit to Cathay’s service that the steward isn’t offended by me waving away the offer of a hot towel and returns with a stack of serviettes so I can mop my face. The safety card makes an excellent hand-held fan for future reference. We eventually push back, the engines are started and the air-conditioning finally kicks in.
The pilot announces that this will also be a quick flight to Incheon airport at 3 hours 15 minutes, so we should arrive close to scheduled arrival time at 21:15 Seoul time.
Incheon Airport
Incheon airport appears deserted for the long walk to immigration, but it’s a zoo once there, with a long queue of about 100 metres snaking its way to the counters with 6 or 7 staff. It takes 45 minutes to clear immigration, and it’s only that short because I spend so long in the queue that I noticed that the agents on the aircrew and ‘events’ queue were processing passengers from the closest queue in addition to the agent assigned to the last passenger queue, so I made sure I got into that line once I reached the top of the queue and was through in a couple of minutes.
I can see my bag on the conveyer belt as I come down the escalators, so all good on the luggage front so far. Customs is simply a matter of handing in the declaration form and exiting in the arrivals hall. It’s now 10:20pm, and I’m wondering if my only option is a taxi to the hotel. I enquire at the tourist information desk whether it’s still possible to get the airport bus, and am directed to the bus ticket vending machine near exit door 8. Taxi touts operate in the arrivals hall, and I haven’t walked more than 10m before I need to brush one off.
Taking the bus from Incheon to Gangnam
It takes some grappling with the bus ticket machine to work out how find the bus I need to get me to the Intercontinental COEX, which is a stop on the way. This is bus airport limousine bus 6103, which is an ‘express bus’ with only two stops. The trick for the machine is to search on the bus number, select it, and then the stop that you want from the list it will present. The fare is KW15,000, which works out to be about $AUD18, far cheaper than the $AUD100+ a taxi will cost. The next bus is 22:45, and departs from stand 7A-3, right in front of the ticket machine. There are all of 3 passengers on this bus that has capacity for 30 when we depart, and I’m the only one that has luggage in the hold. It’s a well-managed process, with a staff member who checks your bus ticket and labels your bags with stickers before they go in the hold, then the bus driver tears off the ticket part of the ticket issued by the machine and you’re left with the receipt.
The 6103 bus is a spacious KIA manufactured bus with comfortable seats and plenty of leg room. Seat belts are mandatory and enforced by the bus driver. The trip into Seoul can take up to 90 minutes, so I’m interested to see how long it takes at this time of night. It’s a wide highway the whole way, and the airport train line runs alongside the highway. It’s not a fast train as we easily overtake it on the highway. There’s little traffic heading into Seoul, and the high tech bus turns the lights on in the cabin to signal that we are reaching the first stop after 45 minutes. There are announcements regarding the stop, and I hear the welcome words “Intercontinental” after a long day. I know there are two Intercontinental hotels quite close to each other, but by this stage of a long day trip from Melbourne to Seoul I’ve conveniently forgotten this when I hop off the bus and collect my bags. For future reference, the first bus stop is for the Intercontinental Grand Parnas, not the Intercontinental COEX. The doorman at the Parnas hotel lets me know I’m at the wrong hotel, calls a taxi, and dispatches me to the correct hotel. It must happen a lot as the hotel pays for the taxi, which is fantastic customer service.
It’s 23:45 by the time I reach the Intercontinental COEX which is less than a kilometre away by taxi, and whilst it’s been an ‘easy’ couple of flights, I’ve been up for 20 hours and exhausted by the change in climate from the 4 degrees in Melbourne when I left through to 33 degrees in HK and the 20 degrees in Seoul on arrival. The Intercontinental has upgraded me to a beautiful two-room corner suite, which would be great if I had longer to enjoy the space afforded by a living room, but otherwise much appreciated for the copious supply of bottled water, and the extra sense of space. It also looks like it has a good view over the Bonguensa temple, which might be worth investigating tomorrow.
Melbourne to Seoul in a day – and a very long day at that!
