Slept six hours on the plane, which is quite a lot for me. Switching over to local time means today is Friday, May 29th at 2 AM instead of Thursday, May 28th at 10 AM. We figured out where the AREX train station was and found the ticket machine. Mom fed her 1000 won note into the machine but it would not take! Crap! We fed it over and over again but the note just would not take. Eventually, I saw the tiny English sign that states the machine only takes smaller notes. So we fed our big bill into the change machine, obtained smaller bills, and successfully bought our train ticket. Phew! We reached the platform by 6 AM and saw one of the express trains, which only stops at Gimpo, was waiting for us. Oh the relief we felt getting on that train with our luggage! Once again mom mentioned she was glad I was with her to keep my cool and think with all the unexpected obstacles. The train ride was nice, seeing a little bit of Seoul before heading to Japan. It was cool to see the sun rising and watch the large city wake up. South Korea's former president committed suicide earlier in the week and today was his funeral so the news was dominated by the procession and everyone was in quite a somber mood today.
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| Finally on the train from Incheon to Gimpo airports; Seoul, South Korea |
We reached the Gimpo platform at 6:28 AM. We were four floors below the airport so we stepped on the escalator to get to the top. At the second level, we saw that all the escalators were stopped for repair. OK, we'll have to climb the stairs with all our luggage. But, as we stepped on the stairs, they started moving. Brilliant! They save energy on the escalators by only running when the sensor detects someone on them. Motion-sensored escalators. It was somewhat of a maze of walking with our luggage to get to the international wing of the airport. Apparently, Gimpo is the original airport of Seoul and Incheon was built on an island outside of downtown to take on more airport pressure.
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| APEX train from Incheon to Gimpo Airports; Seoul, South Korea |
We reached the airport with one hour to spare! We walked around the airport a bit, emailed our men that we had made it OK. We found a few more brilliant items at the airport: One was a drinking fountain which was a water dispenser of both ice cold and boiling hot water. If you didn't have your own water bottle to fill, there were little paper cups made out of plain paper to drink from, not waxed paper but you can drink your water then dispose of the paper to get recycled or burned. I thought this was a clever idea. The other brilliant idea was the bathroom lighting: the bathroom was dark except for LED lights above the mirrors. As you lock the door of a stall, the LED light above the toilet turns on, lighting your vision and signaling to others that the stall was occupied! Brilliant!
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| Ready to board our plane to Osaka |
We boarded our plane to Osaka at 8:20 AM and was in the air by 8:40 AM. On the flight to Osaka, we were provided with Japanese food, very tasty! I definitely like Asiana airlines. After our startling discovery at the beginning of our trip, Mom and I were very relieved to be on our way to Osaka. We landed at Kansai International Airport at 10:20 AM. Going through immigration was a pain. They wanted an address for where we were staying but we didn't know Shane's address. They held us up for that! We eventually had to write down Shane's university, Kansai Gaidai. After taking our photo and both index fingerprints, we were allowed through. Customs, on the other hand, was a breeze. We also had to do H1N1 questionnaires and I got my very own mask! Shane was waiting for us at the exit, man it was good to see him! We headed over to the train to get back to Kyoto. We had to do one transfer from our train in downtown to catch the train to Kyoto. We were so enveloped in talking that we missed our stop and had to backtrack a bit. We caught the train to Kyoto and made it downtown around 2 PM.
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| Siblings reunited! Train ride back to Shane's place |
We followed Shane to his traditional Japanese home. Wow, such a beautiful place. We
entered the front door onto a cement floor, take off our shoes, then stepped up onto tatami mats of the living room. Attached to the living room is the tiny kitchen and a set of extremely steep stairs to the bedrooms. The kitchen had a stove but no oven, a small sink, a tiny fridge, and a bit of shelving under the stairs. Off the kitchen is another room that Kim is using as her bedroom. Off of Kim's room is the open backyard garden with a wooden walkway to the toilet house and the shower/bath house, both semi-open to the garden. Up the stairs are two bedrooms, one of them being Shane's room which had a little porch overlooking the open garden in the back and hang his clothes to dry. In Japan, lots of people wash their laundry in a washer machine but then air dry their clothes, which takes only a few hours.
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| Shane's place |
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