1. Getting there

I do feel much better about being in South Korea now than on arrival, as once off the plane with its terrific service, we were on our own.
We have just suffered the dignity of a five star breakfast, compliments of Korean Air. Two actually. A ten star breakfast. After all, the flight doesn’t leave until 1pm, so let’s call it a camel’s breakfast - that’s the beauty of buffets.

Seoul. Friday 21 September 2007
As our forward flight wasn’t ‘til the next day, Korean air put us up at the Hyatt, a three minute bus ride across the mud flats from the airport. We had woken at 4am that morning in the Brisbane motel, ‘cause the next room had the air con on, thudding along rhythmically in a lower register. Then came ten hours on the plane enduring such riveting entertainment as “The World of Golf – Great Golfing Destinations,” a surprisingly good Korean movie “Secret Sunshine”, a terrible petrol head show, and a surf movie. We were buggered. Once off the plane, it took ninety minutes to get out of Seoul Incheon airport, mainly because although everyone spoke some English, they didn’t understand ours. There were no instructions, so we queued like sheep and finally got to an immigration desk, only to be told to go back and fill in a yellow card, basically saying what our names are, which were on all our documents anyway. You sigh, go and fill in the forms, join the queue again . . .
We then waited at the Korean airlines desk downstairs while all the others got through this quaint initiation. Finally, when everyone was accounted for, we were led to the shuttle bus, to reception, to filling out another form about our identities, and to our room. It was very nice.
Dinner downstairs was compliments of Korean air. No forms to fill out, no choices but very good. A beautiful pumpkin soup with nutmeg, tarragon and something else, rice with tofu and bok choi stir fry, and a weird little cake.

We re-hydrated in a bath, but we had separate beds!
Luckily I didn’t fall into bed, as it was very hard. Lisa pointed out the bad news – I had the choice of a doona or a doona. With feathers. This means I’d be hot within a minute. It’s hot and humid outside. The room is air-conditioned, we’re wearing T shirts, and suddenly are expected to wrap ourselves in a doona. Maybe they think we’re all very overweight jockeys. On investigation there was nothing else in the wardrobe, so I ruthlessly stripped the doona of its cover and used the cover.

If I sleep on my back, which was most comfortable, I snore, so it’s side sleeping. I woke several times with sore shoulders from the solid mattress, but had enough sleep for my eye bags to diminish a bit.

We are on the tenth floor. If I have to look straight down, or stand right on the edge, or watch someone else being perilous, I am afraid of heights. There is a “Hook for Lifeline”, and a Simplicity Lifeline in the wardrobe. I happened to see it when looking for a cotton blanket. We have had no instructions. They must not be expecting a fire!!
I imagine kicking the window out (as it doesn’t open), hooking on and sliding down! The two of us! I imagine being halfway down, however it works, and having someone on the ninth floor kicking their window out! Aargh!! So after the ten star breakfast, and checking in for the flight from the hotel, it’s off to the airport, where there’s shops, art and traditional clothing to look at whilst waiting.

At the airport, Lisa morphs into a traditional Korean artist

Airport procession. No Lisa!
The arrival at Vienna was on time, despite the fact that the Chinese didn’t give our plane permission to fly at the usual altitude. This was good, as we could see China. We missed the wall because of the cloud. I don’t mean we were going to hit it, I mean we couldn’t see it. The cloud was made in China! But we saw lots of mountains and valleys and water. No sign of habitation. Then it got dry. That’s ‘cause it was the Gobi desert. Soon it became Eastern Siberia. There was no sign of refugee camps or anything much, but we were at 32,000 feet by then and whizzing by at about 900 k.p.h. We saw the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest lake, Lake Baikal at the end of the Volga, flew over Tomsk and missed Moscow - maybe it was hiding in a cloud. Oh, I think there was a film on at the time. Lemme see, I haven’t slept for about 20 hours, so what was the film about? Oh yeah, the end of Shrek and all of Pirates of the Carob Bean, in which wot’s-er-name looks gorgeous all the time, and isn’t even frightened or dirty or scared ‘cause she’s read the script.

And yes folks, it’s true. Vienna is like a fairy tale (pictures later). After all the tooing and froing and filling in forms and stuff in Korea, here it was all plain sailing. Our backpacks were there in the carousel, and we walked through immigration so fast I reckon it took about twenty seconds each. The immigration woman was blonde, of course, and had a bloke standing beside her chatting away in some other language I didn’t understand (I s’pose that’s what Austrian sounds like. Oh! They don’t have their own language I’m told. It was German! Wonder how they became a different country? And weren’t they part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Why not Hungarian?). She didn’t even glance up to see if I was the person in the passport, stamped it to verify that I’d been to Austria, and shoved it back under the glass. It is refreshing to see that Europe has business as usual, and hasn’t succumbed to all the New Fear and Paranoia. There was no customs that we noticed. We didn’t have anything to declare, but I declare there was no-one to ask us. We just exited out the “Nothing to Declare” door. Our driver was waiting outside as arranged. His email had promised he would be “waiting with a tabel”, but it turned out to be a label, saying “Lisa B”.
This was the first experience of driving on the RHS of the road and overtaking on the left, but because it was mainly freeways, it didn’t feel too weird. He didn’t say what his label was, and he didn’t steer very well – was often over the line. Maybe he was trying to make us feel more relaxed and comfortable. However, it was obvious to me that none of the other cars were hanging over the centre line. Not to worry. Freeways are friendly. The only change was that Right/Left thing, and that the trees looked different. And the agriculture. It was mainly maize, sweet corn and sunflowers, and a few big factory roofs.
But no solar panels. This was Austria, not Germany. Just little clusters of wind farms here and there and here and lots of lines of pylons, keeping the landscape in order.
What rhymes with order? BORDER! We slowed down to a crawl for about 3 Ks. Our driver had our passports and his own all ready in his hand on top of the steering wheel. We were excited about having ours stamped in Hungary, ‘cause for Lisa it was like coming home. The border cop just waved us through!! That was IT!!! Maybe it was the local VW. Rather ironic when you think that Vili had to walk through a lake bed for three days to escape from here!
I noticed that the hippy van and the family
crowded in the station wagon
were all pulled over and had to get out.

Maybe they were mistaken for gypsies?
P’raps they didn’t have a passport,
‘cause no-one asked them last time!

Go on to chapter 2: Sopron