It's usually recommended that overseas travel after a fitful, sleepless night is not a good idea.
But it was all good: seamless transfer by train from Vladivostok to the (50 km distant) airport on the airport express train (which leaves a “convenient” every 3 hours...). Several hours waiting in a dingy Russian buffet (Free WIFI - but not for any Apple links or emails other than CSU webmail), a "fun" check in queue where furred and war-painted Russian women attempted to push in to the front of the pack, and the less "entitled" loudly fended them off.... Waiting to board the flight ("Currency Exchange Closed: Lunch" at 3pm); I'd forgotten how loud and demanding Korean toddlers can be...
On board: a quick read of the "Korea Joongang Daily" after 2 weeks of only Russian "news":
Korean President being impeached: ongoing interviews with Samsung execs over bribery allegations (Samsung shares soar)
Ex UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon arrives back in Korea with entourage as a possible presidential candidate (meanwhile his siblings are under indictment for bribery).
30 years since security police murder of a pro-democracy protestor during torture (which led to political reforms including direct Presidential elections).
Japan refusing currency deals because a "comfort women" memorial has been built outside the Japan consulate in Busan (Japanese ambassador withdrawn for consultations)
China imposing punitive sanctions on South Korea after decision to install a new US missile defence system
Lots of Trumpery over many pages, particularly fears over foreign and economic policy changes when Trump is president
The "New York Times" insert was nearly all hand-wringing about Trump.
Oh yes, and just 40 miles north of Seoul is a paranoid nuclear power that regularly threatens to reduce Seoul "to a cauldron of flames"...
I slept well on the flight, occasionally glancing at the flight map. Seoul is south of Vladivostok, so for the first 45 minutes of the flight, we travelled west into Russia and northern China, making a right-angled turn south, then east into Incheon, very carefully flying a large arc to avoid any North Korean air space. Meanwhile the Korea Airlines attendants did a brilliant job of picking up every Russian and Korean toddler on the flight at least once, nursing them up and down the aisle keeping them quietly occupied (and their parents very grateful...).
6.30 pm: It got better: on landing, I found myself zipping through smiling Immigration and standing, alone, as the first bags emerged on the carousel (mine was third), so I was steered through Customs and on my way to the AREX train into Seoul city (avoiding three anxious uniformed women waving paper names at me thinking I was their Caucasian transfer passenger for the night) before any other passenger from my flight had appeared. How good is this!
5 pm: On the train, I reached for my pub booking information. Not there. It was with my passport: also not there.
WIDE awake now: furious emptying of day pack, pockets, money belt, and groping around in my bag (why did I repack the heavy stuff while waiting for the train?). Passport: not there.
Well...
The stylish train supervisor slunk by, so I slunk after her to do a bit of public bleeding/pleading to ask if it was possible to call the AREX booking office at Incheon Airport to see if it was dropped in the "waiting lounge"... On arrival in Seoul, I was informed it was not found, given the AREX call centre number and told to call every few hours to see if it had been handed in.
Suitably discouraged, I wandered off the train and into the vast underground maze of escalators, stairs and tunnels that somehow linked to my hotel. An AREX guy had thoughtfully given me a paper map and drawn the route to "Exit 7" in red, which seemed half way to Pyongyang. The maze ended in a long grey, granite subway where 50+ homeless men were settling in for the night all with their own flouro sleeping bags, supervised by police while being offered antiseptic and bandages by volunteers.
The Reception at the hotel assured me that 12 noon on Monday would be when I would check out. (I wouldn't be quite so sure about that, I was thinking.)
A calm ride in the lift, then a frenetic mass-unpacking and searching. No passport.
Online to DEFAT and the Australian Embassy whose helpful "Lost Passport" link assured me I could book in online for an interview. First available time: 10 days from now at 10am. I booked.
I headed back through Seouls Station Hades to AREX: no express, so took the all-stops subway train to the airport. The relentless video screens showed the history of Dokdo "Beautiful island of Korea", a dot in the East Sea which Japan will not return, in defiance of pre WWII documentation and post WWII treaties (lovely grainy shots of Japanese surrender)... followed by a beautiful sunset and slogan: "AREX brings you the Fragrance of History". Strap hanging for an hour back to the airport, I was only receiving the fragrance of yesterday's failed deodorant and today's sweated kimchi....
By now I had reached the reflective and vaguely, desperately philosophical stage: you know, there are FAR worse places to be stuck for 2 weeks than Seoul... There's enough culture, history and food to keep me diverted (literally and figuratively) for that time... Things could be worse than being stuck here (like being in Khabarovsk, for example). Japan is prebooked but not prepaid, so cancellation online won't be that big a deal... as long as I can make it on to the flight home...
And other desperate whimsy...
10pm: back at the AREX waiting room. Officials very happy to help. Found a lot of dust, a few coins, a half sucked lolly. No passport.
Retraced steps to strange horizontal ATM at foreign exchange counter. No passport. Ask demure bank gels if it has been handed in. "For that you go to Information, Sir... Over there at Gate C."
Many thanks, onward, onward...
Gate C: I hand over a photocopy of the passport page. Much tapping at a keyboard. "And your birth date, Sir?" Apparently I could remember the correct answer, and was directed to Gate A. Twenty questions and a signed form later and passport in hand, I just wanted to kiss the Information Officer, but we both demurred.
Suddenly I was hungry, but had little time before another long hour looking into the my reflected darkness and uplifting videos on the all-stops AREX train (the expresses had gone to bed for the night). Best, fast option: Burger King near the gates.
Some confusion working out where how to order, and was helped by a Korean guy in the line. He was then concerned I would miss my food, as the numbers were only called out in Korean.
So, passport in hand, happy and impressed with Korean officialdom and the kindness of strangers, there I was, loudly being rote-taught number pronunciation (104) in Korean by a complete stranger in the middle of a crowded Burger King at Incheon Airport.
The very ordinary hamburger was caviar: the juice: champagne, as I headed back, strap-hanging for an hour into Seoul to cancel my appointment with the Australian embassy in 10 days.
And for a long sleep...
