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Had an opportunity to travel to Jeju and Busan with my foodie buddies and it was cast in stone sometime in May 2023 when we bought the Korean Air flight tickets in mid-May 2023 with flight out from Singapore to Incheon, Incheon to Gimpo and Gimpo to Jeju. And then Jeju to Busan and Busan to Incheon and finally Incheon to SG. The dates were from 31 Aug to 10 Sep 2023 for our 10 nights trip.
The flight out was at 1.30am and it was around 2am when we started the journey.
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| in the airplane at 1.30am |
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| nearing Incheon |
There was some turbulence experienced but luckily, breakfast service was still possible after that. On the flight out, there were 2 options; eggs or noodles. I chose eggs.
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| omelette breakfast on Korean Air (SG to Incheon) |
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| served with healthy dose of veggies and a baby potato |
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| egg burger, anyone? |
The omelette were rather dense but the bread was dry. So I put two together with the veggies for a complete meal. Easier to eat too. The potato was nice and the entire meal was super filling. Coffee was nice too.
Due to the delayed take-off, we landed later at Incheon. Before we land, the stewardess came round to inform affected passenger (me), that I will be scheduled to a later flight from Gimpo to Jeju as we still needed to get from Incheon to Gimpo which takes about 35 minutes by car/taxi excluding the waiting time for the land transport. Initially scheduled for the 1125am flight and now, rescheduled to the next available flight at 1pm flight to Jeju.
Landed in Incheon at about 9.35am and was met at the gate by the Korean Air flight representative. She explained the situation and laid out our options with the assurance that there are next available flight and if we want, we could still try for the original scheduled flight if we hurry. She escorted us in the long walk towards the baggage claim area. We decided to go for the initial scheduled 1125am flight and if it fails, oh well, then to the later flight out to Jeju then. We made a mad dash once we've gotten our bags and immediately went to the taxi stand. Luckily we found a cab big enough for 4 pax with one luggage each. Unfortunately, the driver explained that he was there because there was an issue with his vehicle. However, he offered to call his counterpart to pick us up. We agreed and he made the call. The taxi arrived 10 minutes later and off we went. Reached Gimpo at about 1040am. Rushed to the check-in area and our bags made it to the plane at about 1050am. Taxi fare was ₩100,000 (~SGD105).
Fortunately, boarding for the flight was delayed till 11am. Phew!
And, we made it to Jeju safely after all that adventure.
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| arrived at Jeju |
Next, we needed to get to the rental car shop from the airport. So off we went to the shuttle bus for rental car area after exiting from the Arrival Hall. The rental car company would have informed which bus bay number for the guest to wait for the shuttle to come to pick-up from the airport. Ours was at Bay 5 for Angel Car.
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| queuing up for the shuttle bus |
Waited for about 10 minutes for the shuttle bus to arrive. Luckily it was a school bus kind of shuttle as I saw the others were using smaller vans/bus.
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| Angel Car |
Hence and Ivan settled the paperwork for the vehicle and after 20 minutes, we got one. Proceeded to the car collection area (which looked like a big carpark), only to discover that someone else had taken the assigned car. Gosh!
Hence and Ivan went back to the office to inform them.
After 10 more minutes, the said car came back. Turned out, another family had mistakenly took our car. Faints.
After we checked the vehicle and loaded all our luggage into the SUV, we needed to pump petrol first. Little did we know, the petrol station that we came across, does not have English signages. Oops! Lucky us, the attendant there helped us and finally, we have gotten $100 worth of diesel into the car for a full tank. In reality, that was an overkill as we didn't clock that much mileage during our 7 days and 6 nights stay in Jeju. Only used up half that amount. Good for the next customer though. Hehe.
It was close to 240pm when we reached a restaurant of our choice (yes we researched prior to the trip on where to eat) and it was almost nearing their mid-day break time at 3pm. Luckily, the owner allowed us to dine-in if we could finish our meal within 45 minutes.
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| Samseonghyeol Haemultang 삼성혈해물탕 본점 |
Read more about our late lunch here.
