Above: It was hard to believe that the sunny scene was a -1 degC.
Leaving Fukuoka
Today I fly to Singapore on standby, via Seoul Incheon, as I was not eligible on any direct flights on staff tickets.
I left my hotel at 0745 for the Fukuoka airport’s international terminal. I had last night confirmed that the straight-forward subway ride only served the domestic terminal where there would be a free shuttle to the international one.
I opted to do this rather than take the alternative of a bus ride from Hakata station not too far from the hotel.
First up, I ran into problems with my transport card. I had apparently not tapped out correctly a couple of nights ago on the way to dinner. With language barrier, it took a few minutes to sort out with the staff at my subway station.
Getting to the domestic airport, there was queue for the shuttle to international. Fortunately, it was a big bendy bus which managed to take everyone that was waiting. It was pretty squishy on the 15 min ride to the other side of the runway.
Arriving at the airport just under an hour after leaving the hotel, I took 10 mins to attempt an online check-in on the Asiana Airlines app. I was lucky enough to be given a seat for the first leg to Seoul meaning that I could go airside without going to a counter, since I was travelling with cabin baggage only.
It was a 25 min queue to get airside though, with the bottleneck being the boarding pass scanning point. Once past that security and immigration was pretty free-flowing.
It was busy airside apart from the far ends of the terminal. The lounge that I could use didn’t open for another hour at 1030. That prompted me to have breakfast of muesli with the closest thing I could get to yoghurt: Calpis drink.
When the lounge finally admitted Priority Pass guests, it was only snacks and drinks. I did a mini stock-up to stealthily take out before boarding the old but comfy Asiana A330 1130 flight to Seoul. A light hot meal of cutlet on rice was served en route.
Transit via Seoul Incheon
We landed into sunny Incheon on time at 1250. It was hard to believe that the sunny scene was a -1 degC.
I went in search of the transfer counter which was located airside in the departure level (after transfer security). Fortunately, I could get there without a boarding pass but only with merely a passport scan at the security checkpoint.
The whole transfer process took about 35 mins at a slow walking pace some queueing. While there were no arrival queues to enter the country, it could be bedlam outside at check-in, security and immigration to re-enter the departure level. I was so glad I had decided to only travel with cabin baggage today and not have to exit and re-enter.
I grabbed some lunch at the Sky Hub lounge before chilling in the same seat I was in back in July this year.
Arriving in Singapore
The flight from Seoul to Singapore was like clock-work. Bad weather in Singapore saw us circle in Johor a three times before descending into some turbulence.
An inflight exercise video was played and a surprisingly large proportion of people participated!
My taxi ride to the Hotel 81 Star was filled with lightning, thunder and torrential rain. To conserve cash, I tried to pay my fare with credit card but changed to cash when I realised the surcharge was an unbelievable 10%.
This hotel, located in Lorong 18 of Geylang is more obviously in the red-light district than the others I’ve put up at, on Lorong 20.
Flightradar24 showed that we did circles over Johor.