Korea, but not.

'THE TRIPS TODAY!!" those three words woke me up at 6am Wednesday morning. Spoken by my six year old brother who had previously shown no interest whatsoever in the trip.

We checked in, handed over our luggage to be flown straight to Tel Aviv, meaning that only the clothes in our carry on will be taken to Seoul(most of which will be thrown out at Tel Aviv airport, leaving room to take stuff home!), said goodbye and promising postcards to friends.

It wasn't actually till I walked through those departure gates that I actually believed that we were going. That this was happening. Its not like I ignored it, I have been helping to plan this trip for months. It just seemed so, surreal.
We boarded the plane, hunkered down for our 12hr flight preparing for the worst.
12 hours on the plane, 8 people, 1 one year old and one 6 year old. What could go right? Apparently everything. We had prepared with buying a DSI and loading up the iPod touch with games, bringing books and journals.
Selah, charmed every person on the plane and slept the whole landing.

We arrived to 2 degrees and snow on the ground. A big shock. On the ground we quickly got put into a bus and shuttled to the hotel Korean Air were putting us up for the night. The Hyatt Regency, only the flashest hotel Ive ever seen in my life. No biggie. Not very Korean, but flash!
When we arrived it was 10:30 pm Auckland time but 5:30 Seoul time so we grabbed some dinner and went to bed. Promising to explore the next day.
As we looked outside our window we discovered that there was an indoor pool(it was way too cold to swim outside).Of course we packed all but what we needed for our two flights into our checked luggage!

After sitting in my hotel room watching TV I realized 2 things, Korea(well Korean MTV anyway) is obsessed with Justin Bieber and that I was in Asia and sitting in the most western place I've ever been, these two things made be a bit depressed and I walked around the hotel for awhile. Both to get away from Justin Bieber and to find culture. I didn't find any. What I did find though was
E-Mart(like K-Mart but better and Asian) and they were selling togs for only 5,000 wuon (only $5 USD) and sweet tops for 7,000 wuon(I needed something to bring home from here!) so we went back to the hotel enjoyed the suana, spa and pool.

Now I'm at Incheon Airport using their free WiFi and waiting for our 12 hr flight to Tel Aviv.
I dunno when I'll get internet next, in the next few days I'm driving to Eilat(said ee-lat) and then going to Petra in the weekend. Will upload photos soon
Ciao