Friday, December 10, 2004
Arrived at Incheon Airport yesterday and even though there's a time difference of 1 hour, it doesn't bother me. It's around 3.38pm in Singapore but it's 4.48pm here, which means the sky is gonna turn dark very soon. Met my sec school classmate Brian Yeong yesterday and I didn't even realize he was on the same plane as me until the plane landed until I heard somebody calling my name. He was sitting behind me and I guess he probably saw me while I went toilet. It turned out that he was on his way to San Francisco with his father. He was on the same SQ flight with me until Incheon where he had to transit to another plane. Even though the flight is only around 6 hours, I was dead tired after that. It didn't help that I had problems sleeping even though I was clearly tired.
I was wondering why there were so many Indians taking SQ until the pilot announced that Air India had some kind of agreement with SQ to share the costs by taking their passengers who are also going to Seoul. There was this Singh sitting in front of me that doesn't believe in checking in his luggage and it took the steward many times with the help of another Indian who could speak his language to explain clearly to him that he must put his luggage in the compartment above because the plane was landing soon. You have to give credit to the steward who has to put on his smiley face because I would have lost it if I were in his shoes. The funny thing is, the steward addressed the Indian person as Mr Singh. Did he really know his name or is it because that guy was wearing a turban on his head? Your guess is as good as mine.
Said goodbye to Brian who was waiting for his plane and left the airport. I tell you South Korea has a major traffic problem who could give Bangkok a fight. The airport is about an hour's journey from the CBD and it could take up between 2 to 3 hours if there's a major traffic congestion. Now that's a good reason why Singapore has COE. Things here ain't cheap man. In fact, it's very expensive. What I'm gonna type next is gonna sound economics and it's probably the first time I can put that subject to good use. To discourage the consumption of imported goods, tariffs and taxes are imposed on imported goods so that they will be very expensive as compared to local products. Take for example, a bottle of Nescafe Coffee cost around 8 bucks in Singapore but it cost around 21 bucks in the supermarkets here! I think they really practice discrimination here because even the imported goods are being placed under a section known as "Foreign Goods".
I'm currently at some underground megamall at the COEX (something like the World Trade Centre) using the computer in Macdonalds which is free. Don't bother buying imported stuff here because the price is outrageous. I bought my nike dunks at Queensway for only $109 but it costs $160 here and mine is not even those limited edition kind. Giodarno (those cheena clothes that jjc people buy), I don't know whether I got that spelling right is a big brand here. It's like CK back in Singapore. Those simple tops u see in Singapore can cost up to 90 000 won here. That's around $144 SGD. It's really a different world here man. The weather is good and quite cooling, around 12 degrees but it can get quite cold at night. As I'm leaving in the CBD area, I can see that not one Korean guy goes to work without wearing a blazer, regardless of your position. They believe in looking smart and that's the bottom line. Then there's weird people like me who believes in walking around town wearing jeans with slippers. I know it's cold but slippers are more comfortable and I love the feeling of cold wind blowing against my feet. Korean food can be good and bad and they always serve you kimchi and pickles regardless of what meal u order. I'm getting quite sick of these overly sweet and sour stuff.
I did mentioned before that I did an essay on industralization in South Korea for human geo for the A Levels. Lotte which is something like Singapore's F&N is a huge huge industry here and Lum's notes mentioned that it was only a small conglomerate. Walking along the streets, you see Koreans holding only locally made handphones and everyone of them are flip phones. You will never see a person using a non flip phone, not to mention nokia phones. Singapore only sells around 4 to 5 LG and Samsung models which is less than the 30 over models here. The bad news is, as much as I would like to buy another phone here, I can't. The phones here do not need SIM cards they don't work in Singapore. I was tempted to buy until my sister told me.
Maybe here for only 1 day but I already miss Singapore. I miss the food, my bed and the freedom that comes along in being in your own country. If I wanna go out, I can just hail a cab or tap my ezlink card. Here, I even have problems buying a milkshake in Macs. That person has to call his manager just to realize what's happening. It's a different culture here really. They don't teach or speak English in school and I find that damn loser. Even when I was in Perth a couple of years back, I wasn't feeling that isolated because at least the people there speak English. They don't have chilli sauce in the Macs here and I can't live without chilli. I have to be like Paul and start eating my burgers and fries with tomato sauce.
The computer back home hasn't been fixed yet. So I guess Macs will be expecting me here for quite some time. Well, take care and I've gotta go.
