Finally we’re on our way – not such a good start, an hour late leaving, who knows why. We were in a lineup of 8 planes waiting to takeoff. The plane is clean and tidy, lovely polite cabin crew, but brunch has just been served and the vegetarian option was nothing to write home about. The omelette was leathery and veges watery. Fruit and yoghurt nice though. Al’s choice of Korean chicken was much more interesting – three dishes to be combined, one of chopped sautéed vegetables and chicken, another of rice and a third of seaweed soup. Add a tube of hot chilli paste and a sachet of sesame oil, and it smelled very savoury.

ONLY 7 hours to go – lots of movies to watch, trips to the toilet to be made, and a remaining half egg sandwich to be eaten. Yes that’s right, we packed sandwiches and fruit cake and fruit for breakfast at the airport to avoid the dreaded takeaway food. There are still some bananas and mandarins to eat before we get to Seoul.

We used RedAir to get to the airport, for six of us it worked out much more economical and stress-free than the alternatives. Deb and Chad arrived from Cairns yesterday and Al picked John and Lisa up at 4:30 this morning. Of course most of us could not sleep, so up early anyway, but Chad said he had the assistance of Johnny Walker and had no trouble.  Roger and Judy came to visit last night, and joined us for fish and chips as a last supper.

Airline report : Korean Air supplies bottles of water, as well as toothpaste and brush and slippers, plus sterilised (or at least sealed, pretending to be sterilised) pillows and blankets. The seats on this leg (A330 plane) are 2/4/2 configuration, with reasonable leg room for economy. Individual screens with heaps of choices of movies, audio, games and information screens. As comfortable as could be expected in cattle class. The long wait at Brisbane is a worry though – hope it is airport specific, rather than airline specific, because our transit time in Paris is VERY tight and we can’t afford to be arriving late at Charles de Gaulle.

After a little nap, another meal and a couple of movies (Bel Ami and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for me), we arrived in Seoul an hour late. The flight was very bumpy, constant low-level turbulence, but otherwise ok –  a few rounds of drinks got us through. The language problem reared its head in Seoul airport when I tried to find out if it was ok to bring fruit through – as it turned out, we gave the bananas away, then just breezed through quarantine despite my efforts to declare the muesli bars I was carrying. Then another line up to get the transit passenger stickers, yet another to get the hotel vouchers and finally we boarded the shuttle bus. A very long slow line at the hotel finally produced room keys, twin beds all round because the story was that they were booked out – not sure about that, there don’t seem to be many people around, in the foyer, lifts or restaurants.

A helpful someone at the information desk at the airport looked carefully at our flight times and connections in Paris, and assured us that we would make the connection easily – hope he is right. So we haven’t even tried to manually check luggage through just in case it goes missing in the process, and decided against the other alternative of an early flight in the morning.

NEXT DAY : Our rooms are comfortable (Best Western), in an area that appears to be part of the Olympic area – lots of parks, stadiums and high-rise accommodation. Dinner last night (included) was a fairly ordinary buffet with some Western and some Korean food, none of it very interesting, except the little cherry tomatoes and lychees which were delicious. We hit the whiskey (Irish), Bacardi and red wine in Deb and Chad’s room, then hit the sack.

The room lights don’t go off, we solved it by taking the room key card out of the socket, Chad phoned reception and discovered that there is a red button on the radio clock, and John and Lisa slept (sort of) all night with the lights on! The toilet is also interesting, a combo toilet/bidet arrangement with undecipherable buttons. One seems to regulate the temperature of the seat, another is labelled “bowel movement” and yet another “female urine”. Al is terrified to sit down because a threatening pipe slides out of the back of the bowl as soon as you sit.

Al and I slept intermittently, although he seems to be under the illusion that I snored – rubbish! Anyway up bright and early as usual, saw the sun rise in a very pretty sky behind the high-rises across the park, then we went for a walk with Deb and Chad while John and Lisa tried to extend their well-lit rest. The temperature outside was pleasant, although a bit later on it rises to 35 deg. We found exercise equipment in the park, alongside little cubicles like phone boxes, with books on shelves inside. ??? The shuttle bus took us along an incredibly long bridge, which from our window we can see curving away in the distance – it must be at least 10km long.

The buffet breakfast was much more interesting – a huge range of choices, Asians seem to fill a plate with salad, and add some cold, very spicy things to it. Also there was beef porridge, no-one was game to try that, Lisa and I both had miso soup, and plenty of Western choices. We ate healthily, fairly lightly, because we’ll be facing another long-haul flight this afternoon. This one is 12 hours, then a 3 hour transit in Paris, followed by a couple more hours to Ireland. Local time on arrival will be around midnight, but for us it will be mid-Saturday morning. A few hours sleep on the plane seems essential.