d-Wizz Hankuk Travel Diary [2005]
Day 1 (2005-07-27) / Day 2 (2005-07-28) / Day 3 (2005-07-29) 
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Day 2: 2005-07-28 (Thursday)
Flight SQ882 took off from Singapore at 0012 and I settled down to get some sleep. The Boeing 747-400 was very comfortable, but I only slept in short periods. After dozing off for a considerable time, I woke and noticed a familiar pattern of land below me. Checking the Flight Path onboard confirmed that we were flying over the southern part of Taiwan...
0349 hrs, and as I recognised the land below me as Taiwan, suddenly something very strange happened. I have two Taiwanese friends, and one of them, Kevin, lives in the capital, Taipei. We met only three months ago, and he left to return to his country only a few weeks after we met, but we had kept in contact via e-mail and phone, and mostly by our frequent (almost nightly) MSN chats. We had shared many things as we enjoyed our long chats together, and we often said that we had built a very strong friendship. Now, here I was passing over his homeland, and an incredible feeling was passing through me as I looked out the window at the lights below. The thought “Jesus loves Taiwan” was running very strong through my mind and I remembered the words of Psalm 121 “...the Lord watches over you”. I felt like I was “watching over” Kevin as I flew 11km overhead. I noticed that I was feeling very emotional. My eyes were moist, but because they were also stinging from the fact that I was tired, I did not pay much attention to the tears initially. Eventually the evidence of my emotions made me realise that this was not just a sleep-deprived eye irritation. I just could not look out the window anymore, the tears were just too much and I had to close my eyes to calm down. Each time I opened my eyes to look out the window down at Taiwan, it was through very wet eyes. The flight path did not pass over Taipei directly, so I could not see the city, but at 0409 hrs it was 12km west of Yehliu (which is very close).
What makes this special is that Kevin has told me in chatting that he is not a Christian, which, at the time, surprised me, because I had thought he was. As I was flying over Taiwan, I believe a defining spiritual event took place, resulting in such an emotional display that I rarely experience: I was experiencing the Holy Spirit very closely. It’s too soon to begin speculating on what this means or what might happen later because of it, but I am convinced that God is working and I’ll have to be open and ready for further signals when He gives them to me.
Perhaps one such signal was the flash of lightning that totally surrounded the aircraft at 0644 as we were descending into Incheon. I’ve been fortunate to have always had a sunny landing whenever I have flown in Australia, but this morning, Korea was completely covered by a thick blanket of cloud - and it was thick too, at least 3 kilometres of it. Touchdown at 0702 local time for a time of 5 hours 50 minutes airborne. Getting through customs and immigration was very smooth, they did not even mention anything about the beer; in fact, they were more interested in what was inside the box that I had as part of my luggage. When I told them it contained my snare drum, they waved me through and I was inside the terminal.
Lauren then took me on the bus to Dongam station, then on a train to Yongsan, the electronics Mecca of Seoul. Here, there are hundreds of stores selling every kind of electronic device and accessory imaginable. I had a list of things I wanted to buy, so we began looking for them. We found the two big-ticket items (a 1GB USB pen drive (W67K) and a digital camera) rather easily, and for very reasonable prices too. The camera was particularly good value; loaded with features and accessories and only W300K! At Yongsan, I also bought some power adaptors (to change Australian plugs into Korean) and some blank CDs.
I was getting hungry again, so I asked Lauren to suggest somewhere to eat. We enjoyed 제육딮밥 (jae yuk deop bap), which was very delicious and only W5,000 for a very large serve! Lauren did not get to finish his, but I managed to get it all in.
After feeding our faces, we went to Dongdaemun to continue shopping for some other things. Here was a shopping mall, not horizontally orientated, but vertical, with ten levels of shopping. Each level is themed, so you know where to go to get what you want. We were looking for clothes first, so we browsed for some suitable attire. I found a pair of Korean jeans for W35K. I got them rehemmed for an extra W2,000 at another shop. I bought some household goods at this store where almost everything was W1,000, and two purses for foreign currency, which cost me W12,000 each. I managed to buy almost everything on my shopping list, and I spent over W600K. We went back to Lauren’s house with all our goodies, and after chatting for a while, we went to bed.
Day 1 (2005-07-27) / Day 2 (2005-07-28) / Day 3 (2005-07-29)
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