QATAR AIRWAYS | Seoul Incheon – Doha – Brussels

Autumn 2024. Ten years after my first trip to Seoul in 2014, I am returning to the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea. Not solo this time, but with Oriol, who has never been to Korea. On the itinerary: flying with Qatar Airways to Incheon via Doha, the capital Seoul, the historic city of Gyeongju, Busan, Jeju Island and a second stint in Seoul, where we are joined by Sehyeon. We’re spending two weeks in South Korea. The ROK is such a popular destination now. Will we experience overtourism?

Time to go home. But the journey didn’t go completely as planned… We did two things wrong.

Error 1: Very late at the airport

We were convinced our flight took off at 2:40 AM. It didn’t. Our Qatar Airways QR859 flight from Incheon to Doha took off at 1.20 AM. Quite a difference. Luckily our train arrived at he airport at 11.35 PM so there was some marge, but it was too close for comfort.

How did this happen? We did not double check.

But this was nothing compared to the other issue.

Error 2: “Where is my passport”?

Being late at the airport meant there was no queue to check in our luggage. Oriol wants to take his passport out of his backpack… but it isn’t there. It’s not in his suitcase either.

Oriol had been moving things around while waited at Seoul Station for our Arex train to he airport, and he must have left his passport there. He keeps his passport in a nice grey pouch, so colour wise it doesn’t stand out.

He looked everywhere. He forgot his passport. He can’t fly. I’m going home alone. There’s no good reason for me to stay. Oriol is old and mature enough to cope with this crises. A solution for one is easier and less expensive than a solution for two.

What happened next?

Oriol had to gather his thoughts. He returned to Seoul Station where had to wait for the station to (re)open. He went to lost and found. They did not find a passport. He showed a picture of the pouch. The had it, with the passport inside!

What a relief! If the passport had really been lost, Oriol would have had to go to the police for a statement, wait for Monday (it was Saturday) for the Embassy of Belgium to open, get an emergency passport, book a flight. This costs time and money. Hotel nights, food, doing things. Missing work also. Quite embarrassing to tell your boss you’re stuck in Korea because you lost your passport.

But luckily this is South Korea and his passport was found. He booked flights home with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul, which left at around 10 AM. So in the end he was home at 10 or 11 PM the same day. Quite a piece of luck within bad luck.

Going home alone

But from the moment I left Oriol behind to go through security and to the gate, I didn’t know it would end that well. I was both sad and worried for him. Nothing I could do.

Being late and being stressed I wasn’t in the mood to really record happened during the flights, but still.

Flying over Qatar. The yellow filter is due to the window.

QR859

Mirrored to the journey from Europe to Asia, an Airbus A350, an A351 to be precise, flew me back to Doha. I had a seat empty next to me of course, which is nice. But I’d rather have had Oriol next to me. So he can hold my stuff when I rearranging things.

Being a proper night flight, I tried to sleep. But of course, first dinner. I had beef with broccoli and mashed potatoes. It was pretty decent.

I watched a film, ‘Commandante‘, where the swearing was blurred out. ‘Comandante’ is a 2023 Italian war drama film co-written and directed by Edoardo De Angelis and starring Pierfrancesco Favino. The film tells an episode of the Battle of the Atlantic, when the Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini sunk the Belgian ship Kabalo, and Cappellini’s commander Salvatore Todaro decided to disobey orders and to rescue the Kabalo’s crew, being forced to navigate on the surface for three days, making the ship an easy target for enemies.

Breakfast consisted of sausages and hash brown.

Layover in Doha

After landing in Doha, I looked for the shower facilities called Be Relax. But you could only book for maximum 25 minutes and it was too expensive. I wanted not only to feel fresh, but also kill time.

So I just walked around and bumped into Le Petit Belge which offers (supposedly) Belgian specialities such as an array of beers and waffle dishes. Fun fact. In Belgium we don’t eat waffles that often. It certainly is not a common breakfast item.

QR193

QR193 from Doha to Brussels Airport offered a Boeing 787 as airplane. Now I had two empty seats next to me. Luckily, no-one came to use one of the empty seats.

Question

Question for you in the comments. It happens that once a plane has taken off, people change seat for more space, a window seat or whatever reason. If you were in my position, sitting in seat A and B and C being empty, and someone comes and sits in seat C, do I have grounds to protest?

I’m not sure.

The rest of the flight

The rest of the flight involved sleeping, rewatching ‘Legally Blonde’ because I didn’t want to focus on a film and eating pasta. On this flight we only had one meal.