After having arrived the airport in perfect time I was met by a nasty surprise at the check-in where I even seemed to be the first person. The date of my return flight exceeds the 90 days’ duration of tourists’ visa-less stay in Korea for about a week. Since the computer system didn’t give any information about the possibility (for Germans) to get a visa inside the country later on I had to go to another counter where I had to call the embassy and ask for a verification. I started to feel queasy; there were two hours left til departure…
The embassy’s line was busy all the time so I went back to the counter and asked to try what they had recommended in second place: to change the reservation for the return ticket. But since I got a special offer, this wasn’t possible at all. The staffs were extremely nice but I was almost at my last nerve because it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to travel at all. I insisted on the fact that the information about the visa-application was indicated at the embassy’s website and this was finally printed out and shown to the people at the check-in desk. The supervisor was called and finally we got the announcement that I was allowed to go. 15 minutes before the check-in was supposed to close…
I had to hand in my 18-kilos (!) backpack as bulky goods, quickly open my hand luggage passing the security control and then I could head off for boarding. The latter turned out to be delayed because of technical problems but after all the fuss this didn’t bother me at all.
Already at that point I found it difficult to imagine that I might have trouble concerning the flight back when arriving Seoul. In the end I could always take a trip to Japan and getting the allowed 90 days for a tourist sojourn restarted when going back to Korea!
The flight was relaxed, service and food perfect and from Helsinki (FinnAir!) I had an interesting neighbour: a young Korean woman, who’s been active as a missionary in Ukraine. Her English was quite well, a little bit rusty maybe , so she talked to me in Russian sometimes ;o)
The embassy’s line was busy all the time so I went back to the counter and asked to try what they had recommended in second place: to change the reservation for the return ticket. But since I got a special offer, this wasn’t possible at all. The staffs were extremely nice but I was almost at my last nerve because it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to travel at all. I insisted on the fact that the information about the visa-application was indicated at the embassy’s website and this was finally printed out and shown to the people at the check-in desk. The supervisor was called and finally we got the announcement that I was allowed to go. 15 minutes before the check-in was supposed to close…
I had to hand in my 18-kilos (!) backpack as bulky goods, quickly open my hand luggage passing the security control and then I could head off for boarding. The latter turned out to be delayed because of technical problems but after all the fuss this didn’t bother me at all.
Already at that point I found it difficult to imagine that I might have trouble concerning the flight back when arriving Seoul. In the end I could always take a trip to Japan and getting the allowed 90 days for a tourist sojourn restarted when going back to Korea!
The flight was relaxed, service and food perfect and from Helsinki (FinnAir!) I had an interesting neighbour: a young Korean woman, who’s been active as a missionary in Ukraine. Her English was quite well, a little bit rusty maybe , so she talked to me in Russian sometimes ;o)
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