Dad, you weren't lying about how efficient and clean Incheon International Airport is. Although my time there was brief as my flight landed at 22:35, and the last train was at 23:45, so I didn't have much time to look around, I was impressed about how quickly I moved through immigration and baggage claim. 

The train ride to my hostel, Housetay, in Hongdae was also an easy and simple process, as my train (the Airport Subway line) went directly to Hongik University Station (Hongdae).

Now, many people mentioned that Seoul is a nightlife city. I believe that I have experienced the quintessence of Seoul's after-dark liveliness in Hongdae. Restaurants were busy, bars were loud, and clubs reeked of the fragrant aroma of drunk men and women. I mean, look at the next pictures, taken at about 1:30 in the morning:

Many stores were still open, as groups of people hopped from restaurant to bar to restaurant to club to bar to club to cafe before calling it a night. 

I first experienced Korea's chilly weather when I exited the train station. Holy cow it was cold (-7 celcius) and dry (had to keep my chap stick at hand). Not a good place for a local-kine native-aboriginal bruddah like me. 

The website for Housetay had a map and directions to the hostel, which I printed out and used as a reference to guide me. However, because I am a geographically-challenged, failure-at-triangulation type of person (and the fact that the Convenience Store used as a landmark on the map did not exist), I immediately got lost. So, as a resourceful person, I asked two friendly-looking nunas (look it up) to help me find Housetay. 

Unfortunately, they could barely speak English, so it took a while to communicate. After a lot of broken-up Engrish and a lot of miming, we finally began the long, harsh, 5-minute journey to Housetay. 감사합니다  to my nunas from Busan!

Housetay is your authentic youth hostel, in which you pay a dirt-cheap price for a place to sleep. You usually share a room and a bathroom with about 4-5 other people (some rooms offered a 4-person room and a 2-person room for a slightly higher price). For $19 a night in a 6-person room, I think I nailed a sweet deal. 

Not only were the facilities generally clean, they offered free, high-speed wifi! They also offered bread and cereal for breakfast. And most importantly, they had coffee!

I was able to meet many different people from around the world (a bro from the U.K., a girl from Indonesia, a couple from Malaysia, two Japanese girls, a dude from Spain, and a girl from Germany to name a few). In addition, I was able to meet and befriend SNU exchange students from Singapore, Canada, and Spain. Kudos to Emily (one of the exchange students from Canada) for informing us about Housetay!

My trip to Seoul was probably the easiest plane ride(s) I've ever experienced. Ever.

My first flight was from Honolulu International Airport to Fukuoka International Airport via Hawaiian Airlines on a Boeing 767. If you aren't familiar with airplane models and their comfortability, the Boeing 767 economy class seats are very uncomfortable. 

However, it turned out to be an awesome flight because I ran into this person:

Aunty Carol from New Hope was one of the flight attendants on board! She blessed me with an entire row to myself. I was able to sleep sideways during the flight, and thus, was able to enjoy a nice 7 hour nap during a 10.5 hour flight.

Fukuoka International Airport was nicer than I expected (better than HNL). Airport staff on behalf of Korean Airlines ran a security check as soon as all the transfer-to-Seoul passengers got off. It seemed pointless as the staff barely skimmed through our bags. I probably could have smuggled in some mangoes and cans of Spam without even breaking a sweat.

On the flight to Incheon from Fukuoka on Korean Airlines' Airbus A330-300, I was able to meet Dr. Schauer, a bassist on his way to Korea to teach English at Namseoul University. He shared many of his experiences in Korea as a foreigner and gave me tips and pointers to stick by during my time abroad. It was a great pleasure meeting him!

More on Incheon and my journey to the hostel soon...

One would think that the best university in the country with the fastest internet would have very efficient and easy-to-understand student IT-service systems.  However, many of Seoul National University's IT systems are much different and, in my opinion, less efficient than UH Manoa's IT systems. Today's focus is on course registration.