Our trip’s first major mishap was on Thursday morning. Our flight from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur was scheduled to leave at 9:35 am. Thinking we would have plenty of time to get to the airport by subway, Sarah and I decided to sleep a little longer. Wrong move!I cannot stress this enough – it is ALWAYS better to be prepared & early for anything you are unfamiliar with.

I cannot stress this enough – it is ALWAYS better to be prepared & early for anything you are unfamiliar with.

As we were on the subway (airport railroad) we realized we had to check in by 8:35. It was very clear we were going to have to rush to get there. The time in between stops was taking forever. Sarah was stressing out. I was very confident we would make the flight, but as 8:15 came around, then 8:20, then 8:25 and we were still on the subway I started to stress out.

I think we may have arrived at the airport about 8:30. Sarah and I had all our bags; we are talking about over 25 pounds of weight added onto us and bolted out the subway doors. We had our T Money cards ready to go and just like a movie, we couldn’t escape. We didn’t have enough money on our cards! I am not kidding you, this actually happened. We hurried to the kiosk to reload it. We added 1,000 more won, just to have it still be 1,000 short. “This is not happening” I remember thinking to myself. I only had 10,000 won to put on it and the language was in Korean so I didn’t know how to get change back and at that point, I didn’t really care. Finally, we were out of the turnstiles. As I ran and ran I remember thinking when my legs felt like they could run no more “dang, are you really going to miss this flight because you can’t hustle for 5 more minutes?” We got to the counter at about 8:44 – late. It had closed. No way, no way did I just almost have a heart attack running here just to miss my flight. I begged and pleaded and at first, they told me they were unable to do anything (we were flying Air Asia). Finally, a nice woman made some calls and checked us in. It’s a miracle!! I knew we weren’t missing that flight. They don’t call Han River Miracle River for no reason.

We had to book it to the gate though because doors were shutting in less than a half hour. That wouldn’t usually be a problem but I swear that day immigration had the longest line. We were screwed again. After all that we were going to miss our flight. Jill, who we were going to Kuala Lumpur with, was already at the gate. She was texting us saying that they hadn’t started boarding yet. Every minute that passed which they weren’t boarding yet was one minute closer to us getting on. Another miracle happened and the flight was delayed – only by like 15 minutes, but that was just enough for us to make it. Sarah didn’t get her Taco Bell at the airport like she wanted and we were both sweaty, but we made it on that plane.

The flight was 7 hours from Seoul to Kala Lumpur and we chose Air Asia, not because it was the cheapest, but because Jill had already booked her flight and we wanted to get on the same one. Jill had a week off from EPIK so she was meeting her dad in Malaysia for a trip. Since Sarah and I were in Korea we figured may as well go to Malaysia with her. No TVs, no USBs, no food served, not even refreshments during this international flight. How can an airline fly people for 7 hours and not even offer them water? Seems crazy to me, but thankfully I slept most of the way. I was tuckered out from all the running we had done that morning. My advice to you though is to not book with Air Asia unless the flights are extremely cheap. It is one of the worst airlines I have ever flown. Almost every single Air Asia flight of mine this trip has been delayed (read my other posts to see details).

But we had made it. All three of us were in Malaysia safe and sound and ready to take on Kuala Lumpur.