So Disconnected

I arrived safely to Seoul.  I turned on my phone as we landed.  A ton of emails began to load, but good thing I turned it on, there was a message from the Holt-Eugene office regarding those that traveled early Korea.  There would be Holt-Korea staff waiting to drive everyone to the hotel.  We hadn't been told this so I told Julie to look out for anyone holding a Holt sign.  Sure enough, there was a Holt staff waiting for us.  he recognized me from past trips.

The Holt staff said he would be taking us to the Somerset Palace, but we were set to stay at the Hilton since we were told we were not able to get rooms early at the Somerset.  He called Mr. Hwang and sure enough, Mr. Hwang said there were reservations for us at the Somerset.  Now what do we do?  We scrambled for ideas. I said let's stay at the Hilton one night then go onto the Somerset the next day since we were not able to cancel the reservations at the Hilton.  Then as we were riding in the van, I said maybe we could call the Hilton and tell them we missed our connection and didn't arrive in Seoul so we had to cancel our reservations.  Julie was going to call from the Holt staff's cell phone but didn't know if the hotel would know that she was calling from a Korean cell phone.

After some rush hour traffic and me watching the gas gage in the van go more and more into the red zone, we arrived at the Hilton.  We were able to cancel our next two nights and planned on going to the Somerset Palace the next day.  Time to check in and go to dinner then off to bed, I didn't sleep a wink in the plane and it was catching up with me.

No Korean restaurants in the Hilton, seriously, that's why we came to Korea, to eat Korean food!  Luckily, across the way from the hotel were a few restaurants to choose from.  Luckily Julie can read hangul and we found a restaurant.  

I only brought my iPad and I talked Julie into just bringing her iPad too and leave our computers at home.  Well, there is no wireless internet at the Hilton and there's no way to hook up our iPads.  Talk about feeling so disconnected from the world!  The only way to communicate to our families back home is via my blackberry.  Well, I hadn't planned on using the international data plan while I was here, but now I had no choice.  I emailed hubby and told him the situation, then tried the blackberry messenger, which is the instant messaging via blackberry to blackberry, it worked.  But that is also considered data so I am being charged for international data.  What other choice was there?  The internet access at the Hilton is around $10 for 30 minutes of use so either way, I am spending money, but it is very expensive to use the blackberry international data plan since my hubby called Verizon and asked what the cost was.  $20 to use 2mb of data, I had already used 1 mb since landing in Seoul.

Amazing how we are so dependent on internet access and instant communication, even from around the world.  I'm even at a loss not being able to connect to Facebook immediately.  Guess I'll have to wait until I get to my next hotel and pray I can connect wirelessly or I'm in trouble for ten days!