A Sakura Story: Korea - Typhoon Sanba

Korea - Typhoon Sanba

We arrived on Jeju island Saturday morning and were greeted by the Korea military handing out emergency pamphlets to all arriving passengers. Through this we learned that Super Typhoon Sanba was heading right for Jeju island and was scheduled to arrive Sunday evening and linger till Tuesday. This posed quite a problem for us as our flight off the island was scheduled for Monday morning, right in the middle of the Typhoon, and would no doubt be canceled.

And so on Sunday morning we - doing what every other sane person on Jeju island was also doing - rushed to the airport to try and find a flight off the island. The airport was absolute chaos, all flights off the island were sold out, all standby seats taken. Hardly anyone spoke English and after waiting in line after line only to be told "sold out" we were nearly resigned to the fact that we may just be stuck on this tiny island to wait out the Typhoon. A TINY added complication was that Kingsley was expected to give a presentation in Seoul Korea at a work event late Monday morning.

In a last ditch effort Kingsley suggested I call the American Express concierge line to see if they might be able to help us find some flight off the island. I have to say I have never been so impressed with a credit card company in my life. Within about 15 minutes they had miraculously found seats on a 4:50pm flight off Jeju island to Ulsan Korea a small southern coastal town but at least on the mainland. From there they booked us on another flight that would get us into Seoul in time for Kingsley's work event. We were thrilled but also a little anxious as the Typhoon was scheduled to hit Jeju at 6pm and our flight off the island was just an hour before that deadline.

We spent the next few hours waiting for our flight, watching the weather turn from a light drizzle to a major storm and constantly checking the reader boards hoping that they would not cancel our flight.

Our luck (if you can call it lucky to end up on an island with a Typhoon heading your way) held out and we boarded the very last flight out of Jeju island for the next two days. All flights scheduled after ours on the reader board were cancelled.

It was quite an eventful 45 min flight - very turbulent. There was no doubt that Typhoon Sanba was hot on our tail. It took the pilot 4 (last minute aborted) attempts before finally landing at Ulsan airport. Kingsley who survived the process of getting his private pilots license seemed unfazed by this but I have never been so thankful to get my feet on the ground.

Of course we arrived to a deserted airport with all flights canceled including the one that was to take us to Seoul. One very kind airport attendant informed us that there was an overnight train that traveled from Ulsan to Seoul so we rushed off to the train station along with nearly everyone else from our flight in hopes of getting on the train.

We were able to get tickets on the train. There were only first class seats still available so I wasnt complaining. However, after a day full of unexpected surprises I kept waiting for the train to break down or stop due to weather forcing Kingsley and I to ride bikes or hitchhike our way to the Park Hyatt in Seoul. Thankfully this didnt happen and we made it to Seoul exhausted but in one piece.