Korea take 2: Exit strategy

“Wake up kids, we gotta go”
“Go where Daddy?” Baby; yawning, stretching from her cramped little bunk bed in her shared little bedroom.
“What’s happening Daddy?” Cade; brave, instantly alert to my tension from the other bunk. He scans his room, packed suitcase, a hundred questions in his eyes.
“We’re going home guys, gonna go back to England for a bit”.
Smiles, actual smiles and happiness and excitement despite all the chaos, despite it being nearly 2am on a school night. If I didn’t believe 100% that I was making this decision for the right reasons before I woke them, I do now.
Determination and resolve are given fresh impetus from the 2 confused but excited little faces peering at me hopefully as they climb out of bed and chatter and giggle with each other about this massive development that’s surely rocked their world.
“There’s your cases guys, I’ve packed your clothes but get your favourite toys and anything else you want to take and pack them”
“Where’s mummy?” Cade, so bright and clever hits the crunch point straight away. Where is his mum? If I knew that then this probably wouldn’t be happening. Definitely wouldn’t be happening like this anyway.
“She’s not coming with us Cade, not yet anyway, let’s just get our stuff together and go”.
Confusion and concern now combine with the excitement and my heart strings pull.
“Come here you 2, big hug and then let’s go see the planes at the airport!”

It’s done, the toughest bit is done, and we’re ok. There’s worries and there’s uncertainty but overall the adventure aspect is taking hold and as my phone rings I leave them packing. It’s a call I’ve got to take, one of about 25 things involving 2 friends and 2 family members that need to come together for this exit strategy to work.

It’s Keith, the first person out of the 4, he's my best mate out here just now. He's seen the writing on the wall, it's been pretty transparent. Some of our fights have lasted days on end and I've been on his sofa (literally and figuratively) plenty in recent weeks. I need his help, I need money. I’ve got what amounts to about £50 and that ain’t getting me home. He's step one on a list of things and people that need to come together and I know he'll do what he can. He lives in the same block as us and he knows my situation. I’ve been boring him with it for long enough and my threats to leave are old hat to him now. The story is a little different tonight though, it’s not at the bottom of a pint glass for one. It’s a sober, calculated decision and it’s happening, right now at just after 2am!

Keith helps, but it’s not gonna be enough. I can get to the airport now though, and that’s the start I wanted. Get to the airport and get some tickets, old school, like you see on the movies. Just walk up to the counter, buy 3 tickets and get on the plane... simples right?!

The kids are in the car and we're packed. I haven't got much in the way of belongings but i'm taking minimal my stuff and maximum kids stuff in the one big suitcase I have. I was once stopped in Singapore airport for having only a book with me. No other luggage checked in and no hand luggage. It was deemed unusual by airport security and I got taken into a little side room and questioned for nearly an hour, that's a different story but it shines a light on my general theory of travel: take as little as possible because you can always get new stuff at your destination, I think I've read too many Jack Reacher novels over the years!

Step two, or person 2 is Mckeown. He's from way back and been in Seoul forever now but back in the day he needed a place to stay and he needed money and I helped on both counts. He lived at mine for months and whilst he's helped me back and paid me back over the years I hope I still have enough equity with him for the required favour. I call him and he's more that happy to help, absolute legend! The problem is that it's now about 4am and I haven't woke him, he's still up. So by my calculations, I can get to him for around 5 and I'm more than a little concerned that he'll have passed out somewhere by then!
Mckeown is my wing man, I need him for the unpredictable. I've told him I need money which I probably will but it's more than that. I don't know what I need, we need. That's why I've got him on stand by. Stay awake Mckeown, stay awake... On a wing and a prayer I rumble on towards Seoul.

The transport is my car. Well it's my sister in laws car officially as registering it to me was too complicated apparently. This though will be helpful as my intention is to leave it in the short stay car park and by the time the notification goes out to its official owner we'll be long gone but the car can go back for JJ to sell or use or whatever, no longer my problem.

Person 3 is Dad, he's paying for the flights. His is the easiest part of the plan, he's told me to call him when I need the tickets and he'll make the payment for them. No questions, no doubts. He's got too much faith in me sometimes and if I tell him I need something he'll do everything in his power to get it to me. I've not really had to give any details, he doesn't care, he's just there for me. I love him for this and right now it's exactly the faith we need to get home.

By the time I hit Seoul it's just gone 5, the kids are snoozing in the back, catching up on lost sleep despite the commotion. I love how the magic of motion can still even the most hyper kids. The first glitch kicks in as my call to Mckeown goes unanswered. I've no time to go on a search for him and only have his last known whereabouts as 'somewhere in Songtan'. Seoul is huge, 13million people in an ever expanding metropolis. I know bits of it but a lot of my knowledge is nearly 10 years old, a lifetime in this city that loves to reinvent itself every 5 minutes. It's hopeless trying to find him so I keep on motoring,  it's another 30-40 minutes to Itaewon and the airport, I don't want to wake the kids again and so I leave my wing man and try to figure out the next step. Maybe I won't need him, maybe it will be fine.

I roll into the airport, dump the car in the farthest corner of the underground parking leaving it open with the keys in the glove box. I've never really experienced crime in Korea, it's a whole different world and the idea that someone would steal my car doesn't even enter my head. My main concern is that it will get reported before I'm gone so after some thought I double back and stick a 4 hour parking ticket on it just to be sure.

Glitch number 2 comes at the ticket office when I discover there's no flight for 12 hours and the flight in 12 hours only has 15 seats left on it. The 15 seat thing didn't become an issue until glitch number 3. As I'm asking about the flight the ticket guy wants to see passports so I hand them over. After about 4 seconds and a rudimentary scan of the kids passports he shakes his head in typical Korean guy fashion and says what appears to be his only proficient word in English, 'No'!
I try to push him but my Korean, whilst being better than his English, is just not up to the complexity of travel, passports and visa talk which I'm presuming is the issue. He's not interested in my pleas and the only word I can glean from him is 'bulganenhay' which from my disjointed and limited knowledge is either a type of food or the word for 'impossible'... great.
He's about as useful as a chocolate tea pot but thankfully there's an assistant and she's at least trying to help and sends me off on an excursion to the other side of the airport to the visa office. Time to adjust and adapt, again.

The airport is starting to come to life. It was quiet when we came in, the early morning calm before the storm. But things are opening up now and travellers are striding purposefully to check ins and gates. I get us about half way between the ticket office and the visa office and we set up camp. Twelve hours is a long time at their age but Cade and Baby are actually having a ball, they will be tired but they can sleep on the plane... if we ever get on the bloody plane. I stake claim to a practical little corner of airport benches and crack out some colouring books and toys. I explain to Cade where I need to go and show him the route between the 2 offices and tell him to stay with Baby. I still have no doubts that leaving is the right thing to do but it's not proving easy, I head off to try and find out what the hell is going on with their passports.

The visa office staff have better English than my mate down the hallway but not that much better. the main guy shows me the page in the kids passports that has a kind of visa printed on. The problem is that it basically gives the kids legal Koreanness. It also means that they can't leave the country. I keep asking questions but they're seemingly the wrong ones and it's only when I venture the word 'cancel' that things take a step forward. I've had to keep popping back to the kids and time is ticking on, I also went to check with the girl at the ticket office and there's 4 more been sold on my flight, 11 left. Not good Royston, not good at all. 'Cancel' however has at least been met with a less negative response, especially when combined with the action of making a cross with my arms in front of me, definite progress! The guys ask me to come back in 30 minutes, apparently there's a shift change at 9am and the day shift might be able to help.

Mckeown finally resurfaces and answers his phone. I give him an update on events transpiring and he agrees that I should be able to buy my way out of the problem by cancelling the kids visas. The three of us get a bit of breakfast down by the ticket office and the helpful girl waves at me as she's hanging up her phone. I look across and she arranges her hands to show me 9 fingers... fuck.

I get back to the visa office just after 9 and the whole crew has changed. Not just changed but apparently abandoned and re staffed. No one knows what I'm talking about and it takes another half an hour to get close to the stage I'd been at an hour earlier. Finally it seems like I can cancel the visas but the new guys in the office don't want me to. They are trying to explain that once the cancellation is done then the kids won't be considered as Korean any more and therefore would only be able to come back into the country as tourists. This is an action they can't even comprehend so it's painfully slow progress but eventually they accept that this is what I want and they just need payment. I call Mckeown so he can pay over the phone, no answer...

I have to leave the office after 3 failed calls, there's a queue of people backing up behind me. It costs about £400 to cancel the visas, I've got about £280. I've also got about 10% battery left on my phone. I've also got to feed the kids again soon, and again before the plane is due to leave. Money is tight, time is tight, I'm happy to leave penniless but I've got to have enough pennies to get me to the plane. I walk back towards the ticket office trying to call Mckown and trying to get a pen and paper in case I have to revert to payphones. I ignore Mr useless and signal with an imaginary pen on imaginary paper to the girl, she obliges and signals back with 7 fingers and an 'i'm sorry' expression on her face. Everything is getting tight...

I start the stroll back, trying to convey confidence and surety as I pass the kids despite increasingly feeling the opposite. Mckeown answers, tired and fed up of being disturbed by the sound of him but ready to help, thank fuck! I keep him on the phone despite the drain on my charge, I'm not losing him again. It takes a few minutes to get back to the guy I was dealing with but at just after 10am after nearly 4 hours of airport chaos I get back to him. He pays the fee over the phone and as I'm thanking him my phone dies. Cheers Mckeown, life saved and the balance of power forever in your favour. The office guy takes a permanent marker and scrawls a big black cross on the offending pages and that's it, done! I'm too relieved to even begin to compute the fact that I could of done that, and for nothing! Obviously there's more to it as computers and statuses are updated and we're good to go. It's not set yet though and those 7 pretty fingers and my lack of phone are now foremost in my mind.

I run, all the way the length of the departure lounge but not towards the ticket office. I run to the payphones, waving at my bemused kids as i pass them. I can't waste the time it would take to see how many seats there are on the plane. I call Dad, just after 6pm in England, no issue, and jot down his credit card details. The call is as brief as possible and I tell him I'll call him back with the flight details if I can get us on it. I run again.

My mate is nowhere to be seen and as I start to worry about more fresh faces and shift changes my helpful little saviour appears. I hand over the passports complete with 'amended' pages and after readjusting the other passengers she seats us all together and books us on the last 3 seats that day to England! My mate makes a reappearance just as we're finishing up and as I take ownership of my tickets home I can't resist and wave them at him with a cheery 'an bulganenhay' (not impossible)!

We're set and the kids are even more excited now that the tickets are real and the journey is progressing. We move out of our basecamp, head for lunch in burger king and then check in. I'm concerned that the cars' ticket has run its course and it may be getting reported at any moment. Thankfully now, my phone is dead and JJ obviously hadn't been home up until the point it died so I've had no calls. Once we're checked in and based in the departure lounge I'm pretty confident we're safe and the homeward bound journey can gather wings.

It's a long old flight back to Heathrow but my Dad's there waiting when we land and he transports us across the country to Somerset and the final person of the four I needed: My sister, she welcomes us with open arms and we rest and explore and plan out a new life back in England. It's not going to be easy, it never is but we're home and the green grass and church spires and crappy weather and sarcasm and everything England have never felt so wonderful.