Borneo, it's not just for Survivor

The minute I found out my wifes cousin was moving to the island of Borneo to take a job in Brunei, a country I knew nothing about, I knew I wanted to visit. I didn't think the opportunity would arise for a few years, but with gas prices on the rise, and limited funds available we decided now would be better than later. The first problem was to find affordable airfare. At my first stop to expedia.com airfare was around $1600. That was unacceptable so I set out to find a cheaper way. I plugged in date after date looking for the fare I needed. I emailed my wife's cousin asking if there were other cites I could fly into. They wrote back letting me know that Miri, Malaysia was just as close as the capital of Brunei was, and that Air Asia was a good local no frills airline. By booking a flight from home to a city that Air Asia flew into I could save about $600 a ticket. We could fly into Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia on Asiana and fly Air Asia to Miri, Malaysia. The leg from Kota Kinabalu (The locals call it KK) to Miri round trip was about $35USD. How they can only charge that is beyond me, but that's what it is on just about any given day. The planes are nice, no frills (you even have to pay for a beverage if you want one), but nice none the less. I also saved money by flying on a Wednesday from the states and returning on a Wednesday.

Our flight from L.A. went through Seoul, Korea with an 11 hour layover which afforded us some time to see some of Seoul. I found and article online specifically about seeing Seoul on a layover. We followed many of the tips and had a great time. The subway in Seoul is great. Thanks to the winter Olympics and the world cup all the signs are English as well. You do have to take a train from the Incheon Airport to the Gimpo airport to access the subway system.

We were in Seoul in January, while our final destination was tropical we took coats and hats for our layover. It was below freezing while we were there. We enjoyed such places as Jogyesa Buddhist Temple, Gyeongbokgung Palace, and shopping with a little lunch in Insadong. We happened to go to Jogyesa on an important day in the Buddhist religion. The temple itself was too packed to go in, not to mention we may have gotten in the way of the television crew on hand. We made our way over to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. After paying our modest fee we wandered around the Palace. We were very cold by this point and while the palace was very cool we cut our self guided tour short to find some warmth. We were recommended a restaurant and as we made our way down what seemed like a back alley we entered a nice (and warm) inviting restaurant. No one spoke any English, and I had spent time learning phrases in Malay since the majority of our time would be in Malay speaking countries. The menu did have English descriptions. Despite the language barrier the staff was very helpful and kind. One example, there were no forks on the table only chopsticks (which was fine by me), but a busboy as he passed set two forks on our table without a word. Our waiter brought out a hot plate and started cooking a broth right at our table. A large plate of meat and vegetables was brought out as well and when the time was right the meat and vegetables were added to the broth and cooked. Our meal included kimchi which is a local favorite. A visit to Korea is incomplete without at least trying kimchi. Our bellies were full and we were grateful for the kindness that was shown on our behalf. That meal would turn out to be the most cultural experience of our trip. After that we made our way back to the subway station and retraced our steps back to the airport.