Today’s a very exciting day, especially for Ollie who’s been eagerly awaiting this part of the trip: we’re crossing over into Japan! Our ferry only leaves at 3pm, but we get to the terminal well in advance, to exchange some yens, and make sure everything’s running. There’s very little in the terminal itself so we walk back to the train station just 5min away to get lunch, where there’s a few nice cantinas with views onto the tracks. I finally get to sample Busan’s traditional dish of rice soup, with a very nice oyster-based variant - rather special indeed.
As we head back to the terminal, we can see our boat landing in the harbour and streams of Japanese tourists flowing out. It’s a bit of a windy day, and the check-in counter has a little sign warning that waves are reaching 2.5m high - I’m not fond of sea crossings at the best of times and this sounds a bit scary! I’ve also read that those ships can make it through any weather short of a typhoon though, so this should be fine.
We’ve got all our immigration papers sorted for Japan - one of the most detailed registration processes we’ve been through so far - and so get in the already sizeable queue for check-in. It’s a very slow process although three counters are open, and as we get closer there’s a little sign saying the ferry may turn back if the weather continues to degrade - less and less reassuring. At last, it’s our turn, and we’re keen to ask the attendant for options should we land back in Busan. First she checks all our papers again and makes sure we have a reservation - and towards the end of that process, casually mentions that the boat is not running at all today. It’s all so surreal we have to ask her to repeat a few times: they’re still having everyone queue up for boarding, checking people’s papers and bookings, and she literally just asked for our passports. Everything is proceeding as if we were about to get on the ferry - expect she’s adamant it will not be leaving the harbour! She assures us we’ll get a refund (verbally only, mind) and turns to welcome the next unsuspecting passengers.
We’re left to process the news. It almost feels like an elaborate practical joke, as the orderly queue is still moving forward, and I didn’t even get an email to inform us of the change of plans. We end up calling the ferry company for confirmation: the crossing is indeed cancelled, today and tomorrow, due to bad weather. Turns out the boat’s sturdiness may have been overcooked: I’m pretty sure there’s no typhoon going on! This means that we now need, at 2pm, to find an alternative way to make it to our reserved hotel in Fukuoka by tonight - while competing with the other hundred of passengers in the same bind as us. We desperately try to get online plane tickets but Jinair, the only budget company operating this line, does not accept bookings with foreign cards.
Desperate, we resort to a measure almost inimaginable for us millennials used to everything going through the internet: we will turn up at the airport in person and see if we can get tickets directly at the company’s counter. I figure out the three different metro lines we need to take to get to Gimhae International Airport, and we get going. Not without hassle, as it turns out metro tickets in Busan are only available from machines, paying in cash, and with very specific denominations - which we don’t have. This feels like a repeat of our arrival at Incheon, and we’re really not in the mood for it. The security guard at the barriers does nothing to help, and we scramble for five minutes before finally finding an automated money-changer which breaks some of our bills up. We’ve finally learned (after almost ten countries) to always keep a bit of spare local cash until we’re certain to be through the border, and today we’re very glad for it!
We finally make it to the airport just before 4pm, hoping against hope there’s some seats left on the 6 o’clock plane, and rush to Jinair’s counter. There, we meet with one of our fellow would-be ferry passengers: a tall gentleman which, from his manner, we’d already guessed was Dutch. It turns out Alex does indeed hail from the Netherlands, and he appears to be a much more savvy traveller than us, as, having been turned away from the boat at the same time, he still managed to beat us to the airport even after a detour by the embassy to resolve some of his Japanese immigration papers. From adversity springs friendship and we band together to try and find a way to Fukuoka without too much delay - we’re all quite stressed out and it’s nice to have companions in the same forcefully docked boat.
The Jinair hostess manning the desk is unfailingly polite and helpful despite our rather frazzled requests to be put on the earliest plane possible. Predictably, this evening’s plane is full - but there’s another one tomorrow morning at 9am, which she can get us seats on. She’s very apologetic at having to charge us a service fee for booking tickets in person - but we’re delighted to have a way out. For us, it’s also the first time in our life we got tickets from the airport itself - although it would have been nice to do that as a spontaneous jaunt rather than an emergency reschedule. Calming down slightly now that we have transport secured, we find beds for tonight in a tiny guesthouse nearby - and finally back on track, get to know Alex as we walk over to there.
He’s already travelled all over the world in his sixty years, and has been backpacking solo for over a month before meeting us: Philippines, Taiwan, and obviously Korea. He’s got a much more happy-go-lucky approach than us, finding his accommodation through walk-ins rather than our obsessive use of booking.com, and to be honest, it seems to work out cheaper, as we find out when he gets a much better rate than us at the guesthouse by asking the owner for a room directly. We continue our chat over dinner, and this chance encounter turns a rather unsettling day into a pleasant evening as we exchange stories of our adventures and laugh at our shared predicament.
We also lucked out with our last-minute accommodations: the rooms are basic but clean, we have private bathrooms, heating, and the shared kitchen includes all the ingredients for breakfast. The owner is lovely, and although we’re just a fifteen-minute walk from the airport she insist on driving us there the next morning at 6:30, helping us beat the queues for checking in. We were still worried that something could go wrong: overbooking, difficulties with immigration… but as we make it to our gate without issues and pool the last of our wons for a celebratory coffee, we start believing again that we might make it to Japan - only one day late!
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