I arrived at ICN at 10:50, and since my connection wasn't supposed to depart till 3:30, I decided to leave the airport. Immigration was a breeze. I took the shuttle bus to the Hyatt and passed 2+ uneventful hours in that area.

I made it back to the airport by 2:30p, immigrated, and was in the lounge by 2:40. In the lounge, I noticed that my flight to PVG had been canceled to I asked the staff what was up. They told me that there was a typhoon moving towards Shanghai and that most flights were being canceled. They offered to put me on an MU flight in economy, which was still running close to on schedule. I declined because I would have had to do an airport run to make it and she told me there was a good chance that flight would get pulled as well.

So, my 2 realistic options were: 1) go to Beijing and 2) fly out in the morning. Reluctantly, I chose option #2 (because I really need to be in SH this week).

Leaving the airport after already "departing" turned out to be an hour-long bureaucratic process, requiring lots of walking and tons of forms. In the end, I was escorted through immigration by an OZ employee who got my departure stamp voided and sent me over to the OZ transit counter to get a hotel voucher.

Although I had been told by friends that OZ overnights pax at the Hyatt, they gave me a voucher for the Hotel June, which was no Hyatt and wasn't really that close to the airport.

The shuttle bus came 20 minutes later and brought me to the hotel. My room was dark and depressing, had a view of another building 20 feet away, and restaurant was in the basement.

I chilled out for a few hours before calling some friends to come hang out with me. They took the bus to the airport, the shuttle, and showed up at around 7:30. We opted to pass on the free dinner and eat Korean BBQ at a neighboring establishment. Then we went to a KTV. Unfortunately, by the time all was said and done, my friends had missed the last bus back into town so they had another friend come pick them up. I felt bad that they went to such great lengths to come see me in such a boring neighborhood, but they told me that was the Korean style and not to worry. I will have to make it up to them on their next trip to China.

This morning, I woke up at around 7:30, went to an internet cafe, and then headed to the airport at 9:30 to catch my 10:50 flight.