A few weeks ago the first (*of many*) boxes arrived safe and sound in sunny South Africa. The only difference being that this particular box was sent via airmail (costing me an arm and a leg) from Incheon airport.
Now the reason for sending this box from Incheon is rather simple. Farmboy and I arrived at the airport all rather excited to be finally heading back home after we had completed our contracts. Now, imagine our smiling faces as we breeze through the ques due to the fact that we had already checked in on line the night before, and of course after organizing extra weight for both of our suitcases on Singapore Airlines (you can do this by either calling their help desk on +82 234 556 560 or sending then a very polite email at kr_feedback@singaporeair.com requesting more luggage space because you have been living in South Korea for a year bla bla bla).
Now, the only thing we did not manage to do was weigh our suitcases. Big mistake. Farmboy managed to scrape through 30.5 kg's, but, unfortunately for me, my bag weighed a whopping 36 kg's. **If you are flying to or from the US or Canada, the above weight retrictions of 1 bag weighing 20kg's does not apply to you...not fair! But because we are flying to South Africa, our allowance was 1 bag of 20 kg's...later upgraded to 30kg's**.
From this it is quiet easy to work out that I was pretty over-weight EVEN with the extra 10 kg allowance. What can a girl do?? I asked the lady whether I might be able to pay for excess baggage, her answer "You are over-weight. No payment allowed". Well thanks for nothing Singapore. But after some awkward silences and me asking her what exactly I was supposed to do with my extra weight (*luckily she didn't ask to weigh my hand luggage or handbag or coat or laptop bag*) I found out that there was a Post Office at the airport.
To cut a long story short, Incheon Airport has a Post Office on the middle floor to help in these kind of situations. Because we had already gone through the hasstle of shipping 6 boxes home which we are indeed still waiting for 7 weeks down the line (*click here for more info on shipping boxes from South Korea to South Africa)
and I had packed the **essentials** into my suitcase, I decided because I was prepared to pay for excess bagagge anyway, I would AirMail my extra 10 kg's. Easy enough, the procedure is exactly the same as shipping a box, only quite a bit more expensive:
1. Pick you box size from those available. (prices for the boxes range from W1 000 - W3 000)
2. Get a green form and fill in all your details
3. Tape up your box
4. Stand in the queue and get your box weighed and pay for it to be airmailed.
Easy Peasy.
And that was that. Well, not exactly, it did end up costing me W118 000 (+-$120) but that was still cheaper had I been made to pay for excess at a rate of $70 a kg. My box weighed 9...you do the math :)
And there you go. 2 weeks down the line and I had my box, safe and sound! Now here's to waiting for the rest of our boxes to arrive by ship.
