Asiana: World’s 5-star Airline

I was told by Kenji we were flying to Incheon via ANA. But that was a month before we even leave Singapore. Because four weeks later, I found out we were flying (to Incheon) via something else...Well, it's not like it's a big deal flying via ANA. I've never even flown by ANA in fact. But because the airlines I normally fly with don't fly the Nagoya-Incheon route, and I was asked to choose between ANA and other airlines whose reputation I don't know about, so I picked ANA. During that period of one month (after choosing to go by ANA) however, we changed our flight dates several times because of job, and so by the time we purchased our air tickets, ANA got fully booked thus leaving us with some other airlines to go with...

We were in Japan visiting Kenji's parents when we left for Korea on January 19th to travel. On that day that we flew however, we took Asiana and that was our very first time taking the airline. We didn’t know how good or bad flying with Asiana was, or what even to expect out of it. But it turned out that the airline provided us with the best of service ever – the check-in services was excellent, cabin staff was well groomed and very accommodating (they were genuinely nice and very professional at assisting families with children!), the meal I got was tasty (and unique looking), the onboard amenities were all right, and the cabin was in an excellent condition – very impressive I thought!

Later on, while the plane we were on was about to land (and I was still very much amazed by and impressed with Asiana – probably because I rarely hear about it other than its name), I saw this: Asiana: World’s 5-star Airline for 2010! And THAT explained it all! Asiana was indeed a first-class airline yet I didn’t know it! Well, it wasn’t like I was supposed to know everything. Right? But I thought I should at least know something fundamental about the airline I was flying with. Shame on me for not knowing but good on Asiana for being the world’s 5-star airline! Looking back at it now, I guess I must have missed the brand from the start, or just been too preoccupied travelling with a 6 month old baby hence some things in my travels just have to be missed :-(

Anyways, our flight to Incheon was only a 2-hour journey. So having departed from Nagoya at 12 noon, we arrived at Incheon Airport at about 2pm Korean time. It wasn’t snowing when we got there but the weather was freezing cold, the roads were wet, there was snow on the ground and Yellow Sea was one freaking frozen piece of ice fields! Climate as a whole, I must add, was vastly different from that of in Nagoya! At the Incheon Airport however, we were picked up by some local people Kenji knew from work and it took us about an hour to get to Seoul.

~ to be continued...