I slept fairly well from Delhi to HK, waited on the plane for about an hour while they did their servicing, then slept again for a fair bit of the next leg as well. Thanks sleeping tablets!

Once I arrived in Seoul, I rented a mobile WiFi device (for the grand total of $4/day - so much easier than India), jumped on the airport express railway, and then hopped off the other end about an hour later in the middle of Seoul. I needed to find the bus station to catch a bus for the remaining journey. I thought that would be a relatively simple exercise as normally things like that are pretty well-signposted but I couldn't see where I needed to go plus everything was in Korean.

Fortunately, a Korean student that was studying in the US saw my confusion and asked if I needed any help. I gratefully accepted and he asked some of the railway station workers where I needed to go then pointed me in the right direction.

I found the bus easily enough and about 30min later I was wandering around the amazing Gyeongbokgung palace. As I'd been reading on Wikipedia on my way in, the palace was originally constructed in 1394 but it had burned down (either accidentally or deliberately) several times over its lifetime, the last time by the Japanese when they invaded Korea. The current government has committed to a 40-year restoration plan for re-building all Korea's historical buildings and thereby re-stating its sovereignty as an independent nation.

It's an impressive place with so many different structures, walls, gardens and lakes. There are free tours you can do, that probably would have been really interesting but I decided to just wander around myself since I'd read quite a bit about the place before I arrived.

The buildings are impressive but what really makes the palace so interesting are all the people who have hired traditional costumes for their visit to the palace. They're mostly Asians (I'm guessing Koreans), but I also saw a few Westerners and even some Muslim women wearing the costumes (with headscarves too of course!). Bizarre!

Many of the people wearing the costumes know that they're great camera-fodder so they don't seem to mind people taking their photo. One group of young people actually called me over so we could all take selfies together. Another girl asked if I would take her photo & then I asked if I could get a photo with her.

In one of the places I wandered to, there was a band playing traditional Korean instruments and (I'm guessing) traditional Korean music. It was very cool to listen to the music and watch them play, plus it provided a great atmosphere when visiting the other buildings.

I quickly ran out of time and, rather than push things too much & try to squeeze in a visit to the sky tower, I decided to just find the closest subway station and head back to the airport.

That all went pretty well, and I was back there in about 1:15, ready to see if I could get past the next hurdle in my trip: getting a boarding pass to visit Guam.

I'd been a bit worried about this the whole time actually. I'd read on the US Immigration website that you're supposed to have a US visa even if you're just in transit. I don't know why the US has to make it so difficult & wish they could just be like any other normal country where you just walk from one door to the other but as ridiculous as this is, I thought I'd at least try to abide by their rules so I applied for an ESTA visa about 2 weeks before.

Normally, ESTA visas are issued very quickly (e.g. about 24 hours) however my application was complicated by the fact that I'd visited Iran previously to run training. I was hoping that the US Immigration would approve my visa while I was out trekking but unfortunately, the status was still "Pending" when I arrived back, even though their website says a determination would be made within 72 hours. Great!

Anyhow, this was the moment of truth. I got in line to get my boarding passes and acted as calmly as I could. All I need to do is persuade the airline to stick me on a flight. Once I reach Guam, I can get them to do a transit visa for me that allows me to enter Guam ... I was just hoping I'd be able to persuade them to let me get on the plane!

The first airline person I saw wanted to check whether I had a flight back to Australia eventually and I showed her that I did, but this was the only thing she was interested in. This is looking positive.

The girl at the check-in counter also didn't seem to worry about whether I had an ESTA either. I just explained that Delhi had checked my bag all the way through to Majuro and then asked for my boarding pass. She checked a couple more things & then issued it to me.

All that stress was for nothing and off I went to Korean immigration and security (much easier than India as they're like a normal airport!)

I quickly visited a few shops to try & find some clean clothes to buy since all my other clothes were packed away, grabbed a t-shirt from one of the stores, then had a shower plus some food at the lounge and rushed off to the gate.

At the gate, they pulled me aside & I was initially a little concerned. But apparently, they just needed to link up my luggage with my boarding pass as something had been missed. They assured me however that my bag had been loaded & that it would be there in Majuro waiting for me.

Then off to Guam we went. This time, I had a window seat but couldn't manage to get comfortable so didn't get much sleep that night.