"You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful."   
                                                       Paul Theroux
                                                                                                 

Very shaky start for Stuey and he slept most of the way to Seoul. We had opted for business class for the long haul legs so he had the benefit of a lie-flat bed. But the other benefit [food, wine, movies etc] failed to register on his interest list. 12 hours after leaving Auckland, we touched down in Seoul safe and sound [although Stuey thought that that human state was somewhat debatable]. Hyatt Hotel in Seoul was the one we had stayed in on our transit through Seoul last year and was again very comfortable.

By morning, Stuey was back to about 80% and figuring that he would probably live [just]. Not the greatest way to start our big OE but no doubt he will pull through.

We caught the shuttle back to the airport mid-morning and hid out in the lounge until our overnight flight to Frankfurt. It was a repeat of the schedule that we had taken to Budapest the previous year so we were familiar with the arrangements. Given Stuey's delicate condition and the baggage restrictions we would face on the flight out of Belgium to Milan, any shopping therapy tendencies had been curbed.

Next leg to Frankfurt was fairly relaxing. It was in an Airbus 380 which is a very quiet and comfortable aircraft even though it got quite turbulent during the last couple of hours over
Europe.