Well that was a load of bullshit

Apparently the "free stopover" wasn't "available" so it will now cost me an extra $101 (for hotel and transfers) on top of my fare in South Korea, not a huge amount of money but kind bullshit considering the price was quoted and I was told that was the deal I was getting. Apparently it is because of booking my flight at short notice and this "hasn't happened before" but honestly I am pretty shitted off mostly because I was led to believe that this was not something I would have to pay for and now I do. Kind of shitty, I feel deceived and will learn from this experience.

Stopover in Seoul

Currently planning my movements for the stopover in Seoul. From what I can gather my best bet will be to go to sleep early in the hotel Korean Air puts me up in for the night (most likely the Hyatt at the airport) and take a Limousine bus to Insadong in Seoul fairly early the next day (about $30,000won return, which is roughly AUD$30) and check out the food etc and make sure I'm back at the airport at about 3:30 - 4:00 for check in. Realistically I only have about 6 hours there but so I'm just going to hit the tourist district as wandering around a non english speaking country can be confusing and disorienting and not a good idea when you have a plane to catch later in the day.
I am budgeting for about 100,000 won in Cash for the day and anything I may want to buy, food is fairly cheap at around 5,000 (but realistically I'm going to be disciplined about buying things this time around as I need to carry them around in a backpack) I can use credit for, that way I won't be left madly trying to spend excess cash.
Should be fun, I think I'll just end up spending my money eating lots of awesome Korean food.

Insurance

Just checking up on insurance policies, I read the policy for worldcare insurance which seems ok only for the fact it will cover the full cost of a laptop and a camera, many policies will only cover up to AUD$750 which is pretty useless if someone steals your AUD$3,000 macbook pro or AUD$1300 camera. They are the main expenses that will fuck things up if stolen as they will cost money I most likely will not have, otherwise the medical stuff is really important too especially if you require a medical extraction which can cost in excess of $100,000+. Kind of strange that Australia doesn't have a reciprocal agreement on healthcare with Canada, we do with the UK and a few other countries.
The only issue at the moment is whether or not I can cancel the policy as I'm not sure if I'll be in Canada for the full 2 years my Visa allows, they quote AUD$1132 for a year which seems pretty standard, not sure if that covers snowboarding though.

Finally bought the bag

I decided to buy the Osprey waypoint 85. It's a tad larger than the travel geeks recommend but if I stay disciplined in my packing and keep the weight down to under 15kg it should be fine, I've just had way too many bad experiences trying to stuff things into tiny bags before, and in winter even if using layering there will still be bulk.
Just have to book the flight now, which is expensive and I something I should have done earlier as it would have saved me about $400-500, will learn from this experience!

Shopping around

Went to the travel agent today, I lucked out and the guy I spoke to had done a working holiday there so I picked his brain on the subject, the most disconcerting thing I have found is the wages in British Columbia are worse than Australia, but not a dealbreaker by any means. I also found out that since I've hit the shoulder season and I'm trying to book close to my departure date the price has gone up, I could wait a month or so and save $400 but it's not really worth it for that kind of money. Going to try another travel agent and see what they can offer, but I'd say it'll be about the same, but yeah it was good to get a bit of information from someone who has done it before.
I also went to the library and browsed a few backpacking and travel books for tips on backpacking. Not that I'm an inexperienced traveller however it's the first time I'll be travelling internationally alone, so I need to be prepared and organised. I've also been reading all I can on Canada and familiarising myself with the geography of the place through Wikipedia and Google maps, but I've found using good old fashioned maps has been educational as well, overall I figure the more familiar I am with the region the better oriented I'll be.
So tomorrow I might head back to Brisbane and have a second look at bags (at the moment it's a tie between the Osprey waypoint 85 and the Karrimor Tropic 65) and maybe buy one, and speak to another travel agent and catch up with some friends.
Today was a good day!

About to book

It's taken a while to get things moving. there's been quite a bit of apprehension on my part in leaving everything I have in Brisbane and becoming transient. I guess I had mixed feelings on the matter, on the one hand I am excited about new possibilities and apprehensive about the unknown, however as a friend told me "you know the past exists because of your own sketchy memories, the future is unknown and not worth worrying about as it's impossible to know, so the only thing you can focus on is the present". Good advice I think.
Almost all the loose ends in my life are tied up now, I resigned from my job a few weeks ago, moved out of my apartment and back home and have been selling off my material possesions I no longer need or want.
All I really need to do is stop procrastinating and just buy my backpack, book the ticket and go, the rest is just details.