Trip to Korea -- same old airport

We did it. Made it through morning rush-hour to the airport, through the line for the check-in kiosks, through the line for the bag check, through the line for security, through the line at McDonald's, and through the line for boarding. Then there was nothing to do but sit in an airplane seat and sulk for fourteen hours.

The airline food was unusually crummy.  It might have been timed to shift our clocks to a Korean schedule, but something was oddly off. It matched neither the times we were coming from, which would have been lunch/dinner/breakfast, nor the times we were going to, which would have been dinner, breakfast, lunch.  Instead they served dinner, lunch, breakfast. Odd.

A fourteen hour journey is indeed as miserable and painful as I anticipated.  Only once did the turbulence get so bad that I had to grab Ed's arm and dig in with my fingernails. Mostly it was just tiresome to sit in once place and try not to fidget. After I played with the TV screen for a long time and ate the crappy meal and read a disappointingly short book, I felt sleepy and tried for a long time to doze. No luck--I never can sleep sitting upright. Eventually I realized that the flashing screen of the TV in the row in front of me was making my eyes pop open, so I experimented with putting the blanket over my head with the edge covering just my eyes, leaving my nose and mouth out to breath.  That helped with the flashing light--but I still couldn't sleep.

Finally, too tired to attempt to read anymore, I found a movie to watch. Ready Player One was not nearly as bad as everyone said it was. Yeah, they messed with the plot and "prettied up" the characters and left out the cool part where Parzival had to act the role of Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but the special effects were superb and the acting good.  I enjoyed it and didn't pause to obsessively check the clock every fifteen minutes...and by the time it was done we only had one hour left.



I distracted myself during the landing by filling out the customs form. Luckily I was finished by the time we hit the runway. We literally hit the runway.  I can't say the pilot failed to stick the landing, but she certainly stuck it with a vengeance.

We arrived fifteen minutes early and had to sit in the plane for fifteen minutes while the previous arrival occupied our gate.  Then we stood in a line for exit, stood in a line for checkin, and stood in a line for customs.  Outside the exit Number One Son and and Number One Baby picked us up and drove us home in a drizzling rain and horrendous traffic.  It's still raining now.




 







It's a really nice place. Three bedrooms, two baths in a high rise apartment over a parking garage. It's crowded with stuff but well organized--all the toys are put away and the floors perfectly clear.  They probably cleaned up just for us. Edward is not exactly renowned for his tidyness so I'll give May all the credit.


  We're going to the grocery tomorrow so I'll send some exciting pictures of shopping at the American grocery on base. Yippee.