Annyoung haseyo from Korea!

Departure

Mari and I arrived safely in Seoul last night with no problems. Wow, what a long day … or days? We started at 4:30AM with our ride to Boston Logan – special thanks to Chad & Anar for the ride. Our first flight was to New York (JFK) to catch our connector to Seoul. Man, that JFK airport is a real piece of work. The difference couldn’t be more stark between rolling into New York JFK and Incheon International. Anyway, after walking outside between terminals and asking many people where to go, we made it to check-in at ……. Korean Air. Wait, I bought these tickets on Delta, right? Ha!

As we boarded the big blue smurf colored Boeing 747, we already felt like we were taking our first steps into Korea. The flight attendants were dressed up all super-classy, almost a throwback to when flying on a plane was something special. Most everyone on board was Korean, all the signage was written in Hangul, and my in-flight entertainment system contained some albums from the great k-pop star, Se7en. (Yeah Punchbowlers, that’s right!)

Flying economy for 13.5 hours is not cool. Our flight went north and west from New York over the Hudson Bay, into the Arctic Circle, down along the Russian coast (I think Sarah Palin could see us!), down between Japan and N. Korea, and then across S. Korea where we landed in Incheon International. The flight was rough at times … it’s kind of freaky to think about this giant plane getting tossed around but we were! All the in-flight meals were Korean dishes and it was all good. We got the trip started right with a little bibimbap (a traditional Korean dish where rice, vegetables, and lots of red sauce are mixed together).

Arrival

The highlight of the day was most definitely the moment we exited customs and were greeted by Sang Sook, Na Young, Se June. They made little “Welcome to Korea!” signs for us and it was so cute. The perfect end to a long day on planes and airports.

That’s enough for now. Of course, this is just the part where the story gets interesting but I’ll write some more later.