Travel Blog End: Home Safe

So, there's not much more to say. The flight to Indianapolis went fairly smoothly; we were able to watch a lightning storm off in the distance. Mom and Nat met me at the airport, and we're all together now. It feels good to be home :)

Travel Blog Part III: I've been traveling for 2 days, and it's still July 17.

Or, I've been traveling for 30 hours, and I still feel like I'm moving.
Travel fatigue sets in! Oh no!
So, here was my plan leaving Narita: put on the jammies (Yes, I broke down and bought one of those "PINK" tank tops from the subway the other day. Why did I do this? Because I needed a cute airplane outfit, and what's cuter than a pink tank top that says "LOVE" on it with a few rhinestones?) and fall asleep as soon as I hit the plane and sleep pretty much all the way to Chicago. Stay awake in Chicago and then I would be ready to sleep again once I get to Indy.

Plan thwarted though because I could not sleep. I don't know why. I tried and tried and tried. I just kept falling into half-way sleep where it's like you're resting, but you're mind is still thinking of things and that ends up being more stressful than restful because I'm wondering, when will I fall asleep? I didn't read or anything, because I felt tired. I felt tired and yet, could not sleep. I slept a little, I think. But they bring you food like every 10 minutes, and it took me an hour to get through my first cranapple drink, and then if you are sleeping, you don't get any food...anyways, I dozed here and there and managed to watch 2 movies: Leap Year and How to Train A Dragon. Leap Year was not as cute as I had been hoping. It does not beat The Matchmaker for films about sassy, American city girls battling the wiles and wilderness of Ireland. Dragon was way funnier than I had been expecting, and I would watch it again.

Coming back into the United States is kind of an ordeal that I had forgotten about. We got into Chicago around 3pm Central Time (5AM Seoul time), and I was thankful that I didn't have to make a quick connection becuase there is alot that has to be done.

First, everyone has to go through passport/immigration. There were 2 huge halls full of people, foreigners and citizens, in line waiting to get their passports checked. I probably waited in line for like 45 minutes just to get through passport control. Then you have to clear customs and pick your luggage up. Even if they tagged your luggage to go all the way to Indianapolis, you still have to pick it up and recheck it.

Then, I had to go to a different terminal. That's fine. No problem...but I felt like the man who was maintaining crowd control at the shuttle station was pretty rude. He was yelling really loudly and telling everyone that they weren't all going to get on the train at the same time, and slightly abrasive. However, there were these really cute little boys on the train on their way to basketball camp. I had no idea that Turkish children were so cute, but now I know.

So, I take the train to terminal 3, where, I have to go back through security. That means more lines. And more abrasive men who are in charge of controlling those lines. AND, ok, so I bought some stuff at the duty-free in Japan, because how often am I going to go to be in Japan...and in Japan, they were ok with 2 carry-ons plus a duty free bag. In Chicago though, oh no, can't have that. So I have to stuff my backpack even more! (I know, these are all small problems in comparison with flesh eating bugs, which one of the flight attendants seemed to know a lot about on the way over here).

SO I finally get through security and into my  terminal and am thinking, I need a massage and/or a coffee shop. I look on the terminal map and it says "Spa Station" or "Sauna world" or something like that. Assa! That's perfect! SO I go to the indicated place and am looking and am looking, but there's no Spa Station. There some massage chairs in the middle of the concourse with some tough-looking Chicago guys standing around them, but there's no world of spa. That's ok, I freshen up in the ladies room (but they do not have the fancy toilets like Japan does), and decide to look for a coffee shop.

You know what? There are no coffee shops in O'Hare airport. There are Starbucks kiosks on every corner, but there is no coffee shop. Furthermore, there is no lounge area. If you wanted to sit down for awhile, but not wait right outside your gate, there's no place to do that...except for the food court. So I go to the food court, because eating would probably be a good idea. I finally get a table and then am swiftly surrounded by a big man-friend group who are all on a mancation together...wearing baseball caps and cargo shorts and all I could think was..."ermmmmmmm American boys. I forgot how you traveled."

Then I think, ok, I've only got a couple of hours left, I will go ahead and hang out by my gate and hang out on the internet for a while. They advertise Wi-Fi all over this airport, but it's not free. You have to buy it and download it...and then....THERE ARE NO OUTLETS IN THIS AIRPORT. I walked up and down my concourse trying to find an outlet. And you see all the laptoppers, staking their territory around the scarce and randomly placed tables in the hallway or outlets of abandoned gates (b/c Delta used to be in this concourse and recently moved, so now there's just empty space, which is kind of creepy in a way). I found one plug in, but it wasn't attached to the wall all the way. I found another one, but it couldn't pick up a signal. I finally found one that is well attached to the wall and picks up the wi-fi signal, but leaves me sitting on the floor but the gate door. (eg. I'm going to have to move soon, cos we're going to be boarding :)

That to say, there are two very nice and friendly attendants working this gate, and it may seem trivial, but they have made me notice that not everyone in Chicago is fat and abrasive...but can be friendly and caring and polite to foreigners, even if their English isn't good (not speaking about me obviously, but I've been observing since I got here).

SO, that leaves me....getting ready to board in about a half hour. WOOHOO!!! I'll see you in Indiana!

Travel Blog Part II: Ode to Narita

Before I move on and talk about getting to O'Hare, I thought I'd spend some time and talk a little bit about Narita Airport. One, because I got off a plane 4 hours ago and yet still feel like I'm moving. Two, Chicago did not like my duty-free shopping and so my backpack has become even heavier. Three, it took me FOREVER to find an outlet and get connected to the internet...SO, I am staying put.

Anyways, I had been to Narita on my way to Seoul the first time I went there. At that time, I remember it being hot and boring. It seemed very desolate for being the main airport for one of the largest cities in the world (maybe THE largest city of the world...websites seem to differ on their opinions).

So going back and having a 6ish hour layover did not sound like fun to me. Especially because I had heard disparaging comments from another friend who had stopped there on her way home. However, I have to say, I was pleastantly surprised. The main shopping area was bright and colorful; there were several little different shops...being a person who is distracted by color and sheen, they definitely held my attention. Also, there was a cute internet cafe that offered good coffee complete with foam art and FREE internet. I was even able to "rent" a shower.

I also thought the people were really nice. Koreans are nice in a very ... "earthy" way, I'll say. Nice in the way that if the store ahjummah thinks you didn't get the right pillows, she will take them out of your cart and give you different ones. I love Koreans. I love the way they are loud and push and the Ahjussis make these noises in the back of their throats, and they wave with both hands, and they make hearts on top of their heads.

The people at the Narita airport were nice in the way that...obviously, they are used to dealing with foreigners and didn't seem non-plussed by it at all. Also (and I'm totally basing this off the hostess/baristas at the cafe), they are just polite. They smile, look happy to see you, watch to make sure you are enjoying your drink...but they don't hover. I was super impressed!

SO, opinion of Narita changed. You know what? I liked it there, and I could spend another afternoon there (In fact, in 2 weeks, I will be doing just that).

Travel Blog Part 1

Hey kids,
I'm on my way back to the states for a much needed vacation/quality time with my family. Being that I have an ample amount of time in the form of layovers, I thought I'd share about my travels...
Part 1: Seoul to Tokyo.
Can you believe getting out of the Korea was the hardest part? I was not expecting this. I stayed up all night, cleaned the apartment, took out the trash, etc. and stepped out of the LCI House at 4 AM to go meet the Airport Bus. There are several airport buses, but I was sure about Bus #6009 and even knew how to pronounce the bus stop. Or, I thought I did. It was raining, and I ended up with heavier luggage than planned, so I hopped in a taxi and said "Woosung Apartments" (in Konglish: Ooh-song Apartmenta). The taxi driver repeated this several times, and every time after he repeated it, I'd say yes (yeeeeh) and repeat it again. I know I'm white, but I've been to this bus stop before and I know how to say it. He was not happy with my answer though...Oh well, eventually I got there and only had to wait a few minutes for the airport shuttle!
I was ahead of schedule and arrived at Incheon (Seoul's major airport is actually in a neighborhing city called Incheon) airport before the check-in counter even opened. Now, I have a friend who is a pro at getting "bumped up" and I was ready to try to implement some of her tactics....not quite as ready as she is, but I tried a little. I put on make-up and dressed nice (not too nice though, I mean really, what's the point of wearing a dress and heels at 4AM? No point. No point at all. I opted for comfortable fashion.) She also suggests waiting to check in, so that if there are empty seats they have to give them to you. I'm a little too neurotic to wait for too long, but I at least tried to stay at the back of the line. Then, when it was my turn: luck! I got a male clerk (also one of her suggestions). However, he looks at my visa, looks at my itenerary and says, you need to go to immigration.
((-__-)) Hrmmmmm
Here is what happened: my visa from my first year here expired July 16. I gave my passport and ARC (alien registration card) to my school a couple of weeks ago so that they could take care of this before I left, but "taking care" of it meant only adding something onto my ARC, not a new stamp in my passport. Now, this is fine, but no one ever told me, hey, plan an extra hour at the airport because you'll have to go to the immigration office, and it won't even be open yet, and when it does open, there will only be 1 attendant.
So, it's about an hour before I'm supposed to board, and I'm in this immigration office with like 30 other people, and I'm number 28. Then I notice another white guy who had also been in the same line for the flight to Tokyo who comes in with a clerk. I swiftly attach myself and wonder if they could help me as well..."Assa!" I get to move ahead in the line, get my stamp (at the cost of 30,000 won...) and rush back out to check in.
SO, I do not end up with a male attendant, but I am one of the last people to check in. That apparently came in handy, except it's now 7AM, and my flight is at 8, and I have to transfer to the "new" terminal which takes about 40 minutes. I have to go through immigration, security, and then take a train to a new terminal to board. I was pretty flustered because I hate (hate!) being crunched for time when I travel. However, when I boarded the plane they showed my to BUSINESS CLASS and suddenly I felt much less flustered.
Guys, these seats were like pod seats, and they had automatic controls, and you could lay horizontal! You got your own TV, and you could choose a movie or music, and the flight attendant was 10x nicer than any other flight attendant AND I got a meal, even though it was only a 2 hour flight, I got a little box meal. SO happy!!!

I am now in Narita Airport in Japan. I exchanged what  I thought was a good amount of money, but apparently the Yen is worth much more than the Won, so we'll see how it goes. I've got about 5 hours left here, but I'm happy to have found a cute internet cafe. And it's sunny here, which is much more than I can say for Seoul at the moment.

I've also spotted some Hello Kitty T-shirts, so I might have to do some shopping. This airport also has napping rooms and a massage center, so I don't think the afternoon will be totally hopeless! :)

OK, so obviously, I'm online...don't be a stranger.

Silk Worm Failure

Occasionally at LCI, we get classroom science projects that are more of a "long-term" responsibility. They like to give us some sort of living organism and watch the teachers try to keep these things alive. So far, I've experienced a jar of mushrooms and snails. The snails by far have been the most successful, last longer than many other classroom snails due to a natural resiliency I think they must have embodied. Unfortunately, they met an untimely death when I left them on the classroom windowsill over a weekend and forgot about them. (See Sorry Snails) 

Last Friday, the teachers walked into the office to meet their new class pets: silk worms.  

We were each given 2 silkworms and a bag of mulberry leaves to feed them. I knew I was in trouble from the get-go because 1) I think these are gross creatures and cannot for an emotional bond to them. 2) One of them was pretty much already dead. I say pretty much because I thought it was dead, so I took a tissue to pick it up out of the case. Then I noticed it attached itself to the tissue and wouldn't let go, so it was not soooo dead. I put the worm and the tissue back into the case. 3) My worms did not seem to be eating as voraciously as the other teachers' worms.

I decided to keep my chin up though. I dutifully pinned up the science poster, packed the case with extra leaves for the weekend, and left the worms in a shady spot (as instructed by the poster).

Monday morning I went to check on them and give them some more leaves. Pretty much dead worm was now almost completely dead; I shook the case a couple times to make sure and it maybe moved and seemed well-covered by leaves, so I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt. However, it's body also seemed to be drying out and cracking...so I thought I would give it 1 more day just to make sure.

Tuesday morning I come in to check...and Almost completely dead worm is now officially dead. The other worm, live worm, somehow also managed to die over night. It's neck was all shriveled and the tail looked all powdery.

So that means in less than a week, I managed to kill off 2 (mostly) thriving silk worms and end a science project that I'm sure is supposed to last 1-2 months. Oh well, at least we didn't give them names....

NANTA: finally!

One of the top 10 sites in Seoul (as decided by...Seoul Tourism?) is the show NANTA. NANTA (or Cookin' as it's called in the U.S.) is a non-verbal/comic/martial-arts/cooking extravaganza that is very famous here in Korea. I've been reading about it...wait, read about it, before I came and have it highlighted in all my guide books. I couldn't ever find anyone to go see it with, though.
As luck would have it, my friend Sam also could never find anyone to go see it with. Sam is the first person I met at Jubilee, and, in fact, is probably the reason I go to Jubilee. For about 9 or 10 months, we have been meaning to go to NANTA and just haven't made it. Well, Sam is leaving this week, so it was time to stop procrastinating and commit to the show.
Here is our NANTA adventure: first, booking. The site is in English and you have to register as a user, but even in doing so, the site won't let you click to do the actual booking. So you have to write an email. After you click *send* a box comes up, but it's in Korean. I'm wondering, does this box tell me that the email was successful or a failure? So I end up writing 2 emails. They both go through though, and we are set with VIP tickets (apparently, during World Cup season, foreigners get a discount, so I thought I'd go for the nice seats).

I hop in a taxi right after work, but with Friday night traffic, the ride still takes about as twice as long as it should. Sam followed the website directions...and ends up lost and I'm not really sure where it is either...so she hops in a taxi and we're both on the phone and I'm trying to describe the name of the theater and the Korean letters, so that she can relay it all to her taxi driver. It was a lot of "that one letter that looks like a line with another line pointing to the left. And the letter that makes the "j" noise but with the extra line over it. (Odd thing about my Korean class: I know all the letters and their sounds, but I don't know their names) My taxi finally makes it to the theater, so then I'm walking around trying to find Sam who just hopped out of her taxi around the corner.
We make it to the theater, and our seats are 3rd row! That is way super! The premise of the show is 3 chefs (Head Chef, Female Chef, and Sexy Chef) just find out from their manager that they have an hour to create a whole wedding feast AND the manager's know-nothing nephew (Nephew) is going to be joining their team. The show is a lot of fun with fast-chopping (they are chopping real veggies) and physical humor...but also real martial arts mixed in and percussion on everything. It's pretty amazing.
I also got pulled on stage during the performance...there was a contest to make dumplings...and I got chosen to help out. I had to take a handfull of veggies, put them inside of a dough-circle, press it together, ring a bell, and put it on a tray. I was so nervous! I started shaking and kept forgetting to ring the bell! Sillllll audience participation... :)

After the show, I was pretty hungry and so was Sam, but we didn't really know the neighborhood. After smelling so much good food (they were actually cooking things during the show), I knew I wanted Korean food and meat...but where to find it? We walked around a little bit and finally spotted a place that looked halfway promising. We walked in and were handed a menu...and it's all in Korean. Ok, Sam and I can read Korean, but we didn't really recognize any of the dishes. So we're in this tiny restaurant, both of us on our cell-phone dictionaries, looking up menu items and the waitstaff (3 guys) are just standing over us, looking quixotically at the white girls trying to decipher the menu.

Finally, one steps in and asks what we wanted. I say "Kogi" (meat). He says, "Pork?" And we nod. He points to a picture, and we nod again. The deal was struck. I honestly didn't even see the picture, but it was some sort of glazed, grilled pork. It was pretty good, aside from copious amounts of gristle.
After that, came the question of how to get back home. Sam and I live in opposite directions, but we were hoping to both travel back to Gangnam and she could take a bus from there. Question, how to get to Gangnam? We were looking for subway (where is the subway when you need it?), busses, and also just walking around amicably when finally I spotted the GFC (Gangnam Financial Center). The GFC is my landmark for my neighborhood, b/c it's where my subway station is. We decide to go ahead and part ways, b/c I'm thinking...it can't take that long to walk there. So I just end up walking...which did end up being a LONG way, but I got to see some streets in Yeoksam/Gangnam that I usually don't (lots of snowboarding stores) and walked off all the gristly meat.

Wedding Season in Korea

A few posts ago I wrote about my friends Daniel and Yena who were engaged...now I'm going to write about Daniel and Yena who are MARRIED! And, by doing so, share some musings on Korean weddings.

Many Korean weddings take place in a wedding hall, but Daniel and Yena's wedding was in a church near COEX.  It was really beautiful. First thing, Yena was set up in her own Bridal Photo Shoot room, or so it seemed. She looked like a princess, and guests could come and sit by her for photos. I think this is a pretty good idea, really, and may need to adopt it for my future wedding day.

When the ceremony started, people did not stop talking. In fact, there were cell phones going off through the whole thing and a low constant chatting. Each part of the processional was announced...for instance "Now the bridesmaids come in. Please stand for the bride."

The ceremony was in English and Korean, so it took longer than most American weddings. The pastor would say like 2 sentences in Korean and then translate, then 2 more sentences, then translate again. This kind of drew out the message, but it was nice to be able to understand it. Daniel and Yena wrote their own vows: his were in Korean and hers in English.

After they kissed and walked down the aisle, a few minutes later they were walking back up again for photos. Apparently, there is no time to waste for the photos. Some people rushed downstairs for the reception, but many people stayed to watch the photos. They quickly snapped photos with family, extended family, and more extended family. Last was the "friends" photo, where we all got to have a photo with the couple.

A note about wedding wear: everything is RENTED! Except for the bridesmaids dresses...but even Yena's dress was rented. The mothers and grandmothers all wear hanbok, which is traditional Korean dress. Also, the church wasted no time in cleaning up decorations. As soon as the couple was done with the aisle, someone was there rolling up the carpet and pulling back the flower arrangements. There was also a wedding planner, who was kind of like a wedding ninja, and was making sure every ruffle and strand of hair was perfect for every photo. She seemed very stern. Stern but fair.

The reception was held in the dining hall of the church. There was SO MUCH FOOD! Tables and tables of food...but no wedding cake. In addition to salads and noodles and fruit and ddok and every type of meat imaginable, there was also a gyro stand. My favorite part was coming to the last table and picking up a mini gyro. I thought it was very innovative, as far as fusion wedding food goes. 

In Korean weddings, you apparently don't have to wait for the bride and groom to arrive to start eating. In fact, many people skip the ceremony and go straight for the food. And they don't waste time eating either; they eat, and then get out of there. While we were eating, Daniel and Yena were performing Paebaek, or a traditional Korean ceremony to honor parents. When they are done with paebaek, the couple comes to the reception to say hello, but Daniel and Yena didn't really make it down in time. By the time we were done eating, they were already in their matching t-shirts and ready for the airport.

I am super-excited for Daniel and Yena and wish them the best for their marriage. Yena was so beautiful...it was like looking at a princess!