Travel Entries + Shorty

26 August 2009,
Wednesday, 3pm EST
Buffalo, NY Buffalo International Airport

Bah, wireless is not free here. Bullocks.
I've just said good-bye to my family, gone through security, and found my gate. Ally couldn't be with us today, so I said my good-byes to her at the house—after taking pictures of the Belden troupe in front of the house. She's been especially hilarious the past few days, which, like my dad, indicates that she's upset. I love her so much...and this is her senior year. She's on the varsity soccer team she's conducting the marching band, she'll take her SATs, choose and apply to colleges, and graduate from high school. Pretty big stuff and I know she'll meet those opportunities like a champ—with something sarcastic to say, I'm betting. The real challenge will be mom adjusting to an ALL-BOY household.

Poor Missy B. How she be so cute? She decided that we'd go to Waldameer Park in Erie yesterday. It was a very clever plan. Not only did it keep my mind off of my nervousness BUT the rides were even more fun because I was nervous! I went on the tower-drop ride with my dad and my stomach disappeared and never came back. I just kept screaming the whole way down—I don't remember feeling like that on a ride since my first time on the Dragster at Cedar Point. I've gone to plenty of bigger amusement parks, so I thought it was odd that I reacted so much to the drop. Then, me, Dad, and Tyler went on the Sea Dragon, a large viking boat-shaped ride that swings back and forth to near 90 degree angles once it's really going. Every single swing upward, my stomach disappeared and then I realized, “oh! My tummy is nervous about tomorrow! And it's making the rides more fun—neato!” I went on two rides with Noah—the Wipe Out and the Tilt O' Whirl. Noah likes spinning as long as it isn't spinning him backwards! It was a good day at the park.

We left my parents' house along abouts noon and the drive to Buffalo wasn't bad at all. We talked a little, Tyler played his PSP, Noah played with a slinky, and I read my memoir about Julie Andrews' childhood (which made me tear up a few times). After a bit, my mom put The Chronicles of Narnia on the little screen thinger (which still weirds me out) and a preview for The Little Mermaid came on...and I cried. That was my “I'll watch this movie 4 times a day, every day, for over a month, bwahaha!” movie when I came over from Germany. And I took pictures of the trees out the window.

I haven't flown since I was a small child (all before the age of 5), so this whole experience is pretty new and strange to me. Oh! At the start, my bags checked successfully and will be checked all the way to Seoul! I was so worried about my bags while I was packing and practiced weighing them a million times. What a relief!. Security wasn't that scary. I had to take off my shoes (which I anticipated) , put my electronics in a tub, then put my carry on bags through the scanner and step through the metal detector. That was it! As I walked to my gate section, I got one last look at my parents and the boys...and cried a bit. Well, I'm sitting at my gate now...I've got to pee and want to save my laptop battery. Annyong-hi gyeseo!

26 August 2009,
Wednesday, 11pm Chicago Time (1 hour less than EST)
Chicago, IL O'Hare International Airport

Ah, maybe airports always charge for wireless. Can't say I blame them. I bet they make a killing.

Flying in an airplane is neato! Take-off felt like being in a fast car. It was really cool seeing everything get sooooo tiny as the plan lifted off. The plots of land were perfectly rectangular—how do humans do that? What were they all lined up with? And the clouds! Oh man! I know it gets darker when it's cloudy, but it was so cool seeing an entire cloud below the plane and then the shadow it threw on the land...like it was just some run-of-the-mill shadow. And being over layers and between layers and seeing the clouds as a landscape. I didn't like it when the plane tipped to one side, though...I felt like we'd all go tumbling out.

They showed an episode of “2 ½ Men” and one of “Myth Busters” during the flight, but I gaped out the window seat and read my Julie Andrews memoir. When the plane landed in Chicago and I walked into the airport, I suddenly realized I was in a very large place. I told my friends' Haley and Rob that I had a 6 hour layover in their neighborhood and we made vague plans of meeting each other. I suddenly had no idea how the hell that would happen. Well, it happened quite simply. I got on a shuttle headed for the international terminal and at the first stop, Haley stepped on (Rob went to an ensemble audition). What are the odds of that in such a huge place?!

We went to the Asiana Airlines gate and it was quite empty. A check-in attendant a few rows down let us know that no one would be showing up until 9pm (it was 6:30pm), so we decided to leave the airport for some dinner (clever beast that she is, Haley got directions to food places near the airport). We got some Chicago-style pizza nearby that was delicious. I don't think I've ever even seen Chicago-style before...but oh. man. Crazy deep-dish, TONS of cheese, sauce on top. It was a great dinner and I was so glad to see Haley one last time before leaving. I chattered her ear off, as usual. After, we traveled back to the airport, said our good-byes and I got in line to check-in. Super fast. Went through security. Even faster. I've been chilling at this terminal for about an hour and a half, playing some Mario 3 on my Gameboy and reading about Julie. Back to Mario, methinks. Annyong-hi gyeseo!

27 August 2009,
Thursday, 8pm Korean Time (Take-off was Thursday, 2:30pm Korean Time)
Around the bottom of Alaska, Asiana Airlines Flight

So getting on this flight was a little crazy. There are a lot of people on this plane and not everyone waited to approach the gate at the appropriate time. I need to learn to be more assertive, incidentally. I still haven't said “annyong haseyeo” (hello) more than the few times in the lobby of the Consulate's office. O'Hare is such a GIANT airport...getting the plane to its own runway took 25 minutes!

I'm sitting with an older Korean couple who are very kind. The wife tried to tell me to put my tray down for dinner in Korean, so I didn't think they spoke English. I found myself wrong on that one as the wife, again, asked me where I learned “gamsa hamnida” (thank you) from, because she said it was too formal. Then, she asked where I was going, what I was doing, talked about her son and grandchildren, and we talked about Hangul (Korean letters) a little bit. I pronounced the word for exit, bee-song-goo, we read the back of the seats, and we talked about the inclusion of Chinese characters in the language (I hadn't realized that a single word could have both Hangul and Chinese characters). They served us dinner about an hour into the flight. It was okay. There was this weird, squishy black and green thing that I ate. I don't know if it was Korean or otherwise...probably otherwise as the vegetarian meal was pretty Western. Ah, I'm getting tired again. A little under half-way done with this flight...just 8 more hours (out of 14) left, ha.

28 August 2009,
Friday, 7:00am Korea Time (as it will be from here on out)
En Route to Gwangju by bus
Sweet GENIOUS, I thought I was never going to get off that plane. The last 4 hours were nigh on maddening. It was dark and over the ocean until the last hour, so I couldn't occupy myself by gazing outside. I did watch An Inconvenient Truth. I enjoyed it pretty well. It wasn't all schmaltzy and I learned some things. I watched about 3 minutes of X-men Origins: Wolverine and then got annoyed that lil babe wolverine had claws when other movies had put their installation at a later date. I know Marvel comics wouldn't know continuity if it jumped it its lap and called it “mama” but it just put me off. So did the terrible acting straight out the gate. Ha, clearly this is the best forum for critiquing American films....

Anywho, after I ran out of sleep, I went back and forth between my Julie book (which is almost finished) and losing 20 lives on board 3-8 of Mario 3. Damn that big fish. The woman next to me told me more about visiting her son, a university professor, highly recommended acupuncture, and taught me how to say “I really like that” and “It was really nice to meet you” in Korean, which of course I've already forgotten. When we finally got off the plane around 5:30am, all the passengers turned in a health statement form and then shined a light on our necks*. I thought that a bit funny. Then I retrieved my luggage, went through customs, got some Won out of my account, and bought a bust ticket, praying I pronounced “Jeollanam-do” well enough to get to the right Gwangju (I had asked the woman who sat next to me on the plane to say it for me about an hour before landing).

I hauled my luggage to the bus terminal (and was asked 50 times if I needed a taxi) and a nice man told me that I should get a cart for my heavy bags ASAP because my bags were so obviously heavy (too cute!). I wasn't sure I could take them out of the airport, so I hadn't bothered. The 6:50am bus pulled up and I started to load my luggage...and this woman in probably her early 60s helped me push my bags in! How kind! Lindsay encouraged me to ask for help whenever I need it as Koreans are very kind and helpful, and how right she was! I asked the girl I'm seated with on the EXTREMELY comfortable bus if I could let the woman I'm meeting from Say Kimchi, Eun-ju, know that I'd be two hours later than I had said at first. The girl, probably my age**, very kindly agreed and I called Eun-ju (also the girl's name, oddly enough). She didn't answer, so between the two of us, we sent and awkward, disjointed text that took entirely too long to write. It was too cute and just so nice of that girl to help me like that!

Most of the curtains on the bus are drawn as it's early and sunny, but from what I can see of the landscape right now (keeping in mind that this bus will basically go the entire length of the country) there are lots of trees, hills/low mountains, and rivers everywhere.

Oh! On the plane, when we were flying over Korea and I could see the lights of the cities....it was beautiful! It was much more organic than the highly segmented American landscape I had flown over. There's news on the tv on the bus...so far they've talked about milk, a water shortage?, and Michael Jackson.. Well, the first of four hours on this bus is almost over and my battery is low. Bye for now.

*Eun-ju explained that they were taking my temperature.

**actually, that woman was 29...and SUPER cool! Toward the end of the trip, she shared chocolate with me and we talked a bunch. Her motto is “carpe diem” and I thought that was too cool! She gave me her name card and told me to look her up if I ever wanted a tour of Namwon.

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Saturday, 29 August, 9pm
Today was quite an adventure. Having a cell phone soon will be handy. Successful communication is so rewarding! I navigated the buses today and walked through the local university.

There were lots of statues on campus. This one was my favourite...the realism at that size and in that material (cement, maybe?) was stunning

I bought some groceries this morning and made a pork soup (because making soup makes meat last longer!). Finished my Julie memoir. Still using the PC Bang because although my laptop is charged, there's a login page to use the campus internet that I can't navigate. Maybe I'll try and get some help with that tomorrow. Maybe I'm not eligible as I'm not a student here. Again, Koreans are astonishingly helpful. The end.