First leg!

Well, it is 4:45 AM back home in the States, but I am in Seoul, Korea so it is 5:45 local time. Right now I am sitting at the gate, getting free Wi-Fi from a cafe upstairs. Thank goodness for free Wi-Fi!

The plane flight over here was one of the longest and most tedious experiences of my admittedly short life. I will say, though, that Korea Air gets two gigantic thumbs up from me. In a time where many airlines are starting to charge you for previously complimentary tiny cans of soda, Korea Air went out of their way to make the FOURTEEN HOUR plane flight as comfortable as possible.

Anyway, back to the beginning. I packed up most of my stuff on Tuesday night and woke up on Wednesday morning with my stomach starting to tie into knots. I called my mom to say goodbye, packed the rest of my things, had a cup of coffee and then Tom and I were off to the airport. I was worried about that, but JFK was surprisingly easy to navigate to.

I made Tom park the car and come in with me because I wasn't willing to let him go yet. I checked in and got my boarding pass. Tom and I had our tearful goodbye, and then the woman at the start of the security line informed me I needed to go check my bags first. So we checked my bags, had another teary good bye and then I headed through the gate.

I wandered my way through the airport until I found my gate and then I bought some lunch and listened to Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There, his travelogue about the time he backpacked around Europe. There was an older gentleman sitting across from me who looked over disapprovingly every time I ate a potato chip. I tried to crunch quietly.

Boarding was very orderly and efficient and we took off exactly on time, amazingly enough. There were two infants on board and when I saw them I gave a little internal groan. But apparently, Asian infants come with manners installed and the little things stayed nearly silent the whole trip!

The airplane was one of the mondo huge ones with three rows of three seats. My seat was 44D, in the center, but on the aisle, which was nice. I shared my row with a Japanese girl about my age and a friendly older woman who is from Thailand. The Thai woman was really nice and sparked up a conversation. Unfortunately, the Japanese girl sitting between us was less so--she wore one of those surgical masks the whole flight and huffily turned up the volume on her movie when we tried having a conversation across her.

Interestingly, everyone got their own little TV screen that had OH MAN so many options! They had literally dozens of movies to chose from to watch. Granted, half of them were weird things that they labeled as "Classics," that were entirely unfamiliar to me and Asian films that seemed like fun and I kind of wish I had watched instead of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Oh my god, you guys. That movie. So bad.... sooooooo bad. I think I will have to write a separate post to fully express just how bad that movie was. I did get to watch Date Night, though, which was expectedly hilarious and wonderful.

And oh man. The food! They started us off with the standard peanuts and soda-- and it was classic honey-roasted peanuts too! None of that wussy allergin-conscious cracker substitute crap. Delicious peanuts, mmmm. We also got a complimentary water bottle, which I appreciated.

Then came dinner. I had to take a picture of it, because I could barely believe it.

[I'll insert a photo later, when I have a chance to upload them from my camera]

Dinner was vegetables and rice that you were supposed to mix. I segregated out the meat that was in with the vegetables as best as I could. There was also miso soup that I don't think you were supposed to mix with the vegetables and rice. I sneaked a peak at the trays of the elderly Asian couple across the aisle every once in a while, to try and get an idea of the etiquette. I mixed the soup in anyway, and it was delicious, so whatever. It also came with this awesome Korean spicy red paste. Need to get me some of that for food at home. This side dish was pickles with some kind of red spice sprinkled on them and dessert was melon and pineapple.
AND they give you wine. For free! With dinner! Korea Air is bitchin', yo!

At some point over the Arctic, they gave us pork buns, which I accidentally started eating. First unintentional meat of the trip! I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of that. Oh well. I should probably look up how to say "no meat." *makes a mental note*

At noontime in Seoul, they fed us lunch, which was pasta with veggies in a cream sauce, some kind of delicious red cabbage-carrot-vinegar salad, bread, and carrot cake for dessert. Yum.

They also frequently came around with drinks and things like hot towels and the like. The flight attendants were all super-smiley, super-skinny women in green and white and tan. It was actually quite pleasant for a 14-hour stretch of time trapped in an airplane.

I would frequently switch back to the map that shows you where you are when movies were over or I got tired of my audio book. The map on this plane was weird, though- it not only showed you the names of major cities in the area, it also showed the location in the ocean of major sunken ships like the Titanic, or a ship called the Empress of Ireland which apparently sank in some bay in Canada in 1914.

All in all, not a bad start to the trip. Just one more short plane flight and I will be in Shanghai!