My trip was not only awesome because I got to see Hubby, it was also very educational. I learned and experienced many things that I never would have here in the USA. This was definitely a once in a lifetime trip. I have so much to share about my trip that I have decided to publish a series of posts about my experiences there. I hope you enjoy them.
One Long Flight
Let me begin by saying that traveling to Korea is one LONG trip. I was lucky enough to be driven to the airport by May so I didn't have to leave the car at the airport. She must really love me because I had to get up at 3:45am in order to be ready on time to leave for my early flight and with two little boys I am sure that she had to get up quite early as well. Unfortunately, the airline was behind schedule checking in passengers, surprise surprise, so I had to wait in line for over an hour before I got to the front of the line to check in. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that when you fly internationally you get to check one bag for free ( I was expecting to have to pay a baggage fee.) However, the guy in front of me pitched a fit when he got to the counter because they told him that his bag was five pounds over the limit and that he would have to pay a $70 fee. The ironic thing is that the fee for having a second bag is only $50. Why is it more expensive to have one bag just slightly over weight but you can have two equally heavy bags for less money? Doesn't make much sense to me! After I finally got checked in I headed for my gate and got there just in time to board. At least I didn't have to sit around the airport terminal forever.
Four hours and some change later, I arrived in San Francisco where I was meeting my connecting flight. Of course, after finding the gate, a real challenge in San Francisco since they have terrible signage, I discovered that my flight was delayed 30 minutes because they needed to clean the plane. Again, surprise surprise. Traveling used to be fun but now I find it more of a pain than anything else.
After finally boarding the plane in San Francisco, I settled in for the longest flight ever. I was excited because I would be seeing Hubby soon but I had a 12 hour and change flight ahead of me first. I got stuck with a middle seat between two Korean guys but at least I was in the front of the plane. The guy to my right spent most of the flight reading Harvard business school papers and talking to the guy to his right in Korean. He did not once acknowledge my existence. The guy to my left was my dad's age and he was pretty friendly but did not want to turn off his phone. He put it in the seat pocket after pretending to turn it off and it actually rang during takeoff. I hoped he would not cause us to crash. The disapproving flight attendant made him shut it off at that point but he turned it back on before we landed. When he fell asleep, I realized that getting to the bathroom during the flight was going to be a challenge. Oh well.
After take off the flight attendants came around with customs forms. There were different forms depending on if you were American or Korean. The flight attendant smiled at me and assumed I as American. Haha, good guess seeing as most of the people of the flight were Asian. The airline showed a couple of movies during the flight including One Big Year and Footloose and I read three novels, yes three. I also slept for a bit but the flight dragged on forever. I found myself checking the clock several times only to discover that very little time had passed - like five or ten minutes LOL. The last two hours were the longest. I could not wait to be back in Hubby's arms!!
When the plane finally landed I could not wait to unbuckle my seat belt! I grabbed my purse and my carry on bag and headed to the baggage claim. Oddly enough, as we excited the plane, all of the male passengers had to show their passorts again even though they had already been checked twice previously. I thought this was odd and I am not sure why they did this. I was one of the first people off of the plane but as luck would have it, my luggage must have been THE last suitcase off of the plane. I have lousy luck.
I finally collected my luggage and exited through customs to find Hubby waiting for me. He had been waiting awhile since it took me forever to find my luggage and because I had been delayed but we were very happy to see each other nonetheless. I quickly went to use the ladies room after Hubby bought us two bus tickets to get us three quarters of the way to his post.
We boarded the bus and I snuggled up next to Hubby. I was just happy to be by his side...even if my journey hadn't quite ended yet. There was so much to look at out of the bus window. The downtown areas in Korea look like a combination between New York and Las Vegas. They do not have room to build out so everything is built UP instead. Each floor of a building can be a different store or restaurant. They have flashing neon lights everywhere and every sign is crazy colorful. There is no such thing as a boring black and white sign. I didn't know what to look at first. In between the towns there were some areas that seemed run down but it could just seem that way because it is still winter there and everything looks lousy in winter.
An hour or so later the bus dropped us off at Uijeongbu station (a train station in the town the post is located in) and we hopped into a cab to take us the rest of the way to post. I hadn't really noticed the bus driver driving crazy but being a passenger in the cab was interesting to say the least.
According to Hubby, red lights are optional in Korea. They are more of a suggestion than a rule. This makes for a bit of a scary ride. The Korean drivers also LOVE to use their horns. This is probably related to the optional red lights but I think part of it is also just that they like to use it. Also, the Korean cab drivers watch TV while they drive. They have little TVs in the front of their cabs next to their GPS or in some cases instead of a GPS. Here, we are not even supposed to text and drive because it is too dangerous. How can watching TV while running red lights be safe???? Hubby said that a lot of soldiers who have cars in Korea have gotten into accidents. I am glad that he doesn't have one there!
As the cab driver made his way to post I looked out the window at the store fronts we were passing. One particular coffee shop caught my eye. The sign boasted "1% rare coffee, exotic tea, and bakery." 1% rare coffee? Haha so ummm not rare at all? I had to laugh. Hubby told me that there are a lot of idiosyncrasies like that in Korea because they try to use English but not all of them really understand it.
After the short cab ride we arrived at the post and the cab dropped us at the front gate. Very few taxis are allowed on post. We walked into the office where pedestrians have to check in and show an ID. Korea has DBIDS on each post but even though I am registered here on post in the US (our post has been talking about starting DBIDS for over a year and half - don't get me started on how they pushed us to get registered and now still don't have the system up and running), the registrations are not reciprocal. This means that even though I have a military ID, getting on post was a bit of a challenge. Hubby had to explain to the guard each time that I was visiting. But the guard would always try to scan my card at least twice to make sure. Each time he was rewarded with an annoying beep beep beep - rejection noise. They never wanted to believe us. Then we had to go though the process of giving him all of my information before I was allowed to go through.
We were staying in a barracks room for the duration of my stay which was nice because we didn't have to pay for a hotel but ironically we were not allowed to stay in Hubby's room. Instead, he was given keys to an empty room in another building. The reasoning? They thought the other building was safer. The downside of this arrangement was that the bed was ridiculously hard and Hubby had to go to his room every day for clothes. The room we were staying in also had no Internet so we ended up spending most of our time in Hubby's room and just going to the other room to sleep.
After dumping my suitcase in the room, Hubby took me to dinner on post at a restaurant called Mitchell's. I had finally made it but after dinner I was to tired to do much but fall asleep in Hubby's arms.
*Stay tuned... more posts on my Korean adventure to follow!
Four hours and some change later, I arrived in San Francisco where I was meeting my connecting flight. Of course, after finding the gate, a real challenge in San Francisco since they have terrible signage, I discovered that my flight was delayed 30 minutes because they needed to clean the plane. Again, surprise surprise. Traveling used to be fun but now I find it more of a pain than anything else.
After finally boarding the plane in San Francisco, I settled in for the longest flight ever. I was excited because I would be seeing Hubby soon but I had a 12 hour and change flight ahead of me first. I got stuck with a middle seat between two Korean guys but at least I was in the front of the plane. The guy to my right spent most of the flight reading Harvard business school papers and talking to the guy to his right in Korean. He did not once acknowledge my existence. The guy to my left was my dad's age and he was pretty friendly but did not want to turn off his phone. He put it in the seat pocket after pretending to turn it off and it actually rang during takeoff. I hoped he would not cause us to crash. The disapproving flight attendant made him shut it off at that point but he turned it back on before we landed. When he fell asleep, I realized that getting to the bathroom during the flight was going to be a challenge. Oh well.
After take off the flight attendants came around with customs forms. There were different forms depending on if you were American or Korean. The flight attendant smiled at me and assumed I as American. Haha, good guess seeing as most of the people of the flight were Asian. The airline showed a couple of movies during the flight including One Big Year and Footloose and I read three novels, yes three. I also slept for a bit but the flight dragged on forever. I found myself checking the clock several times only to discover that very little time had passed - like five or ten minutes LOL. The last two hours were the longest. I could not wait to be back in Hubby's arms!!
When the plane finally landed I could not wait to unbuckle my seat belt! I grabbed my purse and my carry on bag and headed to the baggage claim. Oddly enough, as we excited the plane, all of the male passengers had to show their passorts again even though they had already been checked twice previously. I thought this was odd and I am not sure why they did this. I was one of the first people off of the plane but as luck would have it, my luggage must have been THE last suitcase off of the plane. I have lousy luck.
I finally collected my luggage and exited through customs to find Hubby waiting for me. He had been waiting awhile since it took me forever to find my luggage and because I had been delayed but we were very happy to see each other nonetheless. I quickly went to use the ladies room after Hubby bought us two bus tickets to get us three quarters of the way to his post.
We boarded the bus and I snuggled up next to Hubby. I was just happy to be by his side...even if my journey hadn't quite ended yet. There was so much to look at out of the bus window. The downtown areas in Korea look like a combination between New York and Las Vegas. They do not have room to build out so everything is built UP instead. Each floor of a building can be a different store or restaurant. They have flashing neon lights everywhere and every sign is crazy colorful. There is no such thing as a boring black and white sign. I didn't know what to look at first. In between the towns there were some areas that seemed run down but it could just seem that way because it is still winter there and everything looks lousy in winter.
An hour or so later the bus dropped us off at Uijeongbu station (a train station in the town the post is located in) and we hopped into a cab to take us the rest of the way to post. I hadn't really noticed the bus driver driving crazy but being a passenger in the cab was interesting to say the least.
According to Hubby, red lights are optional in Korea. They are more of a suggestion than a rule. This makes for a bit of a scary ride. The Korean drivers also LOVE to use their horns. This is probably related to the optional red lights but I think part of it is also just that they like to use it. Also, the Korean cab drivers watch TV while they drive. They have little TVs in the front of their cabs next to their GPS or in some cases instead of a GPS. Here, we are not even supposed to text and drive because it is too dangerous. How can watching TV while running red lights be safe???? Hubby said that a lot of soldiers who have cars in Korea have gotten into accidents. I am glad that he doesn't have one there!
As the cab driver made his way to post I looked out the window at the store fronts we were passing. One particular coffee shop caught my eye. The sign boasted "1% rare coffee, exotic tea, and bakery." 1% rare coffee? Haha so ummm not rare at all? I had to laugh. Hubby told me that there are a lot of idiosyncrasies like that in Korea because they try to use English but not all of them really understand it.
After the short cab ride we arrived at the post and the cab dropped us at the front gate. Very few taxis are allowed on post. We walked into the office where pedestrians have to check in and show an ID. Korea has DBIDS on each post but even though I am registered here on post in the US (our post has been talking about starting DBIDS for over a year and half - don't get me started on how they pushed us to get registered and now still don't have the system up and running), the registrations are not reciprocal. This means that even though I have a military ID, getting on post was a bit of a challenge. Hubby had to explain to the guard each time that I was visiting. But the guard would always try to scan my card at least twice to make sure. Each time he was rewarded with an annoying beep beep beep - rejection noise. They never wanted to believe us. Then we had to go though the process of giving him all of my information before I was allowed to go through.
We were staying in a barracks room for the duration of my stay which was nice because we didn't have to pay for a hotel but ironically we were not allowed to stay in Hubby's room. Instead, he was given keys to an empty room in another building. The reasoning? They thought the other building was safer. The downside of this arrangement was that the bed was ridiculously hard and Hubby had to go to his room every day for clothes. The room we were staying in also had no Internet so we ended up spending most of our time in Hubby's room and just going to the other room to sleep.
After dumping my suitcase in the room, Hubby took me to dinner on post at a restaurant called Mitchell's. I had finally made it but after dinner I was to tired to do much but fall asleep in Hubby's arms.
*Stay tuned... more posts on my Korean adventure to follow!
Three novels?! That's crazy!
ReplyDeleteAlso "1% rare coffee" is going to be my new favorite saying!
Yup three lol... when I have no distractions I go through books like cookies :-p I think we should make a point to use the phrase "1% rare coffee" ... new inside joke!
ReplyDeleteI love cookies.... I go through them like 1% rare coffee!
DeleteI just really want to reiterate my love for cookies. :)