Welcoming committee

Thanks, rail guy!

It's another edition of the 'lander coming at you with almost no sleep. I've probably complained about jet lag before, and I don't do that sleeping on planes thing, much less with that in the middle seat thing. Hey it's 4pm Central! More to come after the melatonin kicks in tonight. I'm assuming people use it to go to sleep. So far, I think it's more useful as a waste of money.

Lagging in Geomdan

back yard

This is the landscape out back of bro's place. He lives in a newly developed part of Geomdan, which has been exploding with growth like the rest of Incheon (just northwest of Seoul).

more apartments
World travel is always a fun experience, especially the first day of sleep deprived awkwardness, followed by the sleep schedule of an octogenarian. Upshot: I got to see this sweet sunrise. I have to admit that I haven't seen one in a while. Not bad for the first morning. Now if I could just get a decent cup of coffee...

Rats

rats in a maze


Waiting at the airport is always stressful. It's because you never really know if you're going to make that flight. You could have checked your bags, made it through security, waiting at the gate, and ... oh sorry. Anyway, today is particularly stressful because there was a mixup on Suk Ja's name. She has to go all the way back home to fetch our marriage certificate. This really riles me up, because all they have to do is check her address and phone number. What if the name were misspelled? Would you require that I show you a document with the misspelled name and the corrected name? The dude at the counter kept sticking to this lame example of, "what if my brother tried to check in as me?" Well asshole, you'd be SOL if your brother lives at your address and also ganked your phone on the way to the airport. Oh and he also would have tied you up in the shed so you don't show up later and foil him. Is this really what "security" has come to? I fail to see how an identity is confirmed from a booking record made online based solely on the original name. Airlines have to be Kafka-esque though, so I shouldn't expect anything more. We'll make the flight anyway. It's so nice to see the system work.

See you in K-land.

en route

almost there: might wanna detour that North Korean airspace

To get from Chicago to Korea, you have to travel half way around the world. This makes for a long flight - 14 hours. When you embark on a flight of this magnitude, I think the airline you choose takes on a higher degree of significance. Now I don't mean to get all fanboy about it, but Korean Air is just a superior airline. For starters, they manage to organize the boarding process. That was run by a dude who looked and sounded like a plain clothes Chicago cop. We successfully boarded a 747 without the standard mass of gaping morons clutching bricks on wheels blocking the way to the gate. Thanks to the cop's non-lethal enforcement, this guy was able to get people in lines and then get the lines to board one at a time. Far superior to 'Rows 25-50 can board now but everyone else stand in the way like a dumbass'. I wonder if there's a lesson to be learned here about Koreans' preference for foreign mercenaries to play the bad guy that gets the job done. This leaves all the nicely uniformed stewardesses and ticket collectors plenty of room to just smile at you sweetly and make the company look like they'd never do anything to raise the ire of a customer.

Anyway, Koreans really do have an expectation of a higher degree of service than Americans - which is a good thing. Even the kids that work at the gas station (and pump the gas for you) will smile at you every time they speak. I'll be pointing out examples throughout the trip.

So this attention to detail was applied to a flight with the following nice touches:

1. When boarding the plane, I got what seemed to be genuine greetings from the flight attendants. At least they're really good at acting nice to their customers.
   
2. When I arrived at my seat, I was greeted with a bottle of water, a blanket, and a pillow. That was awesome because I was thirsty.
3. Korean Air is one of the few airlines that has installed in flight entertainment systems on the back of every seat. It's a media player for movies, music, tv, basic games, and you can even track the position of the plane on the flight. This is way more convenient than having to lug your own PMP (and try to make the battery last 14 hours).

movies galore

cruisin



4. The meals resemble real food. You even get free wine with your meal. There's always a bibim bap dish served, and the second meal is usually some western whatever-ness. Chicken and pasta this time - I've had much worse. The stewardesses come around every 20 minutes or so with a tray of juice. They don't mess around with that silly drink cart that blocks the aisle and takes FOREVER on other airlines.
5. The bathrooms are always clean (I guess they clean mid-flight), and they offer you complimentary toiletries.


6. You can change your flight dates without any penalties. I may decide to quit my job and stay here for the next 3 months until my visa runs out without paying any extra on the return flight.

Enough about that. The flight was superior, but 14 hours cramped in a seat is not fun. I couldn't really sleep at all, so I just had to get through the rest of the day here as a jet lag zombie.

We went to the in-laws' factory and checked out some of the new merch. Lucky for us, it was shipping day, so we got to see some action:

careful with that house, it's heavy

Finally, we went to have some awesome food. The first of many bloated food shots to come.


We had a type of ssam gyeop sal that I've never had before (not pictured) called hun jae (smoked). It was indeed smoked, and pretty tasty. The restaurant's specialty was serving these meats along with a ton of organic greens, some of which I'd never had too. Wish I'd taken pictures of these, they made some really nice gogi sam (lettuce and meat wrap).

Today, we'll drive to Buseok in my brother in-law's new hot-ass sports car... well it's a Kia. He's really excited to let us borrow it, and I'm totally cool with driving it. It's way sportier than his diesel SUV we borrowed from him last time.

Next post: all the stuff to do in Buseok. I just heard that the dabang (Korean style coffee shops) don't even have agashis (girls that serve you coffee among other things). That's a disappointment, but we'll stick with the temple and mountains anyway.