Saturday, June 1, 2019
Today was a long day. Our flight chased the sun back to Chicago. Don’t let anyone say time travel isn’t possible. I took off at 10:40am Korean local time and landed at 9:30am Chicago local time on the same day. So, my Saturday was about 36 hours long? I don’t know. Math is hard.
Our van came at 6:50 to take us to the Seoul airport. Five of us were on the same flight, so they booked us a mini van. Mini vans fit five girls plus a driver very comfortably. But when you add in 5 large suitcases, 5 carry ons and five backpacks, it is very, very tight. At least it was only a 45-minute ride and there was no traffic. I should have taken a picture. We had luggage everywhere haha.
The country of South Korea agreed to let me leave, so that’s good. I got through Korean customs with no problem, and all my bags made the weight limit. I didn’t have to take off my shoes or remove all my food for them to inspect like in the US on my way to Korea.
When I booked my flight, I managed to book the same exact seat for both legs of the trip. I like to think it was the same plane, too. Unlike last flight, there is no small Korean grandma sitting next to me. In fact, there is no one sitting next to me!!! The ability to spread out is very nice, and the teenager on the aisle and I had an unspoken agreement to share no man’s land. Having a bit of extra wiggle room made long plane sleeps much nicer.
Today’s inflight features included:
- Isn’t It Romantic
- How to Train Your Dragon 3
- Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Rewatch-saw it in theaters earlier this year)
I really covered a lot of genres. All were good. I full on cried during one, but had to keep it quiet because I was on a plane with a bunch of people and not in my living room. Feel free to take your guess as to which.
During the first meal I was once again offered bibimbap. It was that or chicken pasta. The choice was easy, I had something to prove. The flight attendant asked if I have had it before and I said, “Yes, Gamsahamnida (thank you)” and was a bit disappointed there wasn’t a small Korean grandma next to me to not disappoint with my proper eating of the dish. Oh well, I felt accomplished.
Second meal was a noodle dish. It was fine. The most “airplane” quality food so far. But, I did appreciate the variety of fresh veggies.
Fourteen hours takes a long time. A long time, but it was worth it to get back to home!
US customs wasn’t great. It just takes so long. On my last big international trip, I indicated that I had brought flower seeds with me from Denmark. Customs didn’t like that and took them away. Had I not said anything I probably could have kept them. As I was filling out my forms I got to thinking I may run into a similar problem. I brought home a bunch of snack food with me. Mostly snack cakes and cookies, but also a package of dried/roasted squid. It’s in its original packaging, but US customs doesn’t want you to bring in meat from other countries. Telling myself they probably mean raw meat, I just left that off the form and came back to the great city of Chicago with no delays.
Now the hard part: staying up till 9:30 pm local time. When I landed at 9:30am my body was under the impression that it was 11:30pm. The day was well spent. A lunch date with some friends, one of whom was in from London, a trip to the grocery store, homemade pizza, and a wonderful movie night in with my one and only, where I only nodded off a few times.
Here’s hoping I kicked jet lag’s butt! Thanks for a great trip Korea! Signing off! (Also, thanks for reading my travel blog that is really a food blog in disguise)
