I'm here in Jinju now - back home - sort of. I'm in a new apartment, start at a new school and the majority of my friends aren't here anymore, but there is still a comfort of knowing where you are when you walk out the door. I'll go into more details about all of that soon, but for now, I'll tell you about my adventure to get here.
It started off on Thursday night EST when I somehow had to get rid of 7 pounds of clothes and/or move them into different bags. Mom helped me tons and I ended up with 2 huge roller bags. According to our home scale I was a few pounds short - according to the airport scales the next morning, one was 51 and the other was 50 - but they didn't hassle me about it so I didn't care. Originally I tried to get away with not having an additional carry-on (other than my backpack) but that didn't happen. All of my shoes ended up in a smaller roller bag. I also have a box of summer stuff that mom is going to send me soon (thanks mom!).
So I don't often sleep well when I have to wake up early in the morning - paranoia or something. So I probably had 3-4 hours of sleep at best when I got out of bed at 5:45 Friday morning (Happy bday Wawa!) to get read to leave. All my bags were packed and I just had to shower and feed Layla one last time (bye bye pumpkin - don't pee in mom's house please). We decided to leave a little earlier than we really needed to because Atlanta rush hour traffic can be crazy. Luckily we basically avoided it all. I'm still glad we left early because the airport now has a new International terminal which is clear on the other side of the airport - like a 15-20 drive around the airport. It's tacked on the end of the existing airport once you're inside, but to check in you have to go around. It's new and beautiful and clean and had no wait either at check-in (where they didn't charge me for my second checked bag - woot!) or at security. Because we were there so early, mom and I decided to get a coffee before I went through the gate. It is always sad saying goodbye and I loved spending the last few weeks with my mom because she makes me laugh (often unintentionally) and we got a lot done.
The first let of my trip was pretty easy - my plane left Atlanta at 10:30ish and was a 3 and 3. It was super full so they offered to check carry-on backs to your final destination. I decided to do it so I wouldn't have to lug my shoe bag through the next airport. I sat in the way back in the middle seat. I was between a guy who works for the CDC in public diseases (on his way to a conference) and a guy who was in his 2nd (I think) year in med school somewhere in Massachusetts (on his way to a mini-internship and to visit his brother). The 3 of us talked for a lot of the 5 hour ride. The 2 things that sucked were 1- you had to pay for movies and most TV shows (I didn't and watched the free random stuff) and 2 -they didn't feed us (except for 1 bag of mini pretzels). They had food you could buy, but I didn't feel like it.
When we landed in San Francisco, I had about an hour and a half to get to my next flight. I had to exit the domestic side and check in with Singapore air at the international terminal (again on the other side of the airport, but luckily I was close so it wasn't too far of a walk). When I checked in, the guy was slightly confused because I had 3 checked bags with no additional fees noted. I told him one was carry-on and that they never told me I had to pay in Atlanta. He didn't argue and gave me my boarding pass. I had to go through security again which took about 25 minutes. I called Roll while waiting in line and got to say bye to her. When I was close to my gate, I heard my name being paged. That has never happened to me before and I was all panicky because I thought they might bump me or something. Luckily all that happened was they moved me to an exit row seat. My seat was actually quite nice - I had lots of leg room and could stretch out, had the side to lean on (but oddly no window) and the best part was that I didn't have to climb over anyone to pee!
International flights are awesome because they give you free stuff. I had a gin and tonic shortly after take-off and then proceeded to watch about 5 movies (Ted, Step Up Revolution, The Lucky One, the Dark Knight Rises, Rock of Ages and part of Magic Mike). I only slept for about 15 minutes after they turned off the tv. They fed us 2 meals which were pretty good. They also gave us snacks and water and hot towels. The strangest, but delicious, part was when they walked around after the first meal with dessert of ice cream sandwiches. I would recommend Singapore Airlines for the flight experience.
The bad part happened when we landed in Seoul. It's pretty easy to find your way around the airport in Seoul and luckily I had done it before anyway. Customs didn't have a line at all and I zipped through it to baggage claim where I waited...and waited...and waited. The bag I checked as carry-on in Atlanta made it but my other 2 didn't show up. After 20 minutes of staring at the baggage carousel (and when it stopped moving) I went to the help desk. Luckily the lady spoke pretty decent English and was also nice enough to let me use the desk phone to call my boss. Between the 2 of them, I found out my bags were left in San Francisco. Why? I don't know. They are supposed to arrive in Seoul tonight and hopefully will get delivered to Jinju on Monday morning. At that point, I had been awake for 23 hours and was all jittery because all my clothes, toiletries and well, everything, were in those bags. I blame my mom and friend T-Dawg who kept saying weird stuff about my bags.
So, at that point, armed with my backpack (which luckily had a toothbrush and deodorant in it - as well as my computer and all the really important stuff like my passport), huge winter coat and carry-on (with shoes, socks and bras) I made my way to the information desk. The lady there told me where to get the bus to the express bus terminal in Seoul. I found that bus (with some help from a nice lady) and got off in a hour with no problems. Now I know where it is when I go home (it's not in the bus station, but down the street). For those that know the Psy song, the name of the stop where the bus terminal is located is Gangnam :)
I'm also glad that I have been to that bus station before, but if I was brand new, I would have cried. To get a ticket to Jinju, you have to walk on the right side all the way to the back, then turn around and go outside to where the buses actually are. I bought my ticket with no problem and found my bus. The issue now was contacting my boss. I thought I might be able to email him using my nook, but I couldn't get service anyway around my bus and we were leaving in 15 minutes and I didn't want to miss it. Luckily people in Korea are super nice (one of the reasons I wanted to come back) and the girl who sat next me let me use her phone (and even dialed for me) to call my boss. This is when I found out that while I had charged my iPod, it somehow deleted all of my songs. Luckily I had an iPod mini with me and that worked, although my head phones broke so only 1 ear bud actually had sound. So 4 hours later (1 am Korean time), I arrived in Jinju.
My boss met me at the bus station and drove me to my new apartment (which he "secured" that day - glad I didn't know that earlier). Like I said earlier, I'll describe it in another post. He was super nice, texted a friend for me, went out and bought me milk and cereal for the morning and told me he'd pick me up Monday morning to start paper work to get my alien card.
When he left, it was 12:30 pm EST on Saturday, so I had been up for almost 30 hours at that point (minus about 2 hours of off-again on-again sleep on the bus), hadn't showered since the start of that 30 hours (so looked and felt disgusting) and had no clothes. When I woke up, I walked down to little mart next to my house and got a mini bottle of shampoo and when home and showered, so at least I felt better. Now's the time for an over share - I decided to wash the 1 pair of underwear I had last night, but as Korean don't have dryers, they are still wet, so I am commando (which I know is a style some people are comfortable with, but I am not one of those people), wearing a zip up hoodie with no shirt underneath (since it is also damp) but a clean bra and socks, sitting in a coffee shop waiting for 2 of my friends.
It's good to be back, but I can't wait to settle in.
hahahahahha, you went commando!!!!!!!!
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