Happy Fourth!

Happy Independence Day, from my hotel room in Seoul!

 

Internet Exporer keeps crashing, so this post will be brief. 

 

The flight was uneventful.  It was my first flight in a 777, which was really nice; tall ceilings, wide cabin.  The service on Asiana was great.  For dinner I had the choice of steak and bibimbap, and I chose steak ONLY because the bibimbap description on the menu they handed out didn't seem to include any meat.  Of course there was meat it in!  But oh well, the steak was ok. 

 

The service included hot towels, two snacks, and apparently as many drinks as possible. The flight attendants would not stop offering us juice, water, coffee, tea...  There was one lady who kept wanting me to put my seat back up for every meal, she would say "excuse me!" and then grab the button, pull my seatback up, saying "seat backs please, seat backs."  And then everyone would put up their seatbacks.  At the beginning of the flight, the flight attendants went to their spots and at the beginning of the flight safety video, they all did a deep bow in perfect unison.  And then, that was it, the rest of the safety speech was the video, which, by the way, was computer animation.

 

When I got to Seoul, I saw an Asiana counter inside security and asked them to book me on a flight for today, since they canceled the one I had booked. Then, the lady noticed my baggage claim tickets, and asked me if I had liquids in my bags.  She had to repeat the word "liquid" a couple times, because I wasn't expecting it.  Finally, I realized that once I claimed my bags, I wouldn't be able to re-enter the security area, where my hotel is.  So I just went through customs and found the hotel desk outside of the security area. 

 

I got a $90 room in a place called Airport Town Square a few minutes from Incheon.  The room is fine. I walked around the neighborhood to find something to eat.  I didn't want sit on the floor at a low table, and many of the other restaruants looked like they were for groups.  Finally I found a cafe looking restaurant with a small table free, but the lady waved me off when I asked for a table.

 

So forget it!  I went back to the hotel and ate at the restaraurant, with my 20% off cupon.  It was empty except for a couple of Spaniards.  I ordered bulgogi and a beer. 

 

I slept for maybe eight hours.  It's now quarter to 4am, and I'm up.  I will finish adjusting to local time tomorrow; it's much easier to adjust when you travel to the west, because you just make a couple days longer in order to catch up.  Traveling east is a killer because it's hard to make your day shorter, your body doesn't want to sleep early.  My back is a little sore, I will invent some yoga to stretch it.