Housing Trip part 1

Left Houston Mon am for Seattle and then a looong flight to Seoul. First group of people I spotted in Seattle were a cluster of stewardesses for Asiana airlines. These women were BEAUTIFUL. I mean, gorgeous, bird-like, perfectly proportioned model-lookin' women all identically and impeccably dressed without a crease in their uniforms or a hair out of place. This is what American stewardesses USED to look like in the 1950's. Man, what happened to us? I lament that I do not have a picture of these beautiful beings because I just sat there gaping at them like a moron and by the time I pulled myself together they had passed. I WILL get a picture for you before the trip is over.

I can't convey enough how much reassurance stewardesses THAT perfect give to a passenger. Just looking at them, and you are totally convinced that any plane carrying them could NEVER crash because that would be ungainly, and unorganized and just plain RUDE, all qualities these women would never be associated with. So right from the get-go I felt I was in good hands. I would also like to add that these women looked just as happy and perfect after taking care of all of us on an 11 hour flight. We were bedraggled and wrinkled and I'm sure all had airplane breath, but they looked just as shiny and bright as a new penny. How do they do that??

Checked in at the business class counter and was told I could go hang out in the business class lounge. Never one to turn down a free perk, I headed post-haste to said lounge which was full of Koreans all speaking Korean. So at least I was getting an auththentic experience. They had all kinds of little snacks and drinks and such and 2 kinds of cup o' noodles, regular LAME-O American kind and Korean kind. Of course, I wanted to be cool and fit in with the scene so I chose the Korean kind. Added my hot water, added the little spice pack (I know all about this right? Just like the little foil spice packets that come with ramen noodles and such right?) And that's when I experienced Korean Blind-side #1:Spicy noodles of death. So hindsight being 20/20 I should not have added the entire packet of flavoring. If you ever see these noodles, you have been warned.

Next adventure was boarding the plane. As soon as the boarding folks arrived at the gate the entire waiting area (777 plane so we're talking a LOT of people) Rushed the gate like a bunch of rowdy teens at a rock concert and formed a scary, tight pushing mob. Like we don't all have assigned, reserved seats on the damn plane people?? What's that about? So they boarded business class first and it was all I could do to get up to the front of the crowd and get to the gate. Geesh.

Business class on Asiana is awesome! You have
a seat that reclines almost all the way flat, beautiful women who bring you things constantly, slippers, ear plugs, eye mask things, and so much leg room than if you want to get to your bag under the seat in front of you, you literally have to get up out of your seat because your bag is unreachable. This is my awesome seat in relax mode, not sleep mode mind but just chillin' and waiting for my hot towel mode.

So they bring us appetizers and then ask do we want western or Korean lunch and I said of course Korean. I sat next to this 70 ish Bible-college-in-the-phillipines guy we will call "Billy Graham" (he looked and sounded just like him). He flies Asiana all the time and he chose western but I figured he was just lame and unadventurous.

So I got "Kimbibap" or something. Looked like this:

So it's a pile of meat in the middle and veggies all around and a side of rice and some soup and some Kimchee and some kind of red paste (WARNING!) and some brown rice. Great! Super healthy, and I feel Korean already.

Korean Blind-side #2: That's not brown rice. After taking a big crunchy, fishy bite I took a closer look at the "brown rice" and realized that each grain had eyes. NICE! They were little

worm/fish things. Ok, so I did my best with the rest of the meal and had a lovely cheese and fruit course and dessert and then the beautiful people made it pretty clear that they were putting us all to bed. Here I am getting ready for a nice little snooze. (Billy Graham took this picture).

Slept for a few hours. Watched some movies with Bill, (together we watched some abdominoplasty videos that a DR was watching across the asile - GROSS!) and ate more food with no adventures. And then had like 5 more h0urs of flight. Really? All I could think at this point was "I have to do this flight with TEDDY!!" Sweet Lord.

Read, watched another movie, more plastic surgery videos, and FINALLY landed in Seoul. Cleared immigration, checked back in Domestic and had a one hour flight to Pusan where Jeff met me. We took the Bus to Ulsan and got here about 10:30 Tuesday eve. Impressions about SK in part 2!!