Dreaming in Reality: China: FlightS

From last night:

2/26ish, 2/27ish. (They blurred into one day for me as we chased the sun, watching it rise on one side of the earth and then seeing it set on the other side 1 day later.)

Hello world!

The last 48 hours (or so.. honestly, I lost track) have been.. long.

My flight leaving Phoenix was at 6am and somehow I managed to sleep through my alarm for the first time in 1.5 years. It might be due to the fact that I had been partying for the 3 previous nights and had then spent an entire day packing up my room and running last minute errands. I made it to the gate in time and met up with Crista and Rachelle who are from Gilbert. I spent the majority of the 1.5 hour flight to LAX staring at the chair in front of me because I was already too out of it to focus.

When we arrived at LAX we discovered we had to wait for the Asiana Airlines counter to open at 8am so we spent the next 2 hours sitting in front of McDonalds (where we ran into Sarah) eating, staring silently, and eventually talking. Down at the counter we discovered that luggage restrictions had changed from what we were told so my carry-on suddenly became a checked suitcase and my personal item (backpack) needed to be 10 kg (22lbs) or less. It rang in at 15kg (33lbs). Apparently I had a very valid excuse for sore shoulders today. Luckily the airlines girl was training and asked if I had a laptop in the bag (which I did) and let it pass. We'll see if I'm as lucky tomorrow morning heading from Seoul to Weihai. The first piece of luggage I checked in Phoenix was 5lbs over and they wanted $200 extra for that much weight. One of the girls with me in LAX ended up having to pay $100 for bringing her guitar. Another girl's bag was so heavy they wanted $400. Ridiculous.

We met up with Geoff, Mikelle, Jamie, Melanie at LAX and while we were waiting for the flight I spent a good part of the time on the floor listening to music and trying to make myself sleep. Didn't work. The flight was..... long. 13.5 hours is more than twice as much as I've discovered my patience for being on an airplane lasts. Fortunately the food was really good and they had a great movie selection so I ended up watching Wreck it Ralph, Pitch Perfect, and The Lucky Choice, intermingled with a grand total of maybe an hour worth of naps.

We met up with the SLC group in the Incheon airport in South Korea which I discovered when I happened to notice a white boy jumping up and down, waving frantically at me (Mark) through a set of doors. We rode a shuttle an hour to Seoul where it dropped us off at the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at (which is saying something) where we ate our sit down dinner and then walked around outside looking at street vendors. I don't think I've ever seen merchandise from street vendors that have tailored to my interests so perfectly. There were lots of scarves, hats, jewelry, sunglasses, socks, potato chips that they fried on a stick.. It was fantastic. I ended up buying a keychain to add to my world keychains and a pair of Gangam Style socks that I'm a little more than a little in love with. Driving around the city it surprised me how... European/American Seoul is. Granted, it was dark so I didn't see much driving in to the city but you'll find Starbucks, 7/11, and even Subway. The sky scrapers covered in neon lights remind me of being in Times Square or Picadilly Circus in London.

There were probably 10 other things I wanted to say about today but it's 7:40am AZ time and after only 3 hours of sleep in the last 2 days I'm gonna call it a night.

Love you all.

Miss you.

Had the phrase, “Amanda, what the hell have you done?” run through my head more than once today.

Goodnight.