This post should have been written on Monday night. It wasn't. So begins the story of my working vacation. I had a few reasons for wanting to return to Korea (this blog will rarely use the geographic distinguisher, as its author shares the opinion of Cold War political leaders about the number of legitimate governments on the peninsula) but they will become clear to the reader as this experiment progresses. Conveniently, my summer vacation coincided with the teaching schedule of my Institute (that's its name). My plane was scheduled to leave at 7AM Sunday morning (June 26) This gave me the opportunity to stay up all night. Apparently I'm old. I did laundry, packed my bags and went to bed.


In order to do my part to keep the world safe for democracy, I arrived at the airport two hours before my flight. This would have been a more productive plan if the airport personnel had done the same. As it was, everything went well. In fact, I was a little disappointed that Uncle Sam didn't feel the need to perform a thorough inspection of my 'belt buckle'.

There's a reason why cheap flights are cheap. Often, it's because you have exceptionally long layover. On this flight it was probably just as well since it turned out that the departure gate was not only in a different zip code, it was probably in a different time zone. After wandering through terminals 1, 2 and 3 I finally noticed a sign telling me to go to Terminal 5. I asked for directions.
Out the door.
Down the hall.
Up the escalator.
Another hall.
A pedestrian walkover.
A train.
Another walkover.
Pretty self-explanatory I'd say.

The plane as seen from the window of the gate area. Not a 777. I had been under the mistaken impression that I was going to have 14 hours of movies-on-demand.
I meant to get a picture on board. It would have confirmed my argument about the superiority of of flight attendants on non-US airlines (although I like to act enlightened, really I'm just a boor).
The plane arrived around 5PM on Monday (after a 14hr flight starting at midday on Sunday), I got to the Institute at 8.