Home
I listened to Roy Kim's song "Home" as the plane took off from LAX headed for Incheon International Airport.
The journey began Friday evening (to avoid the mysteriously inconvenient snow storm) in Atlanta. After having a couple beers with Roth, I took a nap in an old pay-phone booth by laying against my luggage. By 5:30am I had my bags checked, ate breakfast at Starbucks and got through security. I forgot toothpaste, so I was able to pick it up along with a new Murakami novel for travel-literature.
Although my friends were worried my plane would be delayed, the airport staff assured me things were running on time and would go fine. They also assured me that I would have ample time during the layover to get to my next flight. Now I know why so many people hate Delta.
After boarding everyone, and announcing we would be taking off on-time, our plane was stopped on the runway for an hour. The pilot and staff sounded just as unpleasantly surprised and annoyed as we were. ATC wouldn't let anyone take-off, even though there was no problem landing (and other planes continued to land). It turns out that the hour of delay was just the right amount to cause me (and many others) to miss our next flight by a matter of 5-10 minutes.
I don't need to describe how frustrating the process of getting a new flight schedule was, I'm sure anyone could imagine. Keep in mind that because of the weather on the east coast, there were many with the same problem. By some miracle I acquired a sweet companion to go along this stressful process with. Although I had no idea she was 3 years younger than me, for some reason it seemed like I should help out the girl next to me. I'm not sure if I was actually much help, there were often times where I led us in round-about confusion at LAX, but the companionship seemed like it did both of us a world of good.
Basically we went from Atlanta to Seattle, missed our flight, were re-routed through LAX, and eventually took a Korean Air flight and arrived at Incheon at 4:30am.
Now, I have no idea how this happened, but one of my bags was left behind in LA. So by the time I go through immigration, collected the bags that did arrive, and reported the second one lost, it was already 5:45am. Almost a "nice" even 24hours from boarding my first flight.
They have assured me that the bag will be sent to me when it arrives here. That is, I can either wait at the airport until 5:30-6pm or get a hotel and call them with the address.
Maybe it's all a blessing in disguise, or rather a less inconvenient coincidence, that the person who was going to meet me at Incheon to help me with my bags also had travel delays/problems. The good thing is I can be a little less of an inconvenience to that person, because having one less bag allows me to be able to travel by myself into the city once I get a reservation. So yeah, "blessing in disguise" may not be the term for that- but it's all I can do to try to stay positive.
If I were faithful, I'd pray. If I were superstitious, I'd cross my fingers. But I am just going to do my best.
The journey began Friday evening (to avoid the mysteriously inconvenient snow storm) in Atlanta. After having a couple beers with Roth, I took a nap in an old pay-phone booth by laying against my luggage. By 5:30am I had my bags checked, ate breakfast at Starbucks and got through security. I forgot toothpaste, so I was able to pick it up along with a new Murakami novel for travel-literature.
Although my friends were worried my plane would be delayed, the airport staff assured me things were running on time and would go fine. They also assured me that I would have ample time during the layover to get to my next flight. Now I know why so many people hate Delta.
After boarding everyone, and announcing we would be taking off on-time, our plane was stopped on the runway for an hour. The pilot and staff sounded just as unpleasantly surprised and annoyed as we were. ATC wouldn't let anyone take-off, even though there was no problem landing (and other planes continued to land). It turns out that the hour of delay was just the right amount to cause me (and many others) to miss our next flight by a matter of 5-10 minutes.
I don't need to describe how frustrating the process of getting a new flight schedule was, I'm sure anyone could imagine. Keep in mind that because of the weather on the east coast, there were many with the same problem. By some miracle I acquired a sweet companion to go along this stressful process with. Although I had no idea she was 3 years younger than me, for some reason it seemed like I should help out the girl next to me. I'm not sure if I was actually much help, there were often times where I led us in round-about confusion at LAX, but the companionship seemed like it did both of us a world of good.
Basically we went from Atlanta to Seattle, missed our flight, were re-routed through LAX, and eventually took a Korean Air flight and arrived at Incheon at 4:30am.
Now, I have no idea how this happened, but one of my bags was left behind in LA. So by the time I go through immigration, collected the bags that did arrive, and reported the second one lost, it was already 5:45am. Almost a "nice" even 24hours from boarding my first flight.
They have assured me that the bag will be sent to me when it arrives here. That is, I can either wait at the airport until 5:30-6pm or get a hotel and call them with the address.
Maybe it's all a blessing in disguise, or rather a less inconvenient coincidence, that the person who was going to meet me at Incheon to help me with my bags also had travel delays/problems. The good thing is I can be a little less of an inconvenience to that person, because having one less bag allows me to be able to travel by myself into the city once I get a reservation. So yeah, "blessing in disguise" may not be the term for that- but it's all I can do to try to stay positive.
If I were faithful, I'd pray. If I were superstitious, I'd cross my fingers. But I am just going to do my best.
Comments
Post a Comment