The trip began, as they so often do, at the bar. Eddie called me on the cell and said "At 8:25, have a gin and tonic ready for me at the table so we don't need to waste any time."
He showed up early.
We drank at the bar, drove up to SFO and then drank at the bar there. By the time we got on the plane I was so drunk I could barely stand. I felt as though I had arrived in Korea early! Because I was so drunk I slept pretty soundly through the first seven hours of the flight (including a filet mignon dinner, I am told. I say "I am told" because I wasn't awake to see it and this is just the kind of mean trick Eddie would play on me). Sleep was occasionally interrupted by the obligatory infant wailing out of control. This kid seems to ship with the 747 (at least he's been on any intercontinental flight I've been on) and unfortunately, because it isn't mine, I can't throttle the little bastard. I dozed intermittently, and with a hangover for the next three hours of the flight. With about two hours to go I got into the back of seat TV action and watched some Kurt Russell movie about a family of superheroes. Asiania served up breakfast before we landed and I turned down the pancakes in favor of a shrimp-rice concoction that came with a tube of hot paste I can already sense I will regret tomorrow morning.
You know what I mean.
The flight also had a cool show which continually updated what speed we were going, how high the plane was, the temperature outside and an animation of where we were over the ocean (or Japan or Korea). It probably wouldn't have been nearly as cool if I had discovered it early in the flight and watched painfully incremental progress across the sea, but since we were already over Japan and almost home it was kind of neat.
At Customs I drew my traditional official - the one who lives in constant state of amazement at the cool things which surround him and the idea that he may someday master their purposes. This, sadly, was not that day and so I stood in a line that seemed trapped in amber as the lines to either side zipped by with alacrity. I don't speak a word of Japanese, and the Japanese guy behind me didn't speak any English, but we had an animated conversation of gestures, grunts, and nasty facial expressions in which we agreed the guy checking our line was subhuman. Since the guy checking our line was Korean, this came particularly naturally to my Japanese friend who was no doubt ruing the loss al that last World War.
This conversation came after my first bit of culture shock which was foisted on me by the book "Culture Shock." Well, all the books really. They all harped on how the five Confucian relationships created a status-based society in which older men were all-powerful and could push there inferiors around. In each book the example was of a man who skipped to the head of the line to purchase something. So, when the nice Japanese guy started to move up next to me I went in to full "oh no you're not cutting on me Mr. Thinks He Has More Status Dude!" I deployed my computer case, camera case and elbows. I moved up so close to the people in front of me that we were touching.... I was a mess. So I gave up. Jump the line on me, I won't stop you. ;-)
My Korean partners zipped through their customs and were waiting for me on the other side.
We exchanged money with a dour man in a box and got cell phones from some lovely women in Santa's hats. I'm now with in Incheon airport with Eddie happily chattering away on one of the cellphones. It is about 8 in the morning and it is really nice to be someplace where no one can talk to you. Jae is up on the third floor doing some arcane paperwork she needs to do to udpate her visa for the US. Airports are pretty much the same, so I don't feel in-country yet. The only thing different about this airport is that everyone seems to be asian and the cops have gaudy uniforms that would fit in a Gay-freedom parade.Every once in a while a US army person wanders by on the way to somewhere, but other than that I'm the only white guy for as far as view stretches.
The painful part of the hangover is gone and now I'm in that nice tired hyper-receptive state that sometimes comes with hangovers. Everything has a sort of grainy texture to it which is just right as the sun has come up yellow and suffusing the smog out the window. There is a little dusting of snow on everything and Incheon is a silver-ish color, so it looks like everything is painted in a flat yellow/gray palette. I hope to pop out and get a photo whenever Eddie tracks Jae down.
Which I did do. And then we hopped a bus to Seoul. Bus drives through some pretty alarming landscape dotted with factories pouring out smoke and deposits us in Seoul next to picture number 2. I went all the way to Korea and found a San Jose strip mall!
We grabbed a cab over the the apartment and got set up, then headed down into Seoul for lunch. The rest of the day was spent at lunch(about three hours) with another Korean while we waited for Jae to finish some business at the US Consulate. Which we also walked past - it had about 15 fully-loaded riot police and a line that was literally around the block. The riot police, it turns out, are everywhere. We passed a bunch more at the Japanese embassy and I saw riot police tucked away in little nooks and crannies everywhere. They also keep an alarming (to my eyes anyway) number of hoosegows on wheels available on the street.
They are lined up and waiting to go.
Home to some social drinking, in bed by 10 and slept on the excellently heated floor like a baby. Those heated floors are just the thing. Woke up this morning at 5:30 and headed out into the light snow to take pictures. But that is for tomorrow...
Happy, fed, and quite cold in Korea!
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