Off We Go!

What a whirlwind trip! If you thougt flying to California was long, wait till you fly to Seoul. I started off the journey in Orlando. Said a tough goodbye to my wife and daughter and left for the airport via a shuttle from the villages at 7 AM. I was up at 5:30 AM with the sound of the greens mower on hole number one outside the house. My flight left at 11 AM and so I had visited the Delta Skyclub for about an hour. The flight was excellent to Detroit. I met Kevin at the gate and we switched seats to the bulkhead. It provided more leg room. More inportantly, it was next to the bathroom and kitchen. We met this teacher from Ohio named Rob and he was headed for Thailand to meet some friends for his Spring Break. We enjoyed one another's company and passed the time. I will post some pics of the flight as we flew from Detroit north over our home in Traverse City and then Northwest over Alaska and around Russia's coast to Narita-Tokyo Airport. What a long, long, long, flight. I only slept about a half hour. Was extremely exausted but had one more leg to go.

We landed in Japan and waited about an hour and a half as we had to go through security prior to getting in the gate area. Once again, we went with the bulkhead seating. The plane was an airbus 330 and it had leather seats and they gave us sushi for a meal! Delicious! I ate Kevin's. Maggie, I think it was all vegetables. Yummy!

We landed in Seoul and had to wait through Customs. This was about 11 PM Seoul time (13 hours ahead of EST). We thought, hey great, here is Mr. Lee from Holt to pick us up. Nope, after calling him Mr. Lee for about 15 minutes, I saw his name badge. It was Mr. Saika. He was nice but a very tired driver. He commented on the distance to our hotel. He said we have an hour drive from the airport. Uggh... So on the way from the airport, the toll roads were beautiful. Night time in Seoul was foggy and the roads were a bit damp. Anyway, we were talking about Seoul and then I pointed out that we may need to stop as Mr. Saika did not see the two car accident blocking the road. They were smashed up good. We think they were racing and rubbed the other out as these two cars were extremely expensive. The doors opened up like lamborghinis (sp?). We slowed down and Mr. Saika woke up. He had been driving since 7 AM.

We talked about the holt site and he drove us past the offices so we could find them via the subway. It worked to a small extent! See next post. We then talked about the famous fish markets and so he just stopped on the highway and backed up to park the van outside the market. Remind you that cars were going 45 mph past us. He got out and walked us to the market. Pics posting soon (Kevin's Camera).

After being amazed at the site of 100,000 sq. feet fish market, we went to the hotel Checked in and then went to finish the night with a drink on the top floor! Packed and got ready for the next day to go see Bok.