I wrote these letters while on my trip to Thailand back in November/December. I was wordy with the plan of putting them in my journal.
Dear Friends & Family,
Warning: I will be printing these letters off for my journal...so they are going to be LONG! Sorry.
So, it is 9:09AM in Seoul Korea. We left Logan at 3:15PM on Friday and drove to Sara's. Annie picked us up at 4:30 and we headed to the airport. It's hard to believe this trip is really here. It has been in the planning stages for so long! We got to the airport at 5:30 for our 7:30 flight, thinking it would be crazy from the holiday. You could almost hear crickets chirping the place was so empty. That meant 2 hours to kill with nothing to do. It was the start of a very long travel process...of which we are only half way through at this point.
We took off on time and headed for Vegas. I forgot about the time change so we left SLC at 7:30PM and arrived in Vegas at 7:30PM because of a nice tail wind. Our connecting flight wasn't until 12:30AM. Luckily our cute little cousin Nick lives in Vegas, and he was willing to come pick us up and entertain us for a few hours. Tina stayed home with their 3 small boys-while Nick played tour guide. We went to In And Out Burger for a yummy dinner, and then drove over to some giant Bass Pro Shop place. It was closed and we still had time to kill, so Nick suggested going out to Buffalo Bill's to ride the roller coaster. By this time it is about 10:00PM and we need to check in at midnight with Korean Air. Nick starts driving out into the boondocks to a town called Primm that is on the Nevada-California boarder. It was almost 30 miles outside of Vegas. I'm dying thinking of how bad Papa is going to kill us when he learns we miss our flight because we tried to go ride a roller coaster. We finally get out to Primm and get ready to ride The Desperado, billed as the longest, tallest, fastest coaster in the WORLD. The thing was HUGE! And only $7. Words can not do justice to how awesome this coaster was-and I don't like roller coasters! There were no loops-just tons of ups and downs that were bigger then anything I've been on. We were screaming and laughing (and Sara was swearing) so hard! It was way worth the drive. Ry and I both said our big kids would love it, and we might need to come out there with them sometime just for that coaster. We laughed our way back to the car and Nick dropped us off at the International Terminal right at midnight. We were very grateful to him for giving up time with his family to play with us. We already had our boarding passes, so we went straight to the gate and almost started boarding right away.
Our airplane with Korean Air was awesome!!! There was a blanket and pillow, eye mask, toothbrush, and socks waiting on each chair. Plus lots of good leg room. The flight was only about 70% full, so we had our own row, with Cody and Sara ahead of us with their own row. Each seat had a TV in front of it that had movies, TV shows, video games (yeah! Tetris!) and music for FREE!! I can't remember all of the movie choices, but among them was Transformers, Hairspray, Pirates 3, Ocean's 13, and Gone With The Wind!! The fkight attendents were very pretty and very nice. It was strange to be the foreigner who didn't speak the language or look like everyone else. Of course, they all spoke English, but instructions and what not would come on the speaker in Korean first. I asked them to help me say 'Thank You' in Korean. It's Gamsa Hamida. They said I had great pronounceation. Ryan would say it a little faster and different from me as though he was fluent in Korean. He said he's been speaking Korean since he was 8...from watching MASH. Silly Googily Bear! I read some of Twilight for awhile, and tried to watch Transformers. I gave up about 10 minutes into it-when the first bot is still at that military station-sorry Josh. I slept for hours, and woke up with 6 more hours of flight still left!! I played some tetris and ate some candy before Ryan woke up. It was still the middle of the night over the Pacific ocean, but it was about 6:00AM Logan time. No good! They brought us some breakfast a couple of hours later. Cody, Sara, and Ryan went with the egg omlett, while I was daring and had the Korean favorite Green Tea Rice Porridge. I'm glad I tried it-but cream of wheat with raisins and brown sugar it is not! It was not sweet at all, and they served it with some sort of pickled vegetable thing. I'm trying to be daring on this trip and eat like the locals...but this is one dish that I would not be in a hurry to try again.
We finally landed in Seoul at 6:30AM on Sunday morning. That's strange to think that Sunday has happened back home yet. I had all sorts of big plans for our day of adventure, only to find out that once we checked into our room at the transit hotel in the airport we could not leave. So we are hostage here until 5:30PM. 8 more hours folks! Yikers! The website advertised all sorts of great amenities with this place; cafeteria's, resteraunts, video game rooms. Hmm. Wouldn't it be cool if that were true. Their "cafeteria" is a snack bar that serves 2 or 3 Korean dishes, a club sandwich, and drinks. And you know airport prices. What is the bit Jerry Seinfeld does about the prices? "Are you your own little country? Do you not know the price of tuna in the rest of the world?" Oh well. We just got a little smackrel, and now Petersen's and Ryan have gone back to the room to sleep and shower. I want to go running so bad!!! I'm dying! Maybe I can run laps in the airport terminal.
Anyway, we fly out of here at 5:30 and arrive in Bangkok at 9:30PM. 12 more hours until I'm there! Yay! Wait...no...there are some more time zones to cross...so more than 12 hours. But that's okay. It's all good. Life is good and I'm on the adventure of a lifetime.
I'll write again soon!
Love, Jamie