“the next crazy venture beneath the skies”

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” 

~ Jack Kerouac

This week, the week leading up to my trip to South Korea, felt like it should have been crazier. But, as my mom said, there wasn’t much last-minute running around to do because I’ve had four months to prepare!

I had lots of help with making decisions about what to bring, running errands, and packing my bags. My most constant assistant was my niece, Potato.

Although it added up to quite a bit of stuff, I decided to bring everything I would need to have in order to feel at home and comfortable in my new environment. This of course included some favorite books, CDs, and DVDs, pictures of friends and family, and an unseemly amount of other creature comforts. But my bags were within the weight limit at check-in! Yay!

Of course I checked, and double-triple checked that I had copies of my itinerary, hostel confirmation, Korean cash, and so on and so on and so on. Whew!

In the process of packing and getting ready, I of course had to say goodbye to many dear friends and family members who I won’t be seeing for quite some time! We had a lovely dinner the night before my flight and said some tearful “see you laters”. Thank goodness for Skype!

My family and I left the house at 4:00am to drive down to Sea-Tac Int’l Airport. I was so excited to finally be off on my adventure!

I got Starbucks and some food on the way to my first flight. I hugged that cup of coffee like it was saving my life. SO EARLY.

I got to watch the sun rise on the flight from Seattle to San Francisco!

Getting to my connecting flight in San Fran was CRAZY, because my ticket didn’t have the gate number on it, and once I found out what gate I should go to, I couldn’t find it! This was me during that one hour layover:

I made it onto my flight just fifteen minutes before scheduled takeoff!

All that stress aside, the flight from SF to Seoul was pleasant. Right after we boarded, the middle aged guy at the end of my row bluntly asked, “what the heck are you doing going to Korea?” I was proud to tell my story and give an explanation for why a 20-something college grad would want to relocate to a new country and culture! During the flight, I chatted with a Colombian break-dancing engineer, had some delicious vegetable curry, did some reading, and watched How I Met Your Mother with Korean subtitles and The Great Gatsby with Chinese subtitles!

And finally, after 12+ hours, beautiful Seoul-Incheon finally came into view!!

I'll share more about my arrival and first day here when I get a chance! Love you all!

“This isn't goodbye, okay. There are no goodbyes...not between us.” 
~ S.C. Stephens