Long Time, No See

Wow, what a deal or should I say ordeal.  This post I'll fill you in on our flight and first days back home.  We did somes sightseeing those last few days in Seoul and I'll blog about that at a later date.  Grab a coffee or Coke and sit back, this is going to be a long post. 

Rocketman decided to check our plane tickets just to make sure everything was fine.  It's a good thing he did because he found out that Delta had changed to a smaller plane and that not only did we not have exit row anymore we were not sitting together and in different parts of the plane.  Stop the presses!!!  I freaked out.  But cool and calm Rocketman got on the phone immediately with Delta to straighten the mess out.

He was able to get us seats together not in exit row but in bulkhead.  It wasn't the best but and least we were together and Rocketman would have some leg room for those 6'5" legs of his.  We checked out of our hotel Wednesday morning and were pleased to find that the hotel had ordered a HUGE mini van that had no problem finding room for all of our luggage.  We had six bags to check and two carry ons.  Normally we never travel with that much luggage but our Korean things are coming by ocean so we had to take the things we needed for the next 4-5 weeks.  Our ocean shipment is scheduled to arrive the end of February but we don't really trust that information.  Our air shipment to Korea was supposed to take 10 days and ended up taking 5 weeks due to a backup of shipments in Busan.

We had a lovely ride to Incheon and the taxi driver was wonderful even helping us put everything onto luggage carts.  We left him with a nice tip and headed to the Delta counter.  There we found out that they wanted an extra $400 for two pieces of our checked luggage.  The old rule was that if you were Diamond, you had unlimited luggage but the rules changes in October and you were only allowed two pieces of checked luggage.  We were shocked and she lowered it to $200 USD for this one time.

We got through the Delta check-in and made our way to the security check.  We encountered the longest lines we had ever seen and this on a Wednesday.  Rocketman was not happy with my carry on.  It had my two miniatures, the Korean Tol and the Korean Food Cart and was very wide.  I also was not going to let the bag be set on it's side.  The security people were fine with that and it went through the x-ray machine.  They stopped it for a long time and then asked if they could look inside.

They never let you touch anything so I told them anxiously what was in there and to remove them without turning the miniatures on their side.  But it was the bag with pinned fabric (bojagi project) that they wanted to get a second look at.  They okayed everything after my bag went through a second time without the miniatures. 

But guess what happened?  I couldn't get the miniatures back into the softsided luggage.  I had too much stuff that had shifted.  Let me explain that I did go to the Delta site to see how many pieces of luggage I could take and it said two, a purse or laptop and a small piece of luggage.  I had my laptop so I put what I needed from my purse into the softsided luggage along with the things I wanted to work on while on the flight like my knitting and bojagi.  So I had to remove just about everything, put the miniatures back into place and put everything back.  I was sweating like crazy by the time it was done.

It was a good thing we left for the airport so early because all these delays left us little time before the flight.  We had about twenty minutes before boarding to we went to the Delta Sky Lounge to relax.  I love thoses lounges and I can only use them with Rocketman since he has the 2M miles and I'm just Silver.  The time went pretty fast and we made our way to the gate.

We preboarded and I found that my carry on was way too The flight the Tokyo was fine except for some pretty major turbulance that the pilot had warned us about before we left Incheon.  It was bad but luckily it didn't last too long and the flight was only 2 1/2 hours.  I hate when the plane pitches side to side, I'm always afraid it's going to turn over.  We landed hard but luckily safely.  It took forever to get to the gate.  We got out and had less than an hour before preboarding began on the next leg.  We again went to the Sky Lounge for about 20 minutes and then made our way to the gate.

We were standing in the line for preboarding and were second in line.  Rocketman was worried about my carry on finding a place on the plane.  It was a few minutes before they were to begin the preboarding and Rocketman and I were talking when I heard "Maverden" along with some other names need to report to the counter.  Rocketman was shocked and went over to the counter.  He was taking forever when he looked over at me and yelled "They put me in business class but not you.  Do you want to stay together in Coach?"  We both agreed that we wanted to be together.  It's a long flight and I'm not a huge fan of flying. 

It was taking him forever when they annouced that preboarding was starting.  The couple in front of us never moved, meaning they were never in line for preboarding.  I was standing with our luggage when guys behind me started pushing me out of the way.  I finally after the second guy did that say that I was in line but my husband was at the counter so I ended up third in line.  Then an employee came buy wanting to see our tickets to make sure we were where we were suppose to be.  I pointed to Rocketman at the counter and said that he had our tickets and there was some kind of problem.  I was getting really nervous by now wondering what the heck was going on. 

Rocketman was at the counter probably 10 minutes which seemed like a lifetime when he returned.  Luckily, he made it back just as preboarding started.  He said that we were both in Business Class now.  He said that when he told them that he wanted to stay in his original coach seat, they had already given it away to another passenger.  I'm sure they thought that why would anyone in their right mind turn down a business class seat.  So they had a dilemma, they were not willing to put me in Business because I was only Silver but they couldn't put Rocketman back in coach, it was all sold out.  They finally relented and put me in Business Class too.  WooHoo!!!

I had no worries about my carry on and Rocketman and I were together, sort of.  The seats are like a zipper so although Rocketman was next to me, he was facing the opposite of me.  They are great seats and you feel like you are in a cocoon.  They also lay flat so you can sleep (I've never been able to sleep on a plane) or get a good rest.  They also have a great menu and you have two bathrooms to yourselves basically.  It was an 11 hour flight so we felt so lucky to be able to be there.

A flight attendant came around and asked me a lot of questions since I wasn't on her manifest.  I gave her the whole story I shared with you above and then I picked the stirfry for dinner.  I did have trouble getting my carry on in the overhead but a nice guy across from me immediately got up and helped me.  I was shocked and grateful.  I wasn't use to that and I'm not sure an ajosshi would do the same.

The flight was great and we hoped that the bad stuff was over.  Then we got our luggage and two pieces were damaged, one carryone type bag had the handle bent so it was unusable and the second, one of our most expensive pieces a wheel had been broken off.  We stopped by the Delta baggage department to find out that they are not responsible for broken handles or wheels.  We took a taxi home and then crashed.

The second day, Thursday, I was up for a few hours but felt totally exhausted and sick.  I felt like I had the flu and went to bed until the next morning.  We did a lot on Friday.  We each got an IPhone (Happy Birthday to me) and did a Target run.  I also went to the grocery store that night.  But every little thing I did, I would need to rest afterwards from total exhaustion.  Now it's Sunday and I'm still tired.  The house looks pretty good from having a 24 year old living in it.  I don't think he dusted while I was gone but the bathrooms and floors were clean.

Tonight we are meeting our daughter and son-in-law for dinner and we get to squeeze those grandbabies.  I did pack a few toys from Korea to give them so I'll bring them tonight.  Last time we saw the little guy, he was only a few days old.  It still doesn't feel like home since we have lived in Korea 3 out of the last 5 years but I'm sure that will change with time.  We still plan on visiting Korea always.

The photo above is my T-Money card which I cared everywhere with me while living in Korea.  It's time to retire it for awhile.  It also holds the precious business cards of all my favorite vendors in Dondaemun.  I'll put it into a special spot ready for the next trip to Korea.

Now it's time to get this house in order.  I don't have any pots and pans so that will make cooking interesting.  It will all sort itself out.  I better get to the litterbox, it needs cleaning.