The taxi was waiting for us - at 4:30 AM - at the hotel lobby entrance. Whew! That was a relief. I've scheduled taxis that early a handful of times in the states and have about a 50% no-show record but our guy was there, which was good as there was no Plan B...
Today was all about getting home. Recall that our trip to China took about 30 hours door-to-door after which I told Donna "I'm not doing that on the way home" after which she informed me how much it was going to cost us to fly home in a more "luxurious" manner - I blinked and figured the misery of airline travel to China would fade into the fog in the month before our return. Well, there was a little bit of that but also our return trip was broken into 4 flights. We'd already taken the first - Guangzhou to Singapore (with a 3-day "layover") - now we were headed for Seoul, Seattle then LAX. I think it was actually better stopping and changing planes than the 17-hour LAX to Singapore flight we came on. Moreover, Donna was excited to do some shopping during our 5-hour layover in Seoul.
So, we got the O'Dark-thirty taxi to the international flight departures and were there just before 5 AM. But we were almost the only people there! Moreover, Korean Air does not have a "permanent" check-in counter so we spent a fair bit of time just wandering around trying to figure out where we were supposed to check-in. Time went by, more and more people filtered in and a line formed for what we thought might be the "Korean Air line". Donna asked some of the folks in line where they were going, most of them were Russian, I think, and didn't speak English but one guy kind of pointed us to a different line. That line had 4 women who were traveling together (with enough luggage for at least 10 people) and Donna asked them where they were going and sure enough - Seoul. They were going on a "weekend shopping trip". We (the royal We meaning Donna) spoke with them a fair bit until the gate agent finally showed up, well after 6 AM if memory serves. As I recall (so consider the source...) I don't remember ever seeing a "Korean Air" logo and any indication of Korean Air. In any event, we got checked in and made our way through security and onward to the "Priority Pass" lounge for breakfast and a short wait to board our 7:30 flight. The 6-hour flight was uneventful and we arrived in Seoul about 3 PM (with the +1 hr time change).
We wandered about the Seoul airport and while nice, we were now officially spoiled by the Singapore Airport Jewel. Ultimately we found another PP lounge, parked our carry-on luggage and went out shopping in search of ... I guess we (we, as in Donna) were looking for a certain cosmetic line which we ultimately found was not available at the airport. Donna was disappointed, but we did see what the Seoul airport had to offer - to me it was much like the international malls in most international airports but it was fun to see what's what. That took about 2 hours so we went back to the lounge and ate the first of the 3 dinners we'd have that day. Boarding time rolled around, we boarded (Delta Airlines this time), the plane pushed back and I thought to myself, "whew, US bound at last". Not so fast cowboy... we had some sort of issue and ultimately had to go back to the gate and "re-fuel" as we had burned too much fuel waiting. That's the story and they stuck with it. I found it highly dubious and was waiting for someone to be removed from the flight for one of the litany of reasons stupid people do stupid things these days once they get on an airplane - but if that happened I didn't see it. Anyway, we ultimately took off, ~2 hours late, Seattle bound.
We had a 4-hour layover in Seattle so maybe the 2-hour delay wouldn't scotch the whole works but we had to pick up our checked luggage, go through customs and recheck our luggage so there was that. I had resigned myself to "Well, there are worse places to be stuck in than Seattle" (I've been stuck in many of them...). But, we made it through with time to spare. Of course, it was Friday as we lost the day we gained a month ago crossing the international date line. Actually, we had so much time that we made our way to the Delta Sky-lounge and after a brief wait went in and had dinner #3 (#2 was on the Seoul-Seattle flight). The last airborne leg of our trip was Seattle to LAX and departed on time about 6 PM. We landed at LAX a bit after 8 PM, picked up our luggage and rented a car from Avis one-way LAX to Simi Valley (it was way cheaper than parking for a month...). Ultimately we got home about 11 PM... at last.
We were both pictured-out by this time so I'll share the only picture I have. Actually, I took 6 pictures - all of Mt. Rainier as we were landing in Seattle...
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| As bad as things were in the US then (and IMO they're worse now...), it was good to be back... |
What a trip!
In my next (and last) post for this adventure I'll try to summarize in an epilogue.
