Back in Korea

The flight was uneventful. I picked my seat-the very last window seat on the plane because it was a two seater. My seat-mate was a friendly American girl visiting her missionary friend in Suwon. We only chatted in the beginning of the flight-the rest of the time she was sleeping. I, on the other hand, barely slept at all. I watched 4 movies and dozed a total of 1 1/2 hours. The flying time was actually only 13 hours; I had thought it was going to be 14, though at that point, what's one hour?

We landed and it kind of hit me that this will be the last time in a really long time I'll be making the flight from the US to Korea and touching down. While we were filing off the plane, they played a piece from Vivaldi's Four Seasons and I thought of Dad. The line for Korean passports was a little long, but a lot shorter than foreign passports so I picked that line to go through-so nice I have the option. Then I went to collect my bags, which I wasn't looking forward to at all. I didn't have to wait long-then through customs and off to the AREX to come home. I felt awkward with all my bags so I ended up standing on the 40 minute ride. Anyway, I had just sat for 13 hours so not a big deal. The trickiest part was making the transfer at DMC from the AREX to line 6. There are only stairs at one point-so I just picked up my suitcase and prayed my arm muscles were strong enough to get it down the 30 or so steps. I did and I had perfect timing and hopped on the arriving subway.

When I got to Eungam Station, I wheeled my bag to the elevator to leave the station. There was an ajuma also waiting for the elevator-when she saw me with my two giant duffles and a suitcase she actually clicked her tongue at me! She told me to put my bigger, heavier bag on top of the suitcase, but I tried explaining there wasn't room and I was ok. Once on the elevator, she took one end of the bag and propped it on the railing to take some of the weight off of me. When we got off the elevator she helped wheel my suitcase out and asked which way I was going. She helped push my suitcase a little ways, maybe a total of 100 meters or so, but it was very sweet and kind of her. She was kind of muttering I should take a bus, but there's no way I could get on a bus with all that luggage! I got really frustrated the remaining 400 meters back to my place because people would NOT get out of my way. I'm sorry, I'm just a 90 something pound girl with around 100 pounds of luggage. Excuse me if I happen to run you down since you, not carrying anything will not move out of my way. I'm sure I got a workout out of that. And a few bruises.

Back at my building my doorman was sweet and helped me bring my bags up. I opened my windows and aired out my room. Then, time for unpacking. I got through 1/2 of the bags before I got tired of doing that. I took a shower to rinse off and then went to Emart to fill water bottles. I tried to go to bed early, but couldn't fall asleep and stay asleep.