It was an uneventful flight to Newark to change planes. I had lunch there, as well. We boarded the plane quickly, backed away from the terminal, then sat on the tarmac for about 15 minutes. The captain came on to say there was a problem with one of the passengers and we would need to pull back up to the gate. They took one woman off the plane. She looked dazed and confused and said something like, "What do I tell my mother?" I never did find out if it was a problem with her travel documents or a problem with a family member. We were about an hour later taking off from New York. (note from Heather: it's not in his notes, but he texted to tell me that the woman in front of him was holding a toddler on her lap during the full flight, about 17 hours. That cannot have been fun for her or for anyone else around her.)
I must say, I learned a lot on my first overseas flight:
1. Even if you normally prefer a window seat, get an aisle seat. It makes it a lot easier to get up and move around when you want to do so.
2. Don't bother with the laptop. (Put it overhead). It takes up way too much room at your feet, it is too cramped of a space to use it much anyway, and the video screens at your seat are unlocked for unlimited movies, games, music, etc. Normally, I have no problem sleeping on a plane but had no luck this stretch of the trip even though this is when I had planned to sleep. Every time I got drowsy, the people behind me would be talking loudly (I could even hear them over the I-pod), would be playing a game and pushing the screen (and my seat) vigorously, or the lights would come on to serve a meal or refreshments. I ended up watching 4 movies and playing a lot of backgammon on this flight.
3. Rachel tried to poison me (H: Rachel is his boss, our friend and Jacob's Godmother). Well, maybe not intentionally. She got me something that is supposed to help with jet lag. I did not have jet lag but after I got home, Heather read the ingredients and one of them has a side effect of diarrhea. I did not get diarrhea, but my stomach was pretty tore up by the end of each flight. I had written this off to being off my normal eating schedule or bad airline food (in actuality, the food had been pretty good), but now I have to wonder.
4. If I had gotten diarrhea and then answered the immigration questions in China and Korea honestly, I would probably have ended up in quarantine.
Entering through immigration in China was a lot easier than I thought. I also would have had to go outside of security even if they had not checked my bag since Korean Airlines (KE) flew out of a different terminal. There was an information desk that I asked where KE was. They told me and asked when my flight was. They said I needed to hurry if I wanted to make my flight (remember, we left Newark an hour late). I got my bag fairly quickly, and then asked the lower information desk where to get the bus to the other terminal. She told me and asked when my flight was. I was again told to hurry. I found the bus but they waited until it was full to leave (about 10 minutes). I get to the KE terminal and as I get off the bus, there are workers checking the tickets to help direct people. He takes one look at my ticket and says I need to hurry and starts leading me. He tells me the counter outside of security has already been closed for my flight so we bypass that line (I had already had my boarding pass from when I checked in at IAH). He then takes me to a special security line and we are whisked through quickly. As we get to the immigration line, he pulls me aside and says I pay here. At first I thought he meant for immigration but he makes it clear he means him. I tried a five and he says "That is too small, sir. It should be $40." I counter with $20 but he shakes his head. Hmmm... Ok, I give him $40. He takes me to the head of the immigration line (about 50 people with only two workers) and tells me to hurry once I get through. I make it past immigration and do a very fast walk to my gate (always at the far end of the terminal when you are in a hurry). I rush up to the desk and ask if I can still make the flight. The attendant gives me a funny look and says they won't start loading the plane for another 25 minutes. Son-of-a....I just got robbed. Since everyone had been telling me I needed to hurry, I hadn't bothered to check a clock. I was so flustered by this point I forgot to go to the money exchange and get Brandon some Chinese coins. As I thought back on this during the week, the $40 was probably still worth the expedited service I got getting through all the lines.
During the flight to Pusan, they served a meal. I did not even ask what it was because the smell was making me nauseous. I was thinking, "well, this isn't a good start." That was before I realized Rachel had poisoned me. I finally fell asleep on the plane for about an hour. At the airport I converted $80 to Korean Wong so that I could pay the cab and grab a couple of Snickers bars and water from the convenience store. I caught a cab to the hotel, which was about an hour ride and fell asleep for about half the trip. I got to the room, unpacked and purchased 24 hours worth of Internet so I could let Heather know I made it. I also ran through my office emails while I had my dinner of a Snickers bar.
The next day started ok. I was a little tired and had a little bit of a headache. My room came with a complimentary breakfast buffet that was pretty good. (I passed on the sea bass for breakfast). Here is a view from my room:
I took the shuttle bus to the convention center and got my registration packet. My nametag also had my lunch coupons attached, as well as a purple one for the Gala on Wednesday night. I did not remember signing up for the Gala, so I asked about it. I was told that "yes, the purple one is for the Gala". Hmmm....I have been involved in planning these types of functions before and you have to guarantee a certain number of people. Maybe they didn't hit their number and had comped the speakers...
Bus kiosk with actual bus information.
Electric vehicle charger (plugs are not standardized yet, which creates issues).
At this point, I am even more tired and the headache is getting worse. Here comes the jet lag. Wait, it has now been about 30 hours since my last caffeine. At the back of the convenience store I find Mountain Dew and life is good again.
Pusan is a very modern city with buildings going up everywhere. Definitely no economic downturn here.
Since I had missed the start point of the first session, I decided to walk around the vendor area first. There were a lot of interesting things. Some were the same or very similar to what you would see at ITE but the companies were often different. Every one's product was superior to the competitors for one reason or another. Some were not available in the US. The sessions I attended on Wednesday were good. I headed off to lunch (we had two options with our ticket). I tried the one upstairs. As I walked in, there is a long line, so I get in it. I then watch some other people bypassing the line. Hmmm...Let's check this out since I have only moved about 5 spaces. The long line is for the sushi (boy, would I have been disappointed if I had stayed in that line). You could jump right to most of the other foods I had some sweet and sour pork Peking duck, duck in oyster sauce, rice, some bread and a tasteless dessert. Overall, pretty generic offerings.After the sessions, I boarded one of the buses from the convention center to the Gala (about an hour away). We were going to be a captive audience until the buses returned us at 9pm, unless we wanted to make our own arrangements. The second floor of the hotel has a casino. Hmmm...maybe I should skip the Gala and catch dinner back at my hotel later. I get to the Gala entrance and am told I don't have a valid ticket (it was supposed to have Gala Dinner written in bold on it if it was valid). She started to apologize and I replied, "No problem, I will be at the casino." Walk into the casino and they ask for my passport, which is back at my hotel. Well damn, now what? I look around downstairs and decide to have dinner at one of the restaurants. I hadn't seen anything "normal" outside the restaurant and ended up having Korean ribeye for 70,000W (about $62). The ribeye was good and they prepared it at your table. The soup they brought me was great but I ended up limiting how much I ate because it tasted pretty salty. The dessert was some different fruits with a mountain strawberry sauce. I get to expense this, right, Rachel???
I head back upstairs to the Gala (they are no longer checking tickets). Grab a free glass of wine (not very good), and enjoy the comedy martial arts show going on. Then they bring out a Blues band. I guess they are blues since they have a saxophone. The music was not Blues, and the singer sang in perfect English. So much for a cultural show. They had people in cultural clothing, a demonstration in how a certain dessert was made, some rice liquor tasting, showed you how to make fans and a demonstration of decorative writing. Then it was back to the hotel.
Thursday morning started pretty much the same; breakfast, bus to the convention center, Mountain Dew, then the first session. The session was pretty theoretical. I then headed to my session. I talked to the moderator and the other presenters. They were all pretty young and just out of college. Damn, I am old. The presentation went well and I drew four questions. Some of the topic did not translate well. The Europeans considered the system too vulnerable to hackers and the Asians asked why not just use private sector cellular technology and save on the infrastructure costs. They did not seem to understand we could get funding for infrastructure but not for operation or maintenance. I later had lunch with a guy from New Jersey working on the IntelliDrive project. He went to a session where they were talking about collecting data from vehicles. He asked how they were ensuring the privacy of drivers and they looked at him like he had 3 heads. How we do things depends on the culture of our society more than the technology that is available.
Next it was off to do some sightseeing.
I also checked out the park beside my hotel and the commercial area near the hotel. As I said, it is a very modern area with 7-Eleven, Burger King, Outback, Baskin Robbins, and KFC (where I had a $5 dinner to even out my $62 dinner from the night before). There was also a car dealership that took up the bottom two floors of one building.
There were also some alleys where there were "traditional" food shops where you could buy fish caught in the morning, vegetables, and even eels for dinner.
There were no shops selling tourist type items for souvenirs. While I was out, I noticed one of the nearby hotels had a casino, so I decided to check it out. I played roulette for about two hours and left about 60,000W ahead. I headed back to the hotel to get packed up and ready to head home.I took a cab back to the airport. The flight to Tokyo was pretty good and I have learned to put my laptop in the overhead bin. The Tokyo airport actually had souvenir type stuff and I got items for Heather and the boys. I grabbed McD for lunch since my stomach is a little upset and I am not sure it would handle the Japanese food (at this point, I still don't know that Rachel is trying to poison me). I watched four movies on the way home (I this this now equals the number of movies I have watched this year to date). I actually catch a little sleep on this flight. Once we land, I call Heather and she starts to head for the airport. I cleared customs about 10 minutes before she got there to pick me up. That sums up my trip to Korea.
(Heather: I can proudly point out that he put that all together on his own, with no prompting from me? I'm so proud that he is taking so well to his training.)
