So You Think You Know Hell? A commemoration of 24 hours in transit

Let’s begin with the universal traveling truth. No flight which kicks off a day of non-stop connections around the world will ever be on time. It doesn’t matter if you get up at 4:45 in the morning and make it to the airport by 7:00 am for your 11:30 am flight. You’re plane will screw you. In fact if you’re plane is scheduled to leave at 11:30 and head for St. Paul Minnesota, in all likelihood the following will occur:

Step 1) You’re plane will be delayed until 1:00 pm, making it impossible to take a two hour journey to the Great Lakes and make a connecting flight to Japan at 2:30 pm
Step 2) An amiable black lady employed by NWA will transfer you to the 12:22 to Detroit
Step 3) You will sit on the runway for 45 minutes waiting for weather to clear and then nine other planes to taxi and take off before you actually depart.
Step 4) You will arrive at the time of your departure to Japan and spend five hectic and hungry minutes dashing through the Detroit airport like a maniac from concourse 17 to 40.
Step 5) You will board the 14 hour flight to Tokyo. You will be sitting in the dead center of the airplane, with two old Japanese men, an aisle, and three other people after that between you and the nearest window.
Step 6) The old Japanese men on either side of you will give you political advice on all manner of subjects ranging from North Korean missile crises to rebuilding Africa as though you were advisor to Bush himself
Step 7) You will eat food that makes you yearn for those hot fresh meals you used to savor at summer camp in Rock Eagle.
Step 8) You’ll fall asleep, and then awaken, ready to get off the plane, disappointed to find that you’re not even over Montana yet. Then you’ll proceed to watch four in flight movies (three of which are an embarrassment to American cinema) and when that’s over, you’ll still have 5 hours until you touch down in Narita.
Step 9) At any point during the flight you are subject to being drooled on by your Japanese neighbors, being kicked in the back by the Chinese 6 year old behind you, and being subject to utter humiliation as you stand in front of an airplane full of an evidently superior race, given that any of which could certainly figure out how the bathroom door operates.
Step 10) You will eat what the Tokyo airport international concourse McDonald’s has decided to pass off as 'chicken' while you wait two more hours for your connection to Korea.
Step 11) You will land in Korea and realize that you’re actually a whole hour bus ride away from your new home.


But all jocular lists aside, I made my first friend on the flight to Korea. Bryan has a mother in Seattle and a father here in Korea. He is studying at a university not far from mine and has offered to show me around the university area once I get settled in a bit. We’ll probably be hearing from this character in the near future, since his English was so comfortably perfect.