28 hours...

I knew before I left that I was going to spend a very long time up in the air to get from Virginia to Vietnam.  I did not, however, do the complete math including travel time and layovers! As I was waiting to board my first plane, I found myself getting hungry.  Knowing that the next three (!) meals would be served on a plane, I decided it was ok to grab a snack in the airport.  (Thanks to Dan for supporting that decision!)

When I travel by myself, I prefer to have an aisle seat. Somehow, I'd rather be the one getting up for other people than having to ask someone else to move anytime I want to stretch my legs.  (If I travel with someone else, I'm all about the window seat!)  As my row mates arrived, one of the first things the guy in the middle seat said to me was "So, you're not Korean."  Clearly I still stand out in a crowd of Asians (if you know the Japanese zoo story from my childhood, you'll appreciate that).  Nathan, from Winchester VA, was also traveling to a family wedding in Ho Chi Minh City.  Since he seemed normal and conversation flowed easily, I was excited to have someone to hang out with during the layover in Seoul. 

Korean Air has planes with the individual screens at each seat.  So much nicer than craning your neck to see a big screen at the front of a section of seats!  I was gearing up for a marathon movie session but ended up having more conversation.  Not a bad alternative :)  I did manage to watch Megamind and The Romantics (two separate movies).

The flight from Dulles to Seoul was a little over 14 hours in length and included lunch and dinner.  For lunch I opted for a traditional Korean dish bibimbap...the non-American woman in our row (not sure of her exact ethnicity, but not Korean) was given a card with instructions on how to eat the meal.  I'm not sure why Nathan and I were not offered the same card, but she was nice enough to share.  The woman across the aisle from me also tried to help.  She was very thoughtful, but the way she watched every bite I took made me a bit nervous, especially since I didn't absolutely love the meal! I'm chalking it up to being airplane food and may one day try the dish again.  Dinner was much less exotic, but had a delicious piece of chocolate cake for dessert!

Upon arrival in Seoul, we had about two hours to fill before boarding our next flight.  A really neat feature of Incheon are the Korean Traditional Cultural Facilities.  They were part store, part stage and part arts and crafts.  We arrived at one of them just as a music performer was finishing.  At the end they passed out drums to the audience to join in- very cool!  Then, if you were not Korean, you could make one of the crafts for free.  We opted for the Korean prints created from Korean paper, water, fans, brushes and ink blotters.  Nathan and I probably do not have professional futures in this activity, but we had fun trying!

We also saw a bit of theater in the terminal with a group of men and women dressed in traditional Korean garb....as best I could tell, there was a King and Queen and either members of a royal court or servants of some kind.  It was neat to see the tradition.  I tried to get a picture and will post it if it turned out!

Another bonus to making a plane friend...he will be returning to the US on the same flight!  Since I will be coming from Hanoi not HCMC, we will meet up in Seoul (and maybe try another craft!).  It's nice not to be completely alone in a crowd!

The flight from Seoul to HCMC was close to five hours.  We had dinner again, my highlight being the strawberry cheesecake ice cream.  I also chose to accept the glass of wine with this meal (having turned it down during the previous 2).  I'm not sure what kind of Reisling it was, but it had a nice flavor.  In honor of the Oscars, which I knew I would miss seeing, I watched The King's Speech and Black Swan.  Now I feel almost caught up in the world of pop culture!

There was a driver from the hotel waiting outside the airport to pick me up.  The drive to the Rex took about 20 minutes and there were numerous times I thought things looked familiar- pretty sure I was wrong every single time!  Check in went quickly and there was even a note from my local contact (he's South African but has lived here for the last 9 months after going to school in the US and working in the US and Europe.  There was a bit of a translation error when he left the message (what I received said he wished me a good life...as if he wouldn't be meeting up with me the next day...made me nervous for a moment, but at that point I was too tired to worry too much!).  Turns out he had a rugby injury from the weekend and had taken a painkiller prior to phoning the hotel.  We're not sure if the translation error was due to language or the meds, but we shared a good laugh over it :)

We're off to lunch and another meeting before flying to Hanoi...I'm sure there will be more adventures to share from there!

Erin