first of all, i need to get something out there. the MIA song “paper planes” has pretty much become my litmus test for douche bag status. if you like the song, i see you as a douche. at least partially. i just don’t get it. it’s the most irritating fucking song i have heard in a long time (and i live in the land of k pop, so i DO consider myself an authority on this matter). when she sings, she sounds like she has some sort of neurological disorder affecting her speech. and i’m sorry, but the addition of gun fire and cash register sound effects does not make the song hardcore or any more interesting. i really fucking HATE that song. to the point where when i go onto my american friends’ myspace pages and hear it or walk into a bar here in korea and hear it i actually get a little angry. of course, you’re not really a moron if you like the song. but i will judge you.
anyhow, on to the important part.
saturday, december 27th was the first day of my winter vacation. it was a day i had been looking forward to for a long time, because not only did it mean i was getting on an airplane and flying to warm and sunny bangkok, but it also meant that jeremy would be waiting for me in bangkok when i arrived. i’ve been in korea for 8 and a half months now, and haven’t seen my boyfriend of almost 5 years the entire time. that gets a little shitty from time to time.
on friday the 26th, i got off of work and ran home as quickly as i could. i had bought a new backpack for the trip as i didn’t want to be burdened with luggage while jeremyand i made our way around. the backpack was already packed, with the exception of the toiletries i had used that morning. i made sure i had everything i needed, and then i began to panic.
this was the first time i had flown OUT of incheon international airport. my initial plan was to either sleep in the airport or find a cheap place around it, but i had since learned there really weren’t any cheap places near by. i talked to my friend devika who lives in the city of incheon, and she told me which daejeon bus terminal to go to to get a bus to her city. she told me to hurry and get on the 11 PM bus and she’d meet me at the bus terminal.
during this phone conversation, my prepaid phone ran out of minutes, making everything even more difficult than it already was. but i climbed in a cab, told the driver to take me to the bus terminal. i got there, fought off all the cab drivers who were trying to convince me that the buses had stopped running and my only option was to take a cab, and bought a ticket for the 11 PM bus. after waiting a bit, i got on the bus, plugged in my ipod, threw my ski jacket over me as a blanket, and slept for the 2 hours it took me to get to incheon.
when i got off the bus, i found a payphone and called devika, who met up with me. now, at this point it was about 1:30 am, i was an hour away from the airport, and i had a 10:30 AM flight to catch. so what did i do? i went out! we went to this awesome bar in incheon and ate some tofu and kimchi and drank a few beers (my goal was to make myself sleepy again…). after maybe and hour and a half of that, we went looking for a love motel for me to stay in. we found one, checked in, discovered the sex toy vending machine right outside my room, and went back outside so devika could show me where to catch a bus the next morning. then, devika went on her way, and i went back to my love motel.
at 4ish i fell asleep, giving myself a whole 2 hours before i had to be up. since it typically takes a sonic boom and a team of elephants to get me out of bed any time before 9 AM, i was worried that i’d sleep through my 6 AM alarm on my phone. this led to me not sleeping very well at all. i did wake up, though, and by 7:15, i was out on the street, walking toward the bus terminal.
i decided to save some cash and take the city bus to the airport rather than the airport limousine bus. it showed up to the stop in front of the bus terminal, and i got on, threw 1,000 won in, and sat down. about an hour later, i was at the airport!
and now, i was excited. i found out where my airline, cathay pacific, had their check in desk and began the fairly long walk over. i was happy to see that every check in desk i passed had short lines. when i got to cathay pacific’s, however, my little happy bubble was burst. the queue line was zig zagging all over the place, and even extended past the ropes they had set out, around a giant tree planter, and down a hallway. great.
i got in line, but only stood there for about 5 minutes before a woman came over and told me to try the self check out kiosks i had walked by without even noticing. the line for those was short, so i went over, typed in my information, scanned my passport, and before i knew it, a shiny new boarding pass was spat out for me. laughing at the saps standing in the other line, i walked to security.
security was boring. much like this entire post, actually. i went through security, stopped at the terminal’s paris baguette for a bagel and some coffee, and had about 20 minutes to hang out and wait until boarding began. when instructed, i got on the plane and was soon in the air, flying toward hong kong.
something weird happens to me when i’m on flights alone. i get all zombified. i pay no heed to the free headsets or the personal tv screens in front of my face. i always pack books, magazines, and an ipod, but they usually all go ignored. sometimes, i’ll pull out the ipod, but i don’t bother with podcasts or movies, i only listen to music. i tend to not eat or drink anything. i just stare straight ahead, until i reach my destination. that’s what i did on this flight.
we landed in hong kong, where i had around an hour and a half to kill before my next flight. unfortunately, since i had used the self check in kiosk in korea, i didn’t get my boarding pass from hong kong to korea. i got to stand in another longish line, where a lot of my time was eaten up. i got my boarding pass, and as my stomach growled protest against my weird, trance-like behavior on the previous plane, i looked for an exchange window so i could get rid of some of my won in exchange for some hong kong dollars for food. i found one, turned 20,000 won into about 100 hong kong dollars, and went looking for what i could find to eat.
i was starving and in somewhat of a hurry, so I wasn’t going to be too picky. on my way to my gate, i found a starbucks, which happened to sell hot sandwiches. i got a glass of tea and a vegetable sandwich for something like 60 or 70 hong kong dollars. the sandwich was gross and the tea was…tea. i then found a smoking room, had a cigarette, and went on to my gate.
of course, my gate was located right next to the biggest damn food court i have ever seen in an airport. i kicked myself for eating that gross sandwich earlier, sat down, and waited for my plane to board.
the initial boarding time came and went, and nothing happened. the actual take off time was drawing nearer and nearer, but we were still sitting around waiting. i was getting nervous, and i kept checking my boarding pass and flight number to make sure i wasn’t at the wrong gate waiting for the wrong flight. finally, they changed the sign and informed us that the flight was going to be delayed until 5:30, or about an hour and a half from when it was supposed to take off. awesome. i listened to all of my podcasts, i read a magazine, i spent the last of my hong kong money on some coffee, i visited several different smoking rooms (those things are foul). again, the clock was creeping up to 5:30, the new departure time, and we weren’t going anywhere. just as i began to get hungry again and started to consider trading in some more money to eat, they announced that boarding for my plane was to begin.
i got on the plane, which was packed, and got settled and ready for coma-mode. only this time, i was hungry enough that when they brought meals around, i took one. i forgot to ask the coworker that booked my flight to ask for vegetarian meals, but luckily for me, they had a fish dish. yeah, i never thought i’d consider myself lucky to be offered airplane fish. as much as i hate to admit it, it was a pretty good curry sauce and rice fish concoction. i ate that, and then i stared at the little airplane on the map on the screen in front of me, representing our position on the planet, slowly, we inched closer and closer to bangkok, until we finally landed. i got off the plane, went through immigration, walked past the baggage claim since i had carried all of my stuff on, and began to look for a taxi.
now, here is where i made a poor decision. i knew it was a poor decision, but the consequences ended up being more of a pain in the ass than they were supposed to be. i had read that the hotel jeremy was waiting for me at was kind of out of the way and very hard for taxi drivers to find. i had also heard so much of the “don’t trust these cab drivers and don’t trust those cab drivers”, but I had never really heard who was supposed to be legitimate. but, i was tired, my back hurt, i wanted to get the hell out of the airport and into bangkok, and i was very ready to reunite with jeremy. knowing full well that this was on the list of people not to trust, i gave in and walked up to a girl behind one of the counters set up for taxi service.
i told her where i needed to go, and she said it would be 1100 baht. now, at that time, i had no idea what a reasonable rate would be, but i knew over $30 USD was way too much. i mean, a cab ride from one side of daejeon to the other is only like $13 USD, and that’s in KOREA, which is nowhere as cheap as thailand. anxious to get moving, though, i just agreed to the rip off price like a push over and was sent outside to find my cab.
i got in the cab, gave him the piece of paper i had been given at the counter, and sat back. i was pretty impressed with the way bangkok looked at night, but there was something about it that reminded me of driving down i-45 in houston. suddenly, my cab driver exited the highway, took a few turns, and was in the middle of a very modern, very busy area with lots of tourists and hotels lining the streets. something was off. he stopped at the siam at siam hotel. i, however, had a boyfriend and a room at the siam societyhotel. he said “here”. i said “no, not here”. we argued for a bit, and he got out and asked a policeman that was parked nearby. then, he came back and told me the policeman said the siam society was inside the siam at siam. totally unconvinced, i agreed to get out and ask one of the door people if i was at the right place. the second i stepped out of his cab, one doorman grabbed my bag from me and another woman was pulling me onto an elevator. i finally had the chance to spit out “this is not the right hotel! is this siam society?”
she said no. she hit the number one on the elevator. back down we went. of course, by this time, my $30 cab was long gone. so now, i was tired and pissed. the people at this hotel, however, were very nice. they called my hotel for me, got directions to it, write them in thai, flagged down another cab for me, gave the driver the thai directions, and even write down the driver’s number for me in case he decided to mess with me. i only had giant bills on me at that time, so i wasn’t able to tip them. i felt terrible about that…still do. anyhow, i got in a cab, went right back past the airport, and finally saw the sign for the siam society. i walked into the lobby, asked where the room number i had was, and they whisked me away in a tuk tuk to the other side of the hotel grounds. i walked into the bungalow-style-yet-not-a-bungalow room, where i found and subsequently scared the shit out of my poor jet lagged, sleeping boyfriend.
all night, i kept thinking, “holy shit holy shit holy shit…i’m in bangkok!”
