Ron and Amy
Go To China

 

 Day 1
We began our adventure on the subway to JFK Airport from the magical land of Brooklyn, New York. We had a very long flight ahead of us - fifteen hours to Seoul, South Korea, a four hour layover and then a three and a half hour flight to Hong Kong. I was dreading it already, so when I found out our seat assignments were screwed up and airport security wanted to confiscate my toothpaste and Amy's hair spray, I was not a happy camper. Miraculously, it was all resolved before we took off.
Foggy Airport
The flight, which was the cheapest ($880 RT) we could find, was actually quite painless. Each seat had a small screen TV built into the back of the headrest of the seat in front so that each passenger can watch what they wish. I opted for 'X-Men III' and 'RV' with Robin Williams. Amy asked me what I was watching and I told her, but we were both wearing headphones so she thought I said, "Harvey". She was stumped for a long time because she's a total film buff and she thought it was a Robin Williams' remake of "Harvey" - the classic Jimmy Stewart movie involving a giant invisible rabbit.
Special of the Day
She tried watching 'Nacho Libre', 'Click', and 'The Da Vinci Code' and claimed they were all horrible so she started going through all the music selections. Meanwhile, I found several episodes of 'Astroboy' in the Kid's section. Then I found some groovy Korean pop music from the 60's and 70's. I was getting into Sky Map as well - a map of where the plane is in the flight, so I can look out the window and know what land mass, body of water or city I'm looking at. This plus all the flight info. The plane flew over the Arctic Circle so I also saw some northern lights action.
Layover Lounge

The food was good too. The stewardess gave me a choice of a beef dish or a Korean vegetarian dish. I went for the vegetarian dish. Then she hands me this sheet of paper explaining how to eat the dish. It was called Bi Bim Map. Then I remembered that my old college roommate, Chris, had e-mailed a few weeks prior that he had taken the same flight several years before and said, "Don't eat the Bi Bi Bap - you'll explode!"
I considered this advice momentarily but then hunger took over. It involved unrecognizable some vegetables in one bowl, a bowl of rice and some thick, red hot sauce that comes out of what looks like a oil paint tube. I surreptitiously observed the Koreans mix up their dishes first before I tried it. Then, using my hot sauce sparingly, I ate it up and it was delicious and I never exploded, not even slightly.
We landed at Incheon Airport, which is actually on a small island some distance from Seoul at about four in the morning. There was a heavy fog so we couldn't see a thing around the airport. There wasn't anything very exotic about the airport itself either. We found a sign advertising Turkey Ice Cream but the restaurant was closed. We found out when we came through the airport on our way home that it was 'Turkish Ice Cream' not Turkey-flavored ice cream as we had hoped. Most of the shops were closed except for onesnack bar. I had a Korean beer and a pumpkin muffin and we played gin rummy for a few hours.
Broth to Chase a Hangover
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