The Chronicles Begin

Korea is my Narnia, a world full of possibilities in a somewhat cold environment (it's currently 28 degrees outside--but feels like 17 due to the wind chill). It's cold.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." I only said that to myself about 5 times every hour of this entire day, including the nearly 14 I spent on an airplane.

It's all a bizarre dream, as has been everything that's led up to this. Selling my possessions, doing a sort of "Whistle Stop" tour visiting friends one last time before departing for a year.

Seven hours into my very long plane ride, I was above the eastern coast of Russia. Oddly enough, due to the curvature of the earth, we didn't go over water much at all. We went up the coast of California up towards Alaska, then made a slight turn by the Bering Strait over Russia, then straight down the coast of Russia, making certain to avoid flying anywhere near North Korea, then through South Korea and into the airport...which is on an island of sorts.

I watched "The Simpsons Movie" which was preceded by "No Reservations", a Katherine Zeta-Jones movie. "No Reservations" wasn't very good...though that Abigail Breslin is pretty darn good.

I sat in seat 34A, a window seat, just like I like it. Though there's nothing really to see, due to constant cloud cover. I would have enjoyed seeing Mt. McKinley in Alaska and any part of Russia or the Bering Sea.

For most of the journey, the view out the window was a perpetual sunset. We didn't get off the ground in LA until after 1:30 (over an hour late), and we thusly had a blast of sunlight on the left side of the plane (my side) as we flew up the coast. With the Pacific time zones observance of Daylight Savings Time, the sun set at about 4:30. Since then, as we began heading more westward, the sun parked right underneath the cloudy horizon and only completed its cycle towards the latter part of the trip.

I was seated next to the the most touchy-feely young Asian couple. My guess is they were on some leg of a honeymoon. I mean, he was rubbing her bare feet, come on. I'm truly happy for them, but feel I would have been more understanding of their constant touching and chippy conversation had I enjoyed more than 3 hours of sleep last night. But I suppose that's my own fault.

We were fed 3 times during the course of the trip. I didn't move more than about 12 feet in as many hours, yet they felt it necessary to cram three meals down my throat. I feel gross now. The first meal was a full course meal, salad, shrimp, a roll, beef steak with potatoes and vegetables. It was actually quite good. Dessert was some apple thing. Pretty good. The second meal was really just a sandwich. Then the last meal was another full course meal, with scallops instead of shrimp, another roll, but this time a chicken marinara pasta. Pretty good, but not as good as the beef I'd had not 7 hours before. The dessert was a mango/orange cake type thing. Not so good. But again, by this time, I was stuffed like a pig.

In another attempt to prove to myself that I was actually doing this, and that I'd clearly lost my brain, I actually ate a carrot, and tried broccoli, and I even ate a scallop. All three were decidedly foul. But hey--at least I tried them!

I'm here safely. More news to come!