Heading Home from Korea, Heading Back Out Soon
Korea Trip Journal #10
38,000' above the Aleutian Islands - ??am Saturday, 19 July 2008
My sightseeing plans in Seoul this morning were dashed. First, I slept in until almost 9. Second, it was raining anyway. I had little incentive to drag myself out of bed early just to go out in the rain. Finally, I am still worn out from this week. So I lingered over breakfast, packed my bag, and took the 10:45 shuttle to the airport.
The security dance at the airport really did remind me that it's less secure than at the company I had visited all week. Both required my passport and documentation about where I was going. Both had me walk through a metal detector and performed secondary screening with a wand. But only at the company did they inspect my computer and forbid cell phones, cameras, etc.
Oh, yeah, the airport had me take off shoes. Thanks, Richard Reid. I'm glad you didn't decide to be the Underwear Bomber. [Ed: Yes I really did write this before there was an underwear bomber.]
Where and When Am I?
As I write this I'm several hours into the flight home. The computerized map displayed on my seat-back TV screen shows that we're somewhere off the coast of the Aleutian Islands. Yes, the fastest route from Seoul to San Francisco does involve skirting Alaska. It's a Great Circle route. It's the line you'd get if you drew a piece of string tight over a globe. It doesn't make sense when you look at a rectangular map but it does makes sense when you consider the curvature of the Earth.
I'm not really sure what time it is right now. We left just after 2pm Saturday in Korea and we'll land at just before 9am Saturday in SF. In net, time is flowing backwards. I heard that if you had a mechanical watch you could actually watch the hands spin in reverse. No, wait, that's just the vortex in toilet bowls in the Southern Hemisphere.
Round, Round, Get Around, I Get Around
Heading back to SF is an odd bit of self inflicted torture. I'll land on Saturday morning but then 28 hours later I'll be on a flight to Japan, where I'm working all next week. I could have gone directly from Seoul to Tokyo, but I figured I'd rather go home, if even for a short time, to see my wife, sleep in my own bed, eat some real American food, and practice speaking English again in complete sentences. Oh, and my wife and I have theater tickets for Saturday night. We've been meaning to get out to a show for a long time so I didn't want to cancel out on it.
38,000' above the Aleutian Islands - ??am Saturday, 19 July 2008
My sightseeing plans in Seoul this morning were dashed. First, I slept in until almost 9. Second, it was raining anyway. I had little incentive to drag myself out of bed early just to go out in the rain. Finally, I am still worn out from this week. So I lingered over breakfast, packed my bag, and took the 10:45 shuttle to the airport.
The security dance at the airport really did remind me that it's less secure than at the company I had visited all week. Both required my passport and documentation about where I was going. Both had me walk through a metal detector and performed secondary screening with a wand. But only at the company did they inspect my computer and forbid cell phones, cameras, etc.
Oh, yeah, the airport had me take off shoes. Thanks, Richard Reid. I'm glad you didn't decide to be the Underwear Bomber. [Ed: Yes I really did write this before there was an underwear bomber.]
Where and When Am I?
As I write this I'm several hours into the flight home. The computerized map displayed on my seat-back TV screen shows that we're somewhere off the coast of the Aleutian Islands. Yes, the fastest route from Seoul to San Francisco does involve skirting Alaska. It's a Great Circle route. It's the line you'd get if you drew a piece of string tight over a globe. It doesn't make sense when you look at a rectangular map but it does makes sense when you consider the curvature of the Earth.
I'm not really sure what time it is right now. We left just after 2pm Saturday in Korea and we'll land at just before 9am Saturday in SF. In net, time is flowing backwards. I heard that if you had a mechanical watch you could actually watch the hands spin in reverse. No, wait, that's just the vortex in toilet bowls in the Southern Hemisphere.
Round, Round, Get Around, I Get Around
Heading back to SF is an odd bit of self inflicted torture. I'll land on Saturday morning but then 28 hours later I'll be on a flight to Japan, where I'm working all next week. I could have gone directly from Seoul to Tokyo, but I figured I'd rather go home, if even for a short time, to see my wife, sleep in my own bed, eat some real American food, and practice speaking English again in complete sentences. Oh, and my wife and I have theater tickets for Saturday night. We've been meaning to get out to a show for a long time so I didn't want to cancel out on it.