::A Geek in Korea::

We’ve arrived in London safe and mostly sound. Our flight from Incheon to Hong Kong was uneventful. The airport in Hong Kong seemed more like a strip mall than an airport. We were dumped into the terminal and had to go through the security screenings a second time. We got in line behind some lost Chinese tourists that were getting shouted at by their guide. We got through the line and made it to our gate with 20 minutes to spare.

The thing that sucks about flying out from Honh Kong to go to Europe is that all the time headed south to get there is doubled back into the flighting leaving. We spent 15 or more hours on the plane. This was just hellish and awful.

My seat was supposed to be on the exit aisle so I could get the most leg room. When I sat down, I had the row to myself. There was a sound of an arguement going down the aisle as I waited for takeoff. The person arguing was my neighbor in the next seat. He had bought four tickets, but only got three seats because his 2 year old daughter was supposed to be held during takeoff and landing. They wanted my seat. I didn’t budge, but I could see how this was going to be a problem already.

I had to sit next to this guy. His family was dressed in Muslim clothing. His wife and the child’s nanny had headscarves and whatnot. The man had a pungent body odor that almost made me gag. How was I going to be able to sit next to this man when he was so strongly scented? My wife was a few rows behind, scoping out the action.

When the family requested to sit all together, the stewart tried to rearrange seats on the plane to work in a seat for the child. First, he found a pair of seats further up the cabin he could split between the four of them. That way, the child could have a seat, and the nanny, with the couple sitting elsewhere. The man INSISTED his wife was unable to sit by herself. He demanded to sit next to his wife, but didn’t care about sitting near the child at all. Hmmm, I wonder why that would be?

Not soon after the man and wife left, another couple made a request for my seat. They said the woman had a leg problem that required the leg room. Would I be willing to switch with her, away from the baby? I told them I’d switch if her husband gave up his seat too, allowing me to sit next to my wife in their old space. When the man found out they’d be sitting next to a baby, they declined. Suddenly that leg was feeling better?

Eventually, the man behind me, who had two seats next to himself, gave up his seat. This let the baby and nanny have three seats, and that man moved to the end of my row. Now it was me, two spaces, a man. Behind me was the nanny, baby, a seat, and a random man. Because I had a free seat next to me, they let my wife move next to me! Yay!

When the baby awoke, she started screaming. During take off she would yell. Then, during the flight she became a true terror. The man sitting next to the nanny and girl was hit by the girl. She would yell in his ear. He quickly moved, which let the Muslim couple move back behind us. Now they were all seated together.

The family’s funk, as a whole, was really overpowering. When they would leave to use the restroom, people afterwards would come out gagging. The stewartess would run in with the air freshener as if she was about to jump on a live grenade. The nanny changed the baby in the toilet area once and made such a mess that when she opened to door, dirty tissues tumbled out all over the floor of the plane. She didn’t bother to pick them up.

For the entire fifteen hour plus flight, the girl was quiet for perhaps four hours total. She said only four words. “DA-DEEE, MOMEEE, MEE MEEE, and DEEE DEEE.” The parents of the child never, EVER reacted to what the child did. If the girl was asking for “Dadeee” he just ignored her. It was entirely the nanny’s responsibilty to do EVERYTHING. Eventually the nanny took to sitting on the girl when she tried pulling our hair and yelling in our ears. No one in a three row radius was safe from their funk, or the noise of the baby. I don’t know if the nanny knew English, but I heard the chant “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” a few times.

My wife actually got a severe headache and vomited because of the smell of the group behind us. She’s never been airsick before. It was really, really foul. The only close competition was the bad English sausage I had for breakfast at the end of the flight. Ewwww.

We arrived in Heathrow and took the LONG walk to Immigration. There was a short line, and an easy card to fill out. The interview process was a bit humiliating though. They split me and my wife up. The man that interviewed me asked the standard sorts of “Where you headed? When you leaving?” sorts of questions.

The man that interviewed my wife, however, was a total snob. “Where are you from? Oh, Korea? What do you do there? Oh, your an English teacher? Really? What are you in England for? Vacation? NO, you should say HOLIDAY. HOLIDAY. You are here on a HOLIDAY.” What the hell?

My wife didn’t know the address, exactly, of some friends we are planning to visit. He was giving her a hard time, but I walked over to try to clarify. The man expressed shock that I was married, but had let my wife try to answer the questions by myself. He asked me my nationality. Then he asked me why I wasn’t answering the questions for someone in my party. The immigration officers had SPLIT US UP in line, and MADE us walk to different interviewers. What? Why WOULD I be allowed to talk for her? YOU made the system man.

Anyway, after a few more grammar and personal questions, she got into the country. I think it was a little racial profiling, as ALL the Asian people took five times longer to interview compared to any European. As I was leaving, the smelly man came up to me and said I had dropped 2000 won on the ground. The interviewers were completely shocked at the man’s honesty. A woman working there actually remarked, ” You are so lucky. 1 in a 1000 chance that. I’ve NEVER seen anyone give money back to someone before.” Wow. Is that the kind of place I landed?

We got on the tube, then got to our hostel with NO PROBLEMS. However, the booking process was of course complicated. I wasn’t supposed to be paying anything. My DAD had made arrangements and set up the room. He was arriving tomorrow, so we wanted to rest the night after our 20 hour flight and sort out payment the next day. No dice. Even though we prepaid a deposit on the reservation and had everything, they wanted the money upfront. We used the deposit to pay for the room, but didn’t pay for the rest of the nights. They now want us to move things out of the room, wait for my parents to arrive, them move everything BACK into the room when they pay for the day today. No, leaving our stuff outside the room is totally okay, but keeping it a room we have reserved but haven’t paid for is impossible. So stupid.

Anyway, we got a bottle of water from the “closed” bar, then headed up to our room. I’ve slept in bigger closets. Four bunk beds stacked in a tiny room. The shower barely worked. The beds were clean, and the room was private and quiet. Other than that, it’s the most expensive hostel we’ve ever stayed. It is in London, and not far from a tube, so it’s got it’s points I suppose.

I’m using their computer. It’s stamped down with lots of restrictions, is Windows only, doesn’t let you install or do anything, and is slow. All this for triple the price of a Korean computer with Internet access! Wow! What a deal!

I slept for a total of maybe one hour in fits and spurts the entire evening. My stomach was still under the blitz from the English sausage. I took some herbal medicine my wife had brought. Lovely, it seems to be doing the work. We’re waiting for the breakfast service. Then we get to haul out our gear, leave it near an OPEN WINDOW all locked up (sigh) and do some sightseeing for the day. We hope to see the Tower of London, then meet up with the parents sometime to get dinner and exchange travel war stories.

It’s off with a bang.