The thing is that you never really know things will go until you are filling in the details when it comes to travel. I did not know it would take me multiple days to get to some of my “next” locations. These long travel times take a toll. I understand last time I took a travel sabbatical I took the correct approach with moving around the world in a step approach instead of the all of once (with the exception of starting in Seattle versus the East Coast).
I wake up early to finish packing my backpack. I hope everything fits as intended and it does. I get an email that my flight is delayed. The departure time has not changed. I look into it a little further and discover the arrival time is almost an hour and a half later than scheduled. They must have changed the flight plan to avoid something. This shortens my Seoul layover to about 40 minutes. This seems pretty risky. They give me the option to change my second flight to a later time. It is a long layover of like 5 hours but there is no stress anymore about making my connection. Only bad thing is I no longer have a seat assigned. I can assume I’ll probably be stuck in the middle somewhere of this not so short flight from South Korea to Singapore. I also arrive at 5 AM and I have a food tour scheduled at 9:00 AM. Will I force myself to go or skip the morning tour to rest??
I guess I’ll find out later.
The Terrorist Toddler
My flight from Seattle to Seoul is pretty much uneventful except with the flight extension. People around me all have tight connections that they worry about making. I feel good about being proactive about changing my next flight. However when we arrive in Seoul it appears that they are actually holding those connections; so I probably would have made that early flight if I walked really fast. Being that my flight wasn’t for 5 hours I took my time walking toward the gates. I finally get a seat assignment for my next flight and it is a middle seat in the second to the last row. Those are the seats I call toilet seats because you deal with people hanging around waiting for the toilets the whole flight. I decide that when the gate opens, I’ll go try to change my seat, preferably to another aisle seat. I head to the lounge.
There is a line at the lounge but I decide to wait in it because I am not thrilled with the airport food choices and I like to get my money’s worth out of that pass when I can. I find that lounges will not accept my pass at a growing number of airports.
I catch up on correspondence at the lounge and get some food to eat. I start heading down to the gate area since it’s a long walk and I would like to see if I could change my seat. Luckily or as I think is luck I am able to get an aisle seat and it’s not in the back of the plane. I am seated and it appears that there are two empty seats in my four across row which would be nice but I can’t be that lucky.
A woman boards late with an adorable toddler. They sit next to me. She suddenly becomes not so adorable.
She pretty much held my whole section hostage during most of our flight. And she was right next to me, screaming at decibels that probably have caused at least temporary hearing damage. It’s not really her fault, nor her mother’s. They both had a really long travel day already, if I’m not mistaken the same route I took, delay and all. It is much to ask of a 1-2 year old. Despite that it was a very unpleasant ride for me. My plan to sleep through the flight was reduced to maybe a combined total of 2 hours of sleep, if I was lucky. While we are landing every person around me is holding their ears. One person looks at me with pain and pity. I smile and point to my noise canceling ear plugs. They don’t totally kill the noise but they reduce it to non painful levels. Again I can’t get mad at the mom because there is literally nothing she can do.
I checked a bag from Seattle to Singapore. Before I get a lecture about carry-ons let me just say that I used to travel that way in the before times, when I was younger and needed less things to keep me alive (or at least keep me in a good mood while I travel). It is not feasible to carry on everything I need, especially for a 2 month trip where I am visiting various countries with different weather and different culture norms. Both my AirTag and Delta luggage tracking never updated my bag leaving Seattle. While in my layover in Seoul it became apparent that I might be arriving with no luggage.
After all that worrying about my vaccine card I was never asked to show it. I guess all they wanted was for me to attest that I had the vaccinations. As a USA citizen I could use the automated entry system. Which means no human touched my passport. I realize that also means I have no entry stamp for this country. How can I prove I am actually here? I guess the technology is so good that stamps are useless. It kind of stinks for memory purposes that I have no stamp though.
Now I am finally in Singapore and my hotel is nice. Even though I arrive at 7 am my room is ready because I proactively booked the night before….I am learning something in my old age. I am very happy to check into my room.
No time to rest though since I am heading out on a food tour at 9:30 AM.
Growing With Leala 