Monday, June 29, 2015

Day 122: Leaving Korea/Back home

Sunday, June 21

My roomie woke up around 4am to shower and get her shuttle to the airport, so we barely got a few hours of sleep.  I repacked when she left, showered, and then checked us out of the hotel.  They shuttled me to the airport a bit before 7.  It took about 45 minutes to get through baggage and have that checked, but then I still had a bit over 2 hours before my flight.

I got some doughnuts and then walked to where the subway line goes to the airport.  My friend was taking the subway in so we had decided to meet up and chat a bit before our flights.  Met him, and then I ditched him once he was in baggage to go through security because I get anxious about that.  Sat at my gate for a bit, rearranged my carry on baggage (and I lost something at the airport because of that :/), met up with my friend again, and finally got on the flight to Toronto!

Honestly, the flight was pretty terrible.  I was exhausted, I can't sleep on planes, and for about 2 hours there was turbulence so bad even the flight attendants couldn't stand up, meaning you also couldn't use the bathroom.  But we landed safely in Toronto, so whatever.  We had left Seoul at 10am local time on Sunday, and gotten to Toronto around 1030am local time so that was really funny to me.  There, had to get my bags, recheck them, change terminals, and go through US security (which was convoluted and a pain and everyone was confused).  But made it through, ate a bit, and then went to my gate.  I tried to sleep there and it didn't work, of course.  It was a gate for the smaller flights, so like 4 different flights were in this little area, very small planes.

Well, when it was time to get on the plane, my ticket didn't work, and I just stood off to the side when the ticket agent checked everyone else on the plane because even if I was the type of a person to kick up a fuss, I was just too tired.  Apparently they had double booked my seat, but the guy who was sitting in it actually had gotten kicked off the flight a few hours before - I think he had a standby ticket or something.  They offered to let me take the next flight 4 hours later and get a flight voucher, but since I had someone waiting for me at the airport I decided against it.

This flight went better, seeing as how it was around 2 hours instead of 13.  Got off the flight and ran to the gate where I met my boyfriend.  It was really nice to see him again after 4 months, especially when he had some gifts for me to make the day better (read: caffeine and chocolate and roses), so that was really sweet.  We picked up my bags, and drove to our hotel in the city I lived in most of my life.  I felt disgusting from the flight so I tried to take a bath since it was a jacuzzi but I almost fell asleep so I decided to just shower, which was a bummer.  Had enough pizza to stop my stomach from grumbling and just passed out in bed.

121: Last Full Day!

Saturday, June 20

Pretty exciting day.  Woke up, grabbed some triangle kimbap from the GS25 (last one ever), and went to the PC cafe.  Spent a few hours there talking with people back home and playing games, just relaxing.  I went out after and did "scratching" in my hair - where they shave a design into the hair.  They wouldn't do it at the first haircut place I went to, but luckily the second one did.  I've wanted to do it for a long time now and figured may as well when I'm in Korea!  It didn't turn out too well - he didn't really know what to do - but I enjoyed it.

Afterwards, met my friend at Hansot for our last meal there - we're both such regulars there they know our order before we even say it.  Just sat outside and chatted and ate.  It was pretty chilly actually and rainy, so we both decided to go back to the dorms.  I finished up my packing, and helped my roommate carry some of her stuff into a different dorm for storage over the summer.  We said goodbye to my roommate, she was crying when she had to leave, it was so sweet.  Just relaxed for a long time honestly and waited for my roomie to get ready.

Finally, we got a taxi to a bus stop to get a bus to the airport!  There, we called our hotel and they picked us up, and we got some food and settled in around 1am to go to bed.