The End of the Beginning

It was time for me to head to the gate so I left. A lot of Korean families, foreigners and a few people my age or older traveling alone were already on the line. We went in, this time with no trouble, and I looked for my seat. Since I had an H seat, I was expecting a window seat. When I got to row 34, I saw a girl already sitting next to the window. I quickly glanced at the top display that showed which letter corresponded to which seat. Isn’t that my seat? I asked the girl what seat letter she was sitting on. She looked surprised and said, “Uh…34F, I think.” The man sitting on 34G looked up and said, “This is 34F.” He pointed at the seat next to him. The girl looked confused and looked through her bag for her ticket. “Wow, I fail,” she said as she was half-walking away from her seat and half-looking through her bag for her ticket. She finally found it and I took a look at it. The ticket read 34J. I looked over the seat display on top again and sure enough seat 34J was next to the window. I felt a bit embarrassed for causing a scene so I quickly said sorry to her and took my seat.

The girl next to me was my age…or looked like it. She was a happy looking teen with blondish-brunette hair, eyes dressed in blue eyeshadow, liner and mascara and wearing a T-shirt, sweatpants and flip-flops. I looked out the small window next to her and asked if it was raining. She told me it was raining earlier and it stopped just recently. We didn’t talk for a while but later on she asked me where I was from. After an exchange of a few words, I found out her name was Vicky from Virginia and she’s in college in North Carolina. I think she’s a year younger than me. We talked more and complained how the T.V. wasn’t working. Every seat had a small T.V. screen built in the seat in front of them. We could watch movies from that screen! While we waited for the screen to turn on, Vicky told me about how she ran into so many problems in the airports. Her flight was delayed for 12 hours so after she complained to the airline about it, she got a free hotel room to stay in while the plane was waiting for departure. After that, her next plane was also delayed for a few hours. I was shocked at how much time she had to “waste” just to get to Korea. Well I can’t say JUST to get here because it is a very long trip. I thought 14 hours on a plane was enough but she had to wait another 15 hours in between. While we tried to play around with the remote control to get the T.V. working, I accidentally pressed the button to call the stewardess. She came up to me and asked if I needed anything. My face flushed and I said I made a mistake and she left with a slight annoyance.

We got off the plane finally and proceeded to customs. Since I was a Korean resident, I think it was easier for me to get through. I waited until Vicky got in and we headed to the bag check. After I saw a huge line of carts a bit further away from the bag check, I told Vicky to get two while I wait for our luggage. Her bags had ribbon tied on them. I thought it would be easy to spot but it seemed like every other bag had ribbons on it. Thankfully, I pulled two out that had the same kind of ribbon tied on the handle. They were both hers. We stacked our luggage on our carts (we took advantage of the free carts since in the U.S, it’s about 3 dollars to use one) and headed to the exit. I saw a fair amount of people waiting behind a metal fence. It was just like the movies! I heard from my mom that either my eldest aunt or my third aunt (from the Bronx) was going to pick me up so I looked hard for a female ajumma. Vicky spotted her friend so she left early. After looking around, I finally saw a man holding up a sign that said “Welcome to Korea” printed in script and on the bottom that said “Kim Hyo-Jung.” The man holding it was my uncle and I was a bit surprised. I called out, “Emobu!” and gave a quick bow. It was a bit embarrassing with so many people watching. So, we went out and waited for the bus. It was a long ride…the bridge was so long. I saw it when the plane was landing. It looked fairly long from up there but it’s a completely different story when you’re actually on it.

We got off the first stop, which took about an hour or so. We lugged out my luggage and backpack and we continued to walk. My uncle asked me if I wanted anything to eat. I still had indigestion so I didn’t feel like eating. I shook my head and continued to walk until we got to a green metal door. I almost missed it since it was hidden between a cleaners and a convenience store. The metal door creaked as my uncle and I pushed it open. A narrow concrete alleyway greeted us and we took a right towards the stairs. When we reached the top, there was a door to our right side. Since they live on the top floor we had to open another gate and walk another flight of stairs to reach the house. We finally arrived. My aunt was already there and said hi. I was exhausted and bowed. It was around 11 or 12 at night so Misun was already sleeping. Misun is my female cousin’s daughter. We talked for a bit and ended up watching a video that was recorded in 1992. This was when my family (excluding my brother who was probably still at school) my aunt and uncle and some of their friends went to see some island. It was cool…a blast from the past, literally. I recognized the place they were at because I have pictures of them back at home. It’s weird watching something that you only saw in pictures. After we finished watching it, it was already 1 so we decided to sleep. I was to go straight to Tongyung tomorrow.