Day 1: Day of Departure

After security and all, my mom and I had about an hour or so before take off. We ate some McDonald's nuggets and fries, then sat in the waiting area just outside our gate. Gate 27 I believe. I sat there alone while my mom went off to buy herself a magazine. As I sat there I practiced my drawing skills by drawing one of the buildings visible through the large glass windows.
Once we boarded the plane, we found our seats, 49E and 49F, right in the middle of the row. To our left sat an elderly Taiwanese woman...or maybe she was Thai, I can't remember. But I do remember she was wearing a forest green dress with a red cardigan sweater and a purple flower pinned on top of the left side of her chest. We had some confusion about who was sitting where and had to rearrange ourselves. Nevertheless, all of the scrambling around helped to break the ice. She was one of those sweet older women. We learned that she was on her way back to Thailand/Taiwan to see her daughter, one of her nine children. She apparently had 5 boys and 4 girls. I believe her name was Khoune, and throughout the flight we exchanged casual conversation.

On my right sat a girl, maybe early 20s or so, never got her name though. It seemed like we were both very introverted. But she looked like she was a mix of Caucasian and oriental descent. It also seemed that she was with a group of people, maybe she was doing a study abroad or something. And although we did not strike up much, or any, conversation, she was nice about when I had to get out to go to the restroom (which was very tiny by the way).

With the long flight ahead, I had made sure to take out some things from my carry-ons before putting them away. This included some books to read and my sketchbook, in case I got inspired. Being on the plane for 14 hours, I felt certain that these things would come in handy to help pass the time. But little did I know, there were touch screens in front of every seat! There were movies to watch, music to listen to, and games to play. Of course being a product of this generation, I was drawn to the pixelated screen. So I started off with a few rounds of blackjack, minesweeper, miniature golf, and memory. I then shortly moved on to the movies. I was really excited because these were newly released movies, many of which I had not seen yet. I first watched Paul Blarke: Mall Cop, then followed that with Yes Man. I then took a look at the music, there was American music, including Coldplay, The Fray, Norah Jones, The Ting Tings, David Cook, David Archuleta, and so on. There was also a World music category, Classical as well as Korean. I compiled a playlist and listened to that for some time. I made sure to include a Korean song, Nobody by The Wondergirls, since we were headed for Seoul and flying via Korean Air.


So between games, movies, music, sleeping, and eating airline food (which wasn't horrible, I'd place it around the same level as school food, oh and I had sushi for the first time! Just a piece of raw salmon, it didn't taste bad, but its slimy touch to the tongue was...different) I didn't get much, or any, reading done.

After 14 hours in the air, we landed in Seoul. The airport was very nice! There was butterfly decor hanging from the ceiling.While at the Incheon airport, Mom and I both changed our clothes. When we boarded the next flight, I ended up in a window seat, which I love, but it was cloudy and dark, so I couldn't see much when we took off. But that's okay, by the time we were preparing for landing in Saigon, which took about 6 hours or so from Seoul, I saw some lights. In the obscurity of the night, it looked to me like a winding string of Christmas lights.