flying ahead.....the future has no road signs.....

Hello there all my friends in Canada, and elsewhere,

There where many times in the last week and a half when I have wanted one or the other one of you to be here so I could share all of these new experiences. I flew to Korea on Air Asiana. My first flight took off from Toronto airport at 5:30pm on Saturday. My second flight arrived in Korea at 6am on Monday. During that time I gained 14 hours, so my total travel time was 23 hours. The first flight was an hour and a half. The second flight was 14 hours. I had a 7 hour stop over in Chicago airport. Considering how positively and completely shitty that all sounds, it was absolutely amazing. The first amazing thing I already new about. That was Krista. Instead of waiting 7 hours in Chicago airport, Krista came to meet me. We took a 30 minute metro ride to her neighbourhood, I had my last North American meal (which was ironically some kind of fusion Asian), visited her apartment, drank some expensive bourbon, and listened to a compilation cd that we both sang on when we were teenagers (I sounded like I was about 8 years old!!!!!). THE BEST STOP OVER EVER. Thanks Krista!

The second amazing thing was the timing of the flight. The sun set at around 8pm in Chicago (I think). I got on the plane at 1am (Chicago time), and flew for 14 hours. My plane kept flying away from the sun leaving me in darkness for the entire flight. When I got off the plane in Korea it was morning. It was kind of surreal, but I think that my body perceived all those time changes as a super long night (20 hours of darkness). Rather than missing that half day I lost, I felt like I gained a half-day. After my ridiculously long flight, I felt rested and ready for the day. I experienced no jet lag. I slipped into Korean time easily, and the best thing is my body re-set itself for early mornings here, because my plane landed at 6am.

The flight out of Chicago was strangely my first experience of Korea (even though I wasn’t there yet). The flight was packed, and most of the people on it were Korean. Despite the fact that it was packed it was quiet and peaceful. Most people slept or kept to themselves. I slept most of the time, so this is really an assumption. The flight attendants were dressed (should I dare say) more feminine than those on west-jet, air Canada ect., and when they served us meals they wore embroidered aprons. I ate a dinner, lunch, and breakfast on the airplane. The order and the time that they were being served seemed completely random. I tried to figure out if it was related to the time-zone we were flying over, but then I got too tired, and I fell back to sleep. Each time a meal was served the flight attendants came around with a wicker basket filled with hot wet cotton cloths. I looked around and saw that we were supposed to wipe our face and hands with these. Before the meal was served they were collected again in the baskets. In my state of half consciousness the wicker baskets, and embroidered aprons took me into a fairytale like little red riding hood. With that silly thought, I missed the embodiment of the voice in my head that says “ there is no better time for drinking then……………” – Ingrid you would have liked this flight. The free drinks they offered were: juice, pop, an unidentifiable Korean drink in a can, red wine, and white wine, and maybe another Korean alcoholic beverage I wasn’t able to identify at the time. I was only fully conscious for about 2 hours at the end of the flight.

I got off the airplane, and was ready to go to work. I heard from Luke and Emily that as soon as you get off the airplane they take you right to your school so I changed my clothes in the bathroom, and washed my face. I felt surprisingly good. I went through the arrivals gate, and a shortish, chubby mean looking man was holding a sign that said “Cassandra Kasey”. I thought “that man looks mean, he spelt my name weirdly, and wrong, and if he is shorter than me, and he is my boss he will probably be extra mean to me” then I told myself “don’t think like that”, and I smiled to make myself feel better. He signaled to me to come around (like I was stupid). I went around the gate, and another kinder looking man about my height with a sign that said “Cassandra Norton” came around the gate, and said “I’m Micheal Yoon, are you Cassandra?”. I said “yes, who is that other man?”. He said he didn’t know. He also didn’t seem to think it was strange. There were only two signs with people’s names on them, and they were both Cassandra. I thought it was pretty strange, but I am learning that a lot of things that I find strange here, aren’t. One of the first things Micheal commented on was my height, so I’m glad that he was tall, because I started to get the feeling that if he wasn’t, it might have caused problems. I walked out of the airport to sunny cool air (it is warmer here!!!!! – Canadian’s who come here and complain about the cold forgot how cold Canada is). Micheal got lost going to his car, and eventually I helped him find it, because he told me what lot # it was in.

Micheal had an oldish car with a new super high-tech navigator, who told him how to get to my apartment (which is where he took me first – not to the school), and even told him to slow down when the speed limit changed (actually it didn’t just tell him, something like an alarm went off, until he slowed down). Other then that, the alarm the voice was very melodic and peaceful. Apparently, everyone in Korea has this kind of navigators in there cars. It makes sense…. One piece of information that has been really hard to get from Micheal is my address (I didn’t know where I live, since I can’t read Korean characters yet, and I wanted to be able to give my address to a taxi driver if I got lost). Recently I learned that in Korea there is not a single street with a name. Locations are found, but neighbourhood, and even landmarks. No wonder everyone needs navigators in their cars! – but what you know isn’t strange… I’m quite a strange sight here, every day. I’ve written a lot, and I’ve barely entered Korea (let alone Incheon, Soeul, and my school). I’m going to leave you with that for now, because I’m getting tired, and you’ve probably had enough to read. I’ll write again soon, and try to keep the windedness a little shorter.

Goodbye from the future……your friend, Cassie.