Homecoming

So I'll start by telling you about my trip home because it was the worst bit and it'd be sad to end my tale on such a downer.

I woke up at 3:30 am, having packed the night before, and cooked a pot noodle. Mike and Risa graciously woke up to call me a taxi and to see me off before diving back into their bed. I managed to get to the airport without any incident and was checking my luggage when I was told that because I was switching airlines, I would have to claim my baggage in Hanoi and recheck it with the new airline there. Okay, sigh, I could do that. Good thing the reason for my early leaving was because the airline changed it so I'd have a longer layover in Hanoi and be less likely to miss my connecting flight.

4:30 am. They look pleased to see me go.

I catnapped through takeoff but stayed awake through the hour flight. Got off the plane, onto the bus, into the airport and, in the delay getting to the baggage claim, managed to get my baggage without too long of a wait. After which I tried to figure out where the #%$^%$ departures were. I finally found a bank of elevators at about the same time everyone else with connecting flights did too, meaning that despite being the first one to the elevators, I had to wait for the third available car (Southeast Asians aren't too big on lines). And when I got out of elevator, HOLY COW. Found the entire population of Hanoi. Apparently they were also trying to leave. I panickedly tried to find the Korean Air desk which dragging two suitcases, one of which had a carry on strapped to it, through the crowd. I ran up and down the concourse twice before I stopped and whipped out my phone only to discover that my flight was, yes booked and paid for through Korean Air, but in reality was a code share with Vietnam Airlines.

I eventually found the right line, waited and waited, finally got my luggage rechecked and headed off to the International departures. And found there was only ONE damn line for security. I spent 50 minutes with more waiting. I helped one family that had gotten in line without getting their tickets and luggage checked by telling them EXACTLY where to go, a move that later paid off. There was also an annoying kid that decided he had a thing for my backpack and spent 40 minutes touching and poking it until I growled at him. When I finally got through the x-ray, the same kid was poking my backpack again and the businessman behind me kept pushing my stuff along so that I kind of knocked into the woman in front of my in an attempt to regain it. She snapped "Do you mind?" to which I replied with a sarcastic "Sorry" before grabbing my stuff and going. She caught up with a minute later and apologized and I explained I was frustrated at Annoying Kid. So at least she wasn't a complete bitch, but I'm pretty sure she was rude to me because she didn't think I spoke English. Which brings me to my no. 1 biggest travel trip: Never, ever, ever assume that because you are speaking a different language, that no one around you will understand you. Especially when it comes to English.

I boarded the plane to discover myself next to the family that I'd help with directions. Their names were Gina and Jeff, a retired physician and engineer, respectively, from L.A. They were in Vietnam with their son, his wife and her father. Apparently the daughter-in-law's father had fought in the war and had married a local woman, so she was half black, half Vietnamese. They had decided to travel to Vietnam to see if they could track down any of her family and had visited Hanoi, HCMC and some various of the smaller towns around Hanoi. We talked about everything from politics to education, history and health. They were very nice, smart people and I felt more relaxed after the nightmare that was the Hanoi airport.

We landed in Incheon and I stood up. Unfortunately, the woman across the aisle decided that she was going to try to push me out of the way, and when I wouldn't move, she was going to try to occupy the same square foot of flooring as me. To make matters worse, a Korean businessman came rushing up to get his carry on which was located right above my head. When he couldn't get it, and I couldn't move thanks to aisle woman, he put his hands on my arm and LITERALLY started to push me over to audible gasps to the people around us. I started to yell at him in my pidgin Korean, calling him the Korean equivalent an SOB, to more gasps of the people around me, surprise that I could speak (some bad) Korean or what I called him, I'm not sure. He looked like for a minute like he was going to hit me which I was prepared for, but thought better of it and waited like he should have from the beginning.

After disembarking, saying goodbye to Gina and Jeff, and found my gate, I bought the kids some Pororo and Hello Kitty crayons, and settled in to wait 30 minutes for boarding. Until the announcement that they were delaying the flight 25 minutes to wait for a connecting passenger. And in addition, security intended to search every carry on. So we departed an hour late. Ugh. At least it was the last flight I was going to have to take.

I ended up with a middle seat for a 11 hour flight. I talked to one my seatmates, an art student from UW that had spent the last 6 months in Japan. Nice kid, even if he was a little dim. The other was a Korean woman who didn't seem to understand that being halfway into my seat wasn't okay. So I didn't get any sleep like I intended, meaning I landed in Seattle, cramped, grumpy and starting to not feel very well. I survived customs, despite probably not filling out my form right, got my beef jerky confiscated, and finally, BLISSFULLY got to Justin and the kids.

When I got home, I was so tired, I started to fall asleep on the couch so Justin threw me into bed. I slept the next 40 hours, waking up every so often from Justin poking me to see if I was still alive. I felt feverish, trembling either from the fever or low blood sugar, I wasn't sure. It wasn't until I ate something and had to run to the bathroom immediately to throw up that it dawned on me that I probably had food poisoning. And it was probably from something I ate on the airline. Two weeks of street food and I fall victim to airplane food. Wonderful.

Justin very sweetly continued to take care of the kids. He baked and iced cookies for Alana's classroom, took the kids to speech therapy, and made the kids's mini pies for Alana's birthday. I spent two days in bed, not being able to move except to run to the toilet and nearly passing out each time. Wednesday, I finally was able to get out of bed, but only to move to the couch. I did however manage to keep some food down, which helped the spinning. And yesterday I cleaned the house up a little bit, which made me dizzy, so I napped the afternoon. Justin has very valiantly kept up with this single parent thing a week longer than he signed up for which was very kind of him. Not that he really had any other option.

She got the crown from her teacher and has been wearing it constantly every since.

Mini pie building

I'll start blogging about my trip, but in the meantime, here is an episode of Top Gear in which they guys to go Vietnam (they stop off in Hoi An about 30 minutes in, a city I'll tell you about later. The guys playing on the instruments I'm pretty sure are the same guys I got a photo of when I was there. And where they bought the marble statue is Danang.)