The Magpie has Landed.

Well, I'm back in Korea. I wanted to use a fun super-awesome quote like "The Eagle has landed" but there's not any eagles around. The most common bird in Korea seems to be the magpie from what I hear from super reliable sources (like YouTube). My flight back was okay, not nearly as nice as the flights on the way home. The little video player they have on United Airlines is a great little item. I watched no less than seven movies on the flight from Tokyo to Houston. Sadly, on the flight from L.A. to Tokyo I was totally screwed, as the right two inches of the touchscreen just plain didn't work. All of the play buttons and the scroll bars were in that space of two inches and so obviously, I watched nothing but the in flight map for the flight over the Pacific. Oh well. I had 2 movies on my iPod touch, 2 or 3 on my iPod 3rd generation, and a Kindle 2. Between sleeping, Amelie, Sherlock Holmes, and this great book series called The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan, I was set up pretty well.

The plane landed in Incheon at about 9:00pm, and I knew that the last KTX leaves Seoul at 11:00pm for Daegu. If I missed that one, I had a chance to get on a KTX to Daejeon at 11:30pm and transfer to a slow train to be home about 3 hours later than I could be if I made the first train. This means that of course thanks to those good ol' laws by Murphy, my bag was the last one off the conveyor belt. I made my way down to the airport railroad station as quick as I could, save for stopping to chat with a cab driver "Sir, where are you going?" he said in very good English. "Daegu!" I replied. "Oh, good luck run fast!" And run I did. With 49.5 lbs of bag plus briefcase and backpack I made it down to the platform in time to snag a Sprite before the train showed up. I hopped on, and spent the next 53 minutes gearing up for what I call the Seoul Station Stairmaster Superchallenge that I knew was ahead.

The Airport Train arrived at Seoul Station at about 10:48pm. I had 12 minutes to get to the station proper, buy a ticket, then get down to the train. Seems easy enough, until you realize that the airport railway is seven floors below the main station mezzanine. I missed the elevator (as usual) so I lugged my bag up the escalators as quick as I could, made it to the ticket desk and said "KTX...Dongdaegu" and ran down to the train. I even found my seat before it started moving. That and an expensive cab ride home from Dongdaegu station (either I got a delux cab or the driver took me for a ride, I was too tired to care) and I made it home.

It's kind of interesting that I spent a really long time at home, well, for a vacation, but it sort of feels like we never left. Work is still work, the kids are still the kids, and it doesn't smell different or anything here either. We went downtown on Saturday and found a new little Indian food counter where we had a surprisingly nice curry, did a little shopping downtown, and headed back home. Sunday we picked up the hamsters and made our home complete again. It's good to be back "home" with Carolyn. I mean, Korea's not home, but where ever Carolyn is located is home enough to me.

So we begin a new year of life in Korea, and look forward to a new year of capers and adventures in ASia.