Welcome Home!

Flying thirteen hours straight is taxing at best, but even more so when surrounded by the infirm. The man in front of me sneezes non-stop. The young woman beside Rob coughs and curls up into a miserable little ball of infection, as she tries to beat back a virus. The guy behind me can't quite get comfortable, so every now and then, he boots the back of my seat like a bronco. Still, the trip goes rather well.

Sure, Rob sleeps just half-an-hour, while I get but two hours. And yes, there's a bit of turbulence, but all in all, the time flies by. Rob has some delicious vegetarian curry dishes. I get beef stew and then an omelette for breakfast. And they have a really nice Chilean red - Santa Alvara.

I read Christopher Hitchens until my eyes can't stand it anymore, and then I try to fall asleep through four movies. Unfortunately, I keep choosing well, and they keep me awake. Date Night, a formulaic Hollywood comedy, is the weakest of the bunch, but Clash of the Titans is great, if a tad hysterical at times in the direction department. Two British movies are surprises. Wild Target is a dark farce that, while flawed, will no doubt be ripped off and repackaged in North America. And Nowhere Boy is gripping. It's about John Lennon as a boy, and while I thought the adult insufferable, the movie did provide some insight into how the "intellectual" Beatle became the man he did.

Since our flight leaves Seoul half an hour earlier than expected, we can, conceivably, avoid a nine hour layover in Toronto and jet off to Winnipeg at 11 to arrive home just after midnight. But alas, we are not at Seoul International.

Toronto International has not been named the top airport in the world for five years running, it's plain to see. We clear customs, and run to grab our bags. No need to have rushed for they're the last ones off the plane. I grab a cart and someone yells that I can't take "that" cart. An airport guide tells us we need to grab a shuttle bus to get from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. There's no one at the buses. We get in line at an information booth. The surly attendant tells those in line to use the help phone. The phone isn't helpful for any of us. Finally, Rob flags down an elderly Sikh gentleman who gives us the information we need, in Hindi. We must run down the hallway, take the elevator to the third floor, and take the train which will get us to Terminal 1 in two minutes. Pulling two enormous, two large, two medium, and three smaller bags, by some miracle, we make it to the Air Canada ticket counter by 10:25 p.m. We've arrived in the nick of time. Or not.

The woman at the desk informs us they've shut the doors and it's impossible for us to make the flight. Even she seems a bit surprised that they've already packed up. She directs us to an area where we can stretch out and nap: the nearby Starbucks. We spec it out and find two mini groups of chairs about six feet long. The chair seats are so narrow, I'd be lucky to fit on them sideways. But no worries. They're all taken. It's off to the hard uprights with bars in between to prevent napping. In defiance I try to curve myself around the metal in the fetal position, but decide that might not be conducive to maintaining a healthy spine.

Five hours have passed since we last ate, so we trundle down two flights to grab some good old Tim Hortons coffee and a bagel. We show up just on time to watch the server lock the doors. Then we get to witness the horror of trays of leftover bagels, cookies, buns and muffins being dumped into the garbage. But wait, this is an international airport. Surely to God there are other options! Nope. Everything is locked up tighter than a drum at 11pm. I pick up two mini Hallowe'en treat sized bags of chips for $1.50 each and a 450 millilitre bottle of juice for 3 dollars. Thank heavens I had the foresight to buy several protein bars in Seoul for 45 cents each, otherwise we'd starve.

It's 2:30 a.m. and Rob and I are sitting and chatting. We have been trying to sleep, but to no avail. Rob's bed was two chairs, while I sat upright, doing the head bob. Rob was actually having some success when an exceptionally loud gal burst onto the scene, her gravelly smoker's voice crudely cutting a swath through the still air. Her poor, oppressed husband, and quivering twelve year old son tried to quell her, but she'd have none of it.

We've just learned that Tim Hortons on the other side of security is open 24-7. Except we can't check in until 4:30 a.m. We couldn't go through last night either because bags cannot be checked in more than four hours before the owners. We could have stored our luggage, but decided the royal sum of 50 dollars could be better spent elsewhere. To add insult to injury, the air conditioning is cranked to maximum, and our teeth are chattering.

A burly construction worker with a thick British Midlands accent just dozes off when, suddenly, some system wide high pitched signal sounds, then drones on for a couple of minutes. The poor fellow jolted awake laughs and says, "That's an alarm clock I could have done without." I understand the need to test the system, and at night when there are fewer people around, but, we're up all-night and our nerves are already frayed, so this seems almost cruel.

3:05 a.m. - Our eyes are stinging from fatigue. I ask Rob if he wants to play a game. He responds, "Oh, you mean like the game of let's be alone with our thoughts so we don't piss the other person off?" We laugh until tears run down my face.

3:40 a.m. - I go to the washroom to freshen up. The luxe, department store facilities of the 1960s and of the current Gwangju bus depot, they are not. There are no makeup mirrors, because when travelling in Canada, women apparently couldn't care less how they look. The utilitarian mirror at the sink is six feet from the customer. I applaud the woman who can apply cosmetics from that distance.

When we finally get to check in, we learn our one bag is thirteen pounds overweight, which is news to us because Korean air let it through. Had the bags gone directly to Winnipeg, there wouldn't have been a problem. As is, we have to open all our bags and start moving around our unmentionables right there at the counter. Luckily, the check-in clerk is so busy ripping off a coworker's face that she's too distracted to light into us.

At 4:45, for the first time in seven weeks, we have a good long slurp of Tim Horton's coffee. Aah. We're off down the long, dreary, dingy, poorly lit hallway to Gate 128 to await our flight. I try to deke into the bathroom, but of course, it's closed off for cleaning.

By the time we're on board for the 6:40 a.m. flight, we're ready to nap. Unfortunately, the yappy bleached blond pushy broad behind us has other ideas. She, and her six year old, narrate the movie Shrek for much of the flight. And, though one wonders where she gets the energy at this hour, the kid kicks my seat non-stop for the entire three hour flight. Thankfully, the thirty or so kids from a Toronto university basketball team and the members of 80's rock band Glass Tiger sleep for much of the journey.

To our surprise, my sister Faith, elegant as ever, and cool as a cucumber in shades of turquoise, greets us at the airport, and delivers us to our home. The boys, Kael, and our canine children, Bear, Odin, and Gabriel, greet us enthusiastically. Odin even takes a celebratory sprint through my opened gift suitcase, which had been carefully packed so as to avoid damage to the contents. Bear is shy, and Gabriel is much bulkier. Kael is even trimmer than usual, and looks every inch the fine young gentleman he has become.

I glance at the bills and other mail stacked up on the dining room table. I contemplate the fact that in one month I will begin a new job. I consider the hedge outside that needs trimming. And then I stop myself. I think back to tea with the monk the day we climbed Mudeung-san. I remember the birds singing and the chimes ringing. I remember the monk speaking of his challenge in trying to clear away the mental clutter of a million little things that just don't matter. I remember thinking about the Buddhist philosophy of balance. It's within our grasp. It's about making choices. Clearing away the clutter. So I do.

Kael, Rob, and I grab our umbrellas, and we take ourselves out for breakfast. There's a new world order, and it feels glorious!

Goodbye Korea

Rob has a serious hankering for sundubujigae, that soybean paste tofu stew he loves so much. Like a good wife, I subjugate my desire for Korean pizza, the authentic, thin pancake variety, and we go next door to Myungin Mandoo. I have a noodle dumpling soup, and it hits the spot.

The motel owners kindly store our luggage for us after we check out. We take a last walk around our neighbourhood, this time looking in at the giant Lotte Duty Free store downtown. It's packed with toney, pricey designer shops, the types where the servers look down their snouts at average folk doing a little window shopping. I've been thinking of getting Kael a little gold pig for his 21st birthday, coming up in a couple of weeks; pigs are his favourite animals. I actually have the temerity to ask a man how much one the size of a chickpea costs. 475 dollars, he sniffs. I walk on, smiling inside for having forced him to do something so distasteful as serve a customer from the wrong end of the social spectrum.

It's back to our motel area to await a call from Diane and Sen who are in town for a concert. We slip into the motel to check email, and we come face to face with the next occupant of room 401. Woojung Rusthoven is a handsome young Dutch fellow of Korean descent who is majoring in communications in Amsterdam. He has stylish boy band hair and a wardrobe to match. He's wearing faded black designer jeans, an elegant black fitted dress shirt, and biker books. He would receive excellent service at the Lotte Duty Free store.

Woojung is in Seoul for a gathering of fellow Korean adoptees who met in Amsterdam last year, and this year are visiting the land of their ancestors. We provide some handy hints regarding how to get around and where to eat, and then we exchange email addresses. I'll be interested to hear how a hometown boy, with a thick Dutch accent and no knowledge of Korean culture, experiences the country.

When Diane and Sen arrive, they treat us to coffee and cake at Bonespe, a popular chain owned by the Lotte Corporation which has a lock on the sales of everything from chewing gum to designer clothes to appliances. They walk us to our bus shuttle stop, and Diane gifts me with a CD of the boy band known as 2PM, which she's seeing tonight. While we're at the stop, Woojung walks by and says hello. It's outrageous to consider how often we've bumped into the same people in different locations on this trip. In a few hours we'll meet up at the airport with some Americans we saw this morning far from our motel. Remember, Seoul has more than six million people.

As we bus to Seoul International Airport, we pass by thousands of people enjoying a day in the sun. In Seoul, this means sitting on rocks under bridge, or setting up red and blue umbrellas, row on row, on wooden peers that jut into the Han River. There's no beach to speak of. God help anyone who loses their group, for everything looks exactly the same. It's just like the millions of skinny highrises everywhere we've been. They are absolutely identical, and when grouped, present a scene like that in a science fiction movie.

We check in at 6pm for a 9pm flight, but are unable to get the bulkhead row to stretch out our legs because the flight is full. We do get a window seat, but at a spot where there is no window. Meals at the airport are fairly reasonably priced, especially considering the high standards and upscale nature of the place. We end up grabbing a shrimp burger and a bulgogi burger at the Lotteria, owned by, you guessed it, the Lotte Corporation. Again, science fiction is ahead of the curve having predicted decades ago a world run by mega corporations.

We arrive at our departure gate and doublecheck to make sure all items we may require on board are within reach. I walk by a beautiful young Sikh fellow in a black turban, dark brown dress shirt, and dark jeans. He smiles and says, "Hello." His ink black eyes and princely features are capped off with a flashy smile featuring a perfect set of the purest white teeth. I notice a sign that promotes Seoul Airport as being Number One in the world for five years in a row, including last year. Yes, I can certainly see why!