Getting back to Korea

We got up at 5:30am. I had clothes laid out so dressing took no time. I prepared breakfast with the last of my powdered cacao, nuts, and some oatmeal. Then my in-laws drove us to the Richmond airport. Michele and I checked in my suitcase, (which strangely weighed only 42 pounds), then went upstairs to pass through security. We were 'x-rayed'. The guard said it was only radiation like you might get with a cell phone. He doesn't know that I keep a piece of tinfoil between me and my cell phone when I am carrying it. Then we sat at our gate and waited for hours until boarding a small plane to Detroit. I had a piece of gum to help my ears equalize pressure. Not sure what flavor it was - maybe ginger? It was in Korean. Anyway, when we got there, we had less than an hour before boarding our flight to Korea. It took most of that time just to find our way to the new concourse. At one point Michele thought she'd left her passport on the small plane and she rushed back there. I found it in my purse (I did not put it there) and had to catch up with her carrying all her stuff and mine too. But we got to our gate with a few minutes to spare. I asked if any upgrades were available, but the plane was full in all classes. We boarded, and stowed Michele's big carry-on. Mine went beneath the seat. No problems on take-off. But I was almost an hour into a movie when it froze. Something happened to the entertainment system. Those of us affected could access games, but not movies, or TV clips, or some of the music selections. So they rebooted our computers several times, but it didn't work. Then they rebooted the entire system. I felt sorry for those who could watch movies and got interrupted. That didn't work either. So then they did a bigger reboot. The system was locked up for maybe an hour. That meant that I couldn't turn on the reading light, or call a stewardess. But when it finally came back on, it worked. For some reason however, it did not give me a chance to choose my language, but gave me German instead. Ha! So all the touch-screen buttons were in German. But I still got to watch the movies in English. Then I started noticing the in-flight computer showing later and later ETA's. As late as 9pm, when we were originally scheduled for 3pm. Thinking we were going to be 6 hours longer on that plane did not sit well with me. But that turned out to be a result of rebooting the system and we did land on time.
I'll bet that seat was as tired of my behind as I was of it.
We touched down at 3:08. Till we got off the plane, found customs (in another terminal, short line), got our suitcase (longer wait), went through immigration (handing a man a piece of paper which he didn't seem to look at), and walked to the USO desk, it was 4pm. It would have been an hour wait for that bus, and there were plenty of people waiting for it, so we took the more expensive hotel bus. We only had to wait 7 minutes, and it was about $13 each. On the way back I ate an apple I had saved from the plane. When we got to the Capitol hotel (took over an hour), we called Chris who had gotten home and started supper. He came to pick us up. About 6 I remember laying on the couch thinking supper would be ready imminently and I should stay up a little longer so I wouldn't be awake in the middle of the night. But there was no staying awake. I laid down and fell asleep. (Poor Chris - Michele didn't eat either) Chris came in later and undressed me. Maybe more. I awoke at 12:30am, then went back to sleep until 5. Chris awoke closer to 6. When the alarm went off, he showered while I made him a sandwich. Then he went to work while I spent some quality time with my computer.