Sunday, 25 January 2015  The Journey Home

I am reminded again of one of my favorite quotations, a sentiment often made, and very well-said by the following, the last line in the book Up Country by Nelson DeMille:

The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination, and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.

“The journey is more significant than the destination…” Absolutely!

The journey home started Saturday evening at about 8:00 when the taxi picked me up at The 3-Sis to go to the Chiang Mai airport. I am on the same Korean Air flights as last year, (1) leaving Chiang Mai at 11:55 PM for Chiang Mai to Incheon (Seoul), then (2) Incheon to Los Angeles at 3:00 PM after an eight-hour layover in the Incheon airport. After a wait to board, as I was quite early, I

found that the flight was delayed about 20-30 minutes. This was not a surprise, since the plane had just arrived from Incheon at about 10:40 PM, and it does take some time to clean up and turn around a large Boeing 777. The flight to Incheon was about 5 hours, as scheduled. Being an overnight, “red-eye” flight, almost everyone went to sleep right away. I seldom sleep well on airplanes, so I started perusing the available movies. I watched two or three forgettable, mediocre or even poor films, while I tried unsuccessfully to sleep.

Incheon Airport

After arriving at the Incheon airport, all international transfer passengers go through an international transfer security. This is common at the relatively few international airports in which I have transferred in the past. In my few past visits to Incheon, I had the impression that this was a well-organized, efficiently run airport. And I am not the only one, I learned that a group called the Airports Council International has rated Incheon the best airport worldwide from a passenger perspective for eight years in a row, 2005 through 2013.

Incheon is a new airport serving Seoul, S. Korea, having officially opened in March, 2001. Incheon is a large airport, with 74 boarding gates, 44 of which are in the main terminal building. Incheon is the main airport hub for Korean Air, and serves as a hub for international civilian air transportation and cargo traffic in East Asia. Incheon is the world’s fourth busiest airport by cargo traffic, and the eighth busiest airport in terms of international passengers.

Korean Air International Transfer Economy Lounge

A very nice amenity at Incheon for Korean Air passengers is the Korean Air Economy Lounge, not business Class or First Class, but a lounge for Economy Class! I found it again with no trouble, the sign says “Rest & Relax” and it is indeed for Korean Air economy passengers. After showing my boarding pass, I entered. This is a really nice lounge! and one can rest and relax here.

There is an area with about 30 or more computers set up for checking e-mail or browsing the internet, a separate area with many (40 or more) large lounge chairs for sleeping, a cafeteria, and some other areas I did not explore. I found one of the lounge chairs, set down my things, and fell asleep almost immediately – I did not sleep on the plane, so I was really tired. I slept for about 4 hours. It was very nice!

After waking, I took my carry-on bag in which I had clothes to an area in the lounge where you can check out a towel and go into a private bathroom with a shower! The bathroom is a decent size, with a sink, toilet, large mirror, good lighting, a strong low shelf for unpacking & repacking, and a shower! They give a small packet of body wash gel, a pack of shampoo, and a toothbrush with small sample of toothpaste. This was very nice! After checking out of the hotel at noon, walking around in the afternoon, having dinner, and being on the plane much of the night, a shower and clean clothes was really nice!

Feeling refreshed, I found the same restaurant, Cafe Vita, at which I ate last year, and had a very nice small meal.

I took several pictures inside the Incheon airport, but none conveys the rather substantial size.

Incheon to Los Angeles on the Airbus A380

Our flight from Incheon to Los Angeles, Korean Air KE17, is on an Airbus A380-800. The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger aircraft made, with an upper deck that extends the whole length of the aircraft. This was the best angle picture I could get of the plane I’ll be on, waiting at the gate. The picture does not really show the massive size of this airplane.

Our flight leaves Incheon at 3:00 PM Sunday, January 25, 2015, and is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles at 9:00 AM Sunday, January 25, 2014 … a full 6 hours before we leave. Traveling east across the International Date Line is an interesting time travel experience.

We did leave on time, and the flight was scheduled to be about 11 hours. It is a long flight. And, because I had slept for almost four hours in the airport, I was not expecting to sleep on the plane. But I was still pretty tired, and after take-off, I started trying to read and watch the mind-numbing, boring movies in the hopes I could fall asleep. I did sleep some, and it was a long flight. Fortunately, we arrived about 30 minutes early.

Welcome to Los Angeles

I am back in the U.S.A. It feels so good. What a journey!

Next: Reflecting on Another Winter in Chang Mai