Korea--Day 14 (Friday, July 6)

Up at 5:30 a.m. to take the bus to the airport.This is the last picture I took in Korea:

 The mysterious Mr. Kim.  He didn't travel with us but appeared everywhere we went, like a magical unicorn.  He did a lot of behind-the-scenes work.

When we were checking in at the airport, the Korean airport employee said to me, "Mrs. Janes, you have been selected for..." and I couldn't understand the rest of what he said.  I hoped I had been somehow selected for a free bump to first class.  So I asked him excitedly, "I have been selected for what?" and this time I understood that I had been selected for extra security searches.  When we went through security, I was the only one who had to take off my shoes, have the metal detector wand waved over me, and be patted down very thoroughly.  My bags were segregated from everyone else's and searched equally thoroughly.  An airport employee took out a little silver strip that looked like a bandaid and wiped it all over my luggage. Then she took my passport and the little silver strip all the way across the room until I could barely see her anymore. She stuck the bandaid thing into a machine and did things I couldn't see. Meanwhile,  I was interrogated and inspected. Finally, I was deemed no threat to national security and allowed to go to the gate.   Three hours later when we went to board the plane, the airport employee scanned my boarding pass, and a red light started flashing and a message popped up that said, "Unable to board". I was whisked off to a little room, where I was made to take off my shoes, spread my arms and legs, be felt up and probed by a female officer, and have every item in my backpack taken out and inspected. The rest of my family just breezed right onto the plane.  Being "selected" isn't always a good thing.

 My vegan meal on the plane.  It came way before everyone else's and was delicious. The flight attendant came along with the hot towels again.  She held one out to me in her tongs and said, "Careful. Very hot." as she dropped it right on me.  It was indeed very hot, and within two seconds, it was cold.  I wiped my hands and face with it, because that's what everyone else was doing, but I really didn't see the point.  It's not like I had been working in a coal mine all day.  I was still clean from my shower. I did not get the random banana this time, but I saw someone else did.  I still don't know what means.

 The flight was only about 12 hours this time.  We were going almost 700 miles per hour.

 

Chicago, still thousands of miles from us.

Talking to Jee, the cute kid in front of us.

The lady in front of me draped her hair over my screen, so it was always part of the movies I was watching.  One time it was perfectly positioned atop Woody Harrelson's head so it looked like he had hair. 

It was Noah's turn for the window seat on this leg of the journey, so he snapped this photo.

My friend Allison's parents live close to O'Hare, so we had parked our van at their house, and her dad came and picked us up at the airport. Sarah went to sleep immediately and slept all the way home.  Now we're home, and there is so much to do: unpacking, putting everything away, doing lots of laundry, going through two weeks of mail, etc.  It feels strange to be home and have so much space and see so many white people. It will take us awhile to stop bowing to everyone and saying "kamsahamnida" ("thank you" in Korean).  Despite several disappointments and unexpected surprises, it was the trip of the lifetime that we hoped it would be.  We will be unpacking the memories and storing them up for years to come.