I awoke from a very uncomfortable sleep to break fast on a few bites of the worst omelet ever and to find that my foot had swollen to the point it wouldn’t fit in my shoe. After limping through immigration and customs in Seoul I got on a bus for Itaewon to meet up with Michelle, Mike, and my laptop (hello, old friends!). I arrived about an hour or so before I was supposed to meet them, so I went to Starbucks, listened to my iPod, drank my designer coffee, and wrote in my journal. Looks like I found my Americana a little earlier than planned. Eventually I limped over to Gecko’s (more Americana) and met up with Michelle and Mike. It was so great catching up on everything that’s happened in the last month. I didn’t realize how much I missed them until we were back together again.
Back at the airport I waited out a delay for an aircraft change and marveled at how much Koreans (and Indians, too, it seems) love to queue up and stand around for no apparent reason. Finally, at about 7:30 I boarded the plane, said my last goodbyes to Asia, and headed to San Francisco.
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Being in San Fran and back in the States is quite a surreal feeling. I’m not used to being able to understand conversations I hear on the subway or being able to communicate without hand gestures. This is going to take some getting used to. It was also, technically, six hours prior to the time that I actually left Korea. Crossing the date line meant that November 20 for me would last for close to 40 hours.
After checking into my hotel I decided that two whole hours in America was way too long to have been without a mobile phone, so I went to take in the sights and atmosphere of San Fran and to find myself a leash.
Terrence and Lesa picked me up at my hotel and we went out for dinner (Burmese fusion cuisine, whatever that means) and drinks. It was great meeting up with friends from this part of the world and being able to pick up like nothing had really changed. The gaps from the past year were easy to fill in and it was great falling back into just sitting around and talking about everything and nothing. After tonight I feel really good about being able to pick my friendships back up.
Back to the hotel for a nice, hot shower and sleeping in a real bed. Ahhhhh!!!!
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