I am sooo tired but we gots to get to the next gate which is so far away in the gigantic airport. Seoul, Korea we are here. We have to go through the “out” door and then back to the “in” door. We get up to security and here is the big difference! Those guards are not happy! For reals… someone did something to their Cheerios that morning. Oh wait. No. They are GUARDS. They are serious and doing their job unlike Americans who are laughing at the guy with the crazy hair in line or talking about when their next break is. You want another example why Korean guards are real GUARDS? Okay…here I go…laptop is out and in it’s own tub, sweater is off and in its own tub, my bag, snack bag, Ethan’s back-pack which by the way weighs more than Abby and Ethan put together, and my camera are all on the conveyor belt. Flip Flops are in there somewhere too. Guard: I need to open your bag ma’am. Me: No problem. (Keeping me safe from all the bad people out there, I’m all for it.) Guard: You have scissors? Me: No. (I say with the utmost certainty. I fly all the time. I know this, man!) Guard is silent and pulls out a nice sharp pair of blue CM scissors. Me: Oh my Gosh! (In my head… What the H-E-double hockey sticks?!?!) Guard: I need to throw them away. Me: Sure, toss ‘um, throw ‘um, no problem! They were freakin' wrapped up in my ribbons I was bringing to sew. I pre-cut them so I wouldn't need scissors! (shaking my head)
I can’t freakin’ believe they were keeping me safe from ME! Is that all you ask? No, of course not. Before I continue, where is my family? Kids, husband, in-laws? No idea…gone! Thanks for the support. I could have been locked in a Korean prison by now and they would have never known. So…I started loading my bags on my back and then… Guard: I need to look through this bag. (Ethan’s backpack which I did not supervise the packing of this trip. I handed off to Erwin—big mistake) Me: Ok, no problem. Guard: Do you have a gun? Me: NO WAY! There is no gun! There aren’t even toy guns! We don’t even let our son have toy guns! (nerves always make me talk and talk and talk) No guns! (we do have nerf blasters and a toy one from a bday party but Mr. Korean Guard Man doesn’t need to know this and they wouldn’t even fit in his bag.) Guard points to the screen and sure as heck there is a small shape of a gun maybe as big as my hand. Holy cow! What did Ethan bring!?! And WHERE IS MY FAMILY?! I grabbed the bag and started rifling through it (bad choice of words). He has Hot Wheels, paperclips, mini-airplanes, rubber bands, pencils, erasers, McDonald’s happy meal toys, highlighters, you get the idea. But no stinkin’ guns. They couldn’t figure it out either. I grabbed the last of my bags and met my supportive family around the corner. Ugh! Needless to say I do not have real faith anymore in US Airport Security. I got through with super sharp scissors, 2 pairs of nail clippers and something shaped as a small handgun. No questions asked.
As I said in the beginning, Korea has a huge airport. And in the wee hours of the morning, the airport was fairly empty. It was beautiful inside. Very clean, with people still cleaning it. Very high ceilings and lots of neat gadgets and gidgets. We passed a really cool WiFi area. Closed. So we didn’t get to see it in full running order. Everything was covered in a white plastic as it was put to sleep the night before. We were kind of hungry, very tired & glad to be in a large space! We had no eatery’s open, no beds and a very large space. I opened the snack bag for the kids. I grabbed two of the travel pillows (YOU HAVE TO HAVE ONE WHEN YOU ARE ON AN AIRPLANE!! They really made a huge difference in our whole trip.), picked a bench of 4 chairs and went to sleep. Oops, right before that I went to the ladies room. One of the coolest finds so far! Maybe in the whole trip! I walked into a super clean bathroom which had a family/disabled room with a sign and a square panel about waist high that said wave hand in front for door to open. (something like that) It had a sliding door. So freakin’ cool. Now wheelchair bound people didn’t have to maneuver their chairs in and around the doors. Love it! Then I entered my stall. (yes it was labeled “Amy”. DUH!) And there were instructions on the wall behind a toilet with plastic covering the toilet seat. Just the part that your bum rests on. Not covered as a prank type of plastic. The sign said “Please put your hand on the sensor before use.” It was labeled “Toilet Seat Industry". No way, I thought. I put my hand in front of the sensor and WA-LA the toilet seat cover changed all by itself! Oh yes it did! I did it again just cuz I couldn’t believe as you can’t. It was. It was real. The only thing I had to touch was the door handle to the stall. The soap, the paper towels, the water even was all automatic. It was so cool in fact that I had to take pictures. My seesta loved bathrooms as a kid and I think she still has a fascination. (sorry, I outted you!) I had to show her!! Before my nap, I had to go back in with the camera and snap a few. Hee hee! It was the coolest!
Now to nap before the final leg of our air travel. When I awoke right before we boarded, Er told me a few of our gang had stood at Burger King waiting for it to OPEN OPEN OPEN. I had a little ham & egg samwich with some OJ waiting for me. Yumm…
No comments:
Post a Comment