Back to the Future, Part 1

4 Days before departure: Not so interesting. It was the day the movers came to pack up our Unaccompanied Baggage which should arrive in SoKo in a few weeks (hopefully). I thought that having movers doing all the work meant we could just sit back and relax but the days preceding were a frenzy of separating piles of luggage from the unaccompanied baggage and the rest of the household goods that will come in several weeks. We were so disorganized and confused remembering what was what. And it didn't help that Jonah would take things from one pile and put it somewhere else. We also made one last run to Trader Joe's to stock up on non-perishables. Of course, that required a photo.

3 Days before departure: The next set of movers came to pack up our household goods, like couch, tables, beds, which should arrive in 8-10 weeks. I got my haircut. Then we moved into a hotel.

2 Days before departure: This morning we drove to the Dulles Airport to pick up a rental car, then drove that and our car to Baltimore and dropped our car off at a port. There was a lot of driving that day.

Bye, Car. See you in March.

1 Day before departure: We took the boys to a brand new museum at National Harbor. We were super excited but it was rather underwhelming. Although it was nice and new, it was only one level and a lot of the stuff was trying to be a little too "educational" instead of "what kids are really interested in". But we did have fun with a lot of other stuff...

Then we drove to a different hotel closer to the airport.

After that we met our friends at the Air & Space museum which was *AWESOME*. Ugh, there are so many fabulous museums in DC!

Discovery

Tobin and Levi= BFF

 After an exhausting day, we were eager to hit the sack before...another exhausting day.

Day of departure: Our flight left at the very reasonable hour of 11:50, so we had plenty of time to get ready that morning. Since breakfast at the hotel was so ridiculously expensive, we ended up at a Bob Evan's for what we're going to call our "Last American Hurrah". We returned the rental car and checked in at the airport.

On the shuttle. Weee! No seat belts!

Nice man pushing our luggage

 

Here goes nuthin'!

Korean Air is known for being a really nice airline and they definitely lived up to their reputation. The flight attendants were so adorable in their lady-like matching uniforms and tight slicked-back buns. I wanted to get a picture of Toby with them but he was too shy. They were SO refined, sweet, kind and professional the whole time. None of that hokey-Southwest Airlines-gal-next-door-goofiness. They also lived up to what I've heard about Koreans loving children. They cooed, squeezed and doted over the boys dozens of times as well the other kids on the plane. They passed out these little bags for all the kids, who they call "babies" no matter how old they are.

Oh, the novelty of it all!

Lunch is a bibimbap rice bowl, some kind crunchy pickled root vegetable, & seaweed soup with a cute little tube of red chili paste.

Things were going swimmingly for the first-third of the 14 hour trip. Toby was happily engrossed in one of the many movies available at each seat. I even got Jonah to take his nap on time. This quiet bliss lasted one hour, max. 

I patted myself on the back for this.

The other two-thirds of the trip consisted of Jonah jumping up and down in his seat, trying to climb over his seat to flirt with (and annoy) the people behind us, pulling my hair, plugging in and unplugging my headphones over and over while I'm trying to watch a movie, shrieking, snacking, visiting with Daddy then back to me then back to Daddy, flirting with flight attendants and not sleeping even though it was way past his usual bedtime and well into the middle of the night.

Jonah, the Anti-Sleepite

Plugging and unplugging

A neighbor's doll which Jonah confiscated and immediately de-pantsed

Here's the back to the future part - We flew west, back in time, over the North Pole and then -WOOSH!- crossed the International Dateline into tomorrowland. I thought that was pretty cool. By now its around 1:00am east coast time and I'm exhausted but Jonah is ready to run a marathon. I would sleep if I could but this boy is all over me. After hours of vain attempts at getting him to sleep he FINALLY konks out an hour and a half before landing. I get to sleep a few minutes here and there in between Jonah shrieking, squirming and trying to change position on me. It was not enjoyable.
At 4:00pm Korea time we landed and met our "sponsor" who drove us a very bumpy two hours from the Incheon airport to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek. Even though we were in a big van, we had so much luggage that at one point I almost hyperventilated from claustrophobia. The seats were completely vertical with no where to lay my deliriously tired head. I couldn't even look out the window because my eyeballs were crusted shut.

Can't think straight, can't speak a coherent sentence, can't move

We're there

By now, running on the faded shadow of a hint of a whisper of day-old, weak, putrid fumes, we finally arrive at the hotel on the base. The room is way smaller than I thought it would be. Oh joy. There's one bed in a room and the other bed is a couch in the living area. At least there's a kitchenette and a little table. It was only 7:30pm in Korea but we were stumbling around, both kids crying, trying to find pajamas and tooth brushes and setting up the portacrib. At long last we were all horizontal and sawing logs. Until...DING! It's 1:00 in the morning and boys are wide awake and ready to play. GUHHHHH. What else could we do but start unpacking all of our stuff!

At 3am I announced second bedtime, which worked, fortunately, and we slept until 6am. This concludes Part 1. More to follow of our first real day in SoKo...