Seoulshine better than sunshine, better than moonshine and damn sure better than rain.

My buddy Matt mentioned that there was a free Internet place in Seoul, well this time I found it. I have some time to kill so I guess I will give you an update.

Last night I made my way to Utapao via the Holiday Inn Limo, which is just a Mercedes but never the less a fine ride.

The main reason why I took the limo is because I did not want to worry about some taxi driver not being able to figure out where he is going. Well my limo driver pulled off into a gas station at one point to ask directions. After we got back on the highway I asked him if he knew where he was going and he said yes. Once we finally arrived, he said it was his first time to the airport, so basically he did not have a clue but we arrived in one piece.

One major issue with Thailand's highways is lack of lighting, I was getting a little nervous, especially when the driver was passing cars with his high beams on. Another quirk with Thailand drivers is the use of the high beam, they tend to use it just like a blinker. Also the fast lane is the right lane so if you are coming up a car going slower than you, just flip your high beam a couple of times and they will move over. I guess the challenge is to try to change lanes while blinded.

Once I arrived at the airport which is not set up to handle commercial flights it was like traveling in the U.S. the day before Thanksgiving. There were probably around a 1000 passengers waiting to check luggage and get ticketed.

After about 2 hours of waiting I made my way to the gate, which was actually just a door with the number one on it, from there we took a bus to the plane.

The flight was supposed to leave at 2:30am but did not leave until 4am, which was not big deal because my five hour layover just became a four hour layover in Seoul.

Here is one observation from this morning, if you are Korean and dating or married you wear matching outfits. I could not believe how many matching pairs I saw, in some cases the outfits were exactly the same and in other cases they were the same design but different colors. When I say outfits I mean everything from top to bottom. I would have had a excellent picture opportunity but I was too lazy to dig my camera out of the bottom of my pack.

The flight was smooth for the most part, I am rolling on about two hours sleep but hopefully I can stay awake until my LAX leg so I can sleep a good majority of the flight.

ㅆ맏 ㅊㅁㄱㄷ,

ㅖㅗㅑㅣ

(take care,)
(Phil) - The wonderful Korean language