It's now my third day in China and I'm finally both able to access my blog and have the time to write a little bit about my trip here so far. It feels like I've just gotten here even though it has already been a few days! Most of my trip so far has involved a lot of eating, even before I left Los Angeles. I have had quite a number of observations as well and I hope I can share them all in the next post or two.
Since I'm also on my Mac, I've chosen to not process any photos until I come back and have access to my PC and Lightroom again, so these are just photos as I've taken them to make things simpler. =)
My mom and I left Wednesday night from our home in Orange County after a rush of last minute packing and reshuffling of bags. We were attempting to pack in a number of items to bring to my dad in China, including some chocolate he had bought at Costco and wanted to share with friends here, 18 cans of tennis balls (as many as I could pack in half of my duffel, lol), along with vitamins and boxes of airborne.
The two of us ended bringing 2 full bags each - I had originally packed all of my stuff into a small suitcase whereas my mom had a massive suitcase and then half of another the same as mine with just clothes, shoes, and more.
For anyone ever in need of long-term parking for LAX, I highly recommend checking out www.airportparking.com! My mom got the site from someone, and after checking it out, I made a reservation to have our car valet parked indoors at the Westin Los Angeles hotel for only $8/day plus a $5 service fee! The $85 for our 10-day trip is far cheaper than hiring a shuttle or getting a taxi for a long trip. Plus, if you cancel your trip, you're usually only held responsible for one day's fee. We also got a shuttle from the hotel and assistance with our luggage and got to the terminal fairly quickly (15 minutes or so).
For this trip, we had booked tickets through my dad's travel agent in Orange County for fairly cheap ($745 round trip to China per person!) and we flew on Asiana Airlines. Dalian is a port-city in northern China near the Korean Peninsula, so we connected through Seoul for our flight.
The Tom Bradley International Terminal was surprisingly quiet since I thought there would quite a lot of red-eye flights going out. We ended up eating McDonalds since we had skipped dinner, which was totally a mistake since we were about to eat tons more on the flight...
Asiana Airlines actually impressed me a fair amount for the flight! The flight attendants were extremely attentive and nice, somehow it felt very different from a typical group of flight attendants in the US. They served two great meals on the flight and had American and Korean options even! Dinner was steak or bibimbap and was served right after we got in the air. Then for breakfast we had an omelet or some kimchi thing (was out of my seat when it was served) right before we landed. Of course, complimentary wine also helps I'm sure. =D
The flight itself was fairly comfortable and there were a few amenities. They provided toothbrushes and toothpaste in the bathrooms - a nice touch for a long red-eye flight. Having a TV right in front of you with movies playing as well as music and other entertainment options really helps pass the time! They did provide us a set time to sleep between dinner and breakfast, and coupled with Nyquil to help my sore throat, I must've slept a good 8 hours on the flight. Ultimately, the 12.5 hour flight actually felt short and survivable and I really just hope my return flight will be just as great.
I also met Andrew on the flight (who was sitting in the window seat in our row) and learned that he was traveling to Korea for the first and staying there for a year to teach English. He graduated just this year from CSU Northridge and had just applied and gotten accepted about a month or two before the trip. To me it's quite a scary thing to pick up your whole life and move to another country for a full year - for those of you who've gone abroad and done it, props to you!
Arriving in Seoul, we were an hour early, but had a lot of time to really enjoy the airport. I must say that Incheon International Airport in Seoul is one of the NICEST airports I have ever seen. It had a great feel, tons of room to walk around, many shops to check out, clear and open signage, and then great areas for you to relax during your layover.
They even have a "shower" room where you can go in and take a shower, change, etc. all for free as long as you have your own towel.
We had a 7-hour wait, and spent the first 1.5 walking around checking out some of the shops. Yes, apparently Starbucks is EVERYWHERE.
We ultimately ended up in a lounge upstairs to relax for the rest of the morning. With our Asiana Airlines boarding pass, the lounge was about $20/person, but included all-you-can-eat meals, computer usage and internet access, as well as drinks and more.
I was surprised by the fact that they had liquor ready for you in case you wanted to make a cocktail (I skipped out, lol).
My mom and I ended up staying in the lounge long enough to have both breakfast and lunch! (Note the extremely tiny dumplings that served as well - we kept wondering who got stuck with the job of making those one by one! Ultimately, we should have skipped lunch as well. Boarding our flight from Seoul to Dalian, we figured that the short 1 hour flight could not possible include a meal. We were TOTALLY wrong, as the moment we got in the air, we were served a boxed bulgogi lunch that we barely had room to touch.
All in all, the travel between Los Angeles and Dalian, China went extremely smoothly for us, except for the fact that we ate basically 6 times on the way... at least we stepped into China fairly well rested and relaxed.
I'll post more soon about life, the people, the food, and more in China hopefully soon!
Kent
No comments:
Post a Comment