Day 2 - Flight and Incheon

I love to fly.  It's not that I'm obsessed with being scanned, checked and crammed into tiny spaces with limited bathroom facilities.  My favorite moment of a flight is always the liftoff, followed by the descent.  In between, there are glimpses of the lands and seas below and the perpetual beds of fluffy, inviting clouds.

Floating somewhere over Canada...

Of course, one of the downsides of international flights is the meals.

Lunch #1: Unidentifiable vegetarian item with boiled fruit in the black tray,  surprisingly crisp
iceberg lettuce salad in the box, packaged bread and cookies and melted margarine.

Lunch #2: Mushy "chow mein" noodles, vegetables and dumplings
in the black tray,potato chips and raspberry shortbread.

But there are views of Alaska along the way!

The Alaskan summer is thought to be lovely, full of flowers and life.

And airports always have the most interesting architecture.

And toilets!  I think this is a Korean thing, but there are little spools of plastic the cover the toilet seat and move with the push of a button to clean the seat.

The button on the wall is to flush, and the red button
on the toilet is to change the plastic.  Handy!

In the Incheon Airport, there was a beautiful cactus display, with a cute sign.

After about 40 minutes on a bus to SUNY Korea...

Here we are!  It's proof that all four of us made it!

And a picture with our guide, a very kind person who met us at Incheon Airport and led us to our dormitories at SUNY Korea.

Here we are, in front of the cafeteria before dinner.

Speaking of dinner...

Soup, rice, imitation crab meat (mostly fish), bean sprouts and kimchi.
I regret to admit that kimchi may be an acquired taste.
I have not acquired a taste for kimchi.

The dinner was alright.  The food was well-prepared, but I hadn't quite adjusted to the time and wasn't quite hungry.  The soup was a warm broth of beef and daikon (white radish).  It was quite rich to my taste, since I don't really eat meat.  The rice was ordinary white rice, quite comforting to me since I grew up eating it with every dinner.  The bean sprouts were nutty and lightly cooked.  The red item on the left is the imitation crab meat, which was cooked in a sort of ketchup sauce.  The red item on the right is the kimchi.  

After a 10pm walk to the local Family Mart (a 7-11 equivalent) for toilet paper, snacks and a few other items, we returned to our rooms and promptly began remedying the 13+ hours of jet lag.