Today, we embarked on the physical part of our journey to
Alex. The journey has been going on for
25 months, but today we got in the car, drove to Milwaukee and started the
actual journey. I awoke this morning at
4:00am without an alarm. I was hoping to
sleep until 5am, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. Between daylight saving time ending and the
anxiety over traveling, sleep has been less than optimal. So rather than lay in bed, I decided to go
for a run – 3 miles in the cold, dark air lit by the nearly full pumpkin
moon. I was out the door by 4:30am and
Ian was taking my place in bed shortly thereafter – I guess we’re not the only
anxious ones. When I returned from my run,
Dana was in the shower and a giggling Cami and Ian were goofing around in our
bed. Ben woke a little later and we got
some breakfast and got out of the house by 6:10am headed to Milwaukee.
For this trip, we booked an itinerary on Delta. It wasn’t our first choice, or even our
second choice, but economics really dictated our choice. Our hope was to fly Korean Air, a Delta
partner. We both had some Delta Skymiles
so we applied for the Delta American Express to build up our miles. We built up some decent mileage balances, but
when it came time to book, there were no Korean Air flights available for
booking with Delta Skymiles. So we
settled on a Delta flight from Milwaukee to Detroit, then non-stop to
Seoul-Incheon. We saved a fair amount of
money because we were able to use our points to pay for a little more than one
ticket. That was the bonus, but our
flights were booked near capacity so the downside is that we didn’t have seats
next to each other. So on our flights
from Milwaukee to Detroit, Cami and Ian
sat next to each other,I sat one row in front and Dana swapped seats with a
kind gentleman so she could sit next to Ben.
Ironically, one row ahead of us were five seats in a row, but when we
inquired about moving up so our family
could be together, the flight attendant sternly reminded us that those seats
cost extra so they should remain empty.
After arriving in Detroit, we took the tram from the far end
of the A concourse to the middle for our flight. It was boarding when we arrived at the
gate. We asked about getting our seats
changed because our family was in a column of middle seats rather than a
row. One lady apologized and said there
was nothing she could do, but another gate agent realized that wasn’t going to
work, so she managed to get three seats in a row and one close by in the same
row. But Dana was five rows ahead of us. A very kind man swapped seats with Dana
giving up an aisle seat for Dana’s middle seat on a 14 hour flight. He’s a saint and we thank him for his
kindness!
Our plan is a Boeing 777-200, with room for 269
passengers. I think almost every seat is
filled. As we boarded, we got to see the
first and business class travelers lounging in their lay flat beds. I’ll admit, there’s a twinge of jealously that passes the mind when you realize they
might actually get some sleep on the flight.
The plane is equipped with personal seat back entertainment units. The devices are touch screen and have a lot
of movies, tv shows, music, games, etc. loaded.
Interestingly, the flight attendants made an announcement shortly after
take off advising us not to use the games on the device as that seemed to cause
the system to lock-up. Then a little
while later, they flight attendants made an announcement that they would be
rebooting the entertainment system. All
of our systems were working fine, but after the reboot, Dana’s system wouldn’t
load a movie or tv show without crashing.
Luckily, the kids system was working fine and they were glued to their
screen for the first couple hours of the flight. After a while, I switched with Dana so she
could watch a movie. I tried to listen
to the music and it was like a sample. I
could get about 10 seconds and then it would stop. Interesting side note, Taylor Swift is on the
cover of the November Delta Sky magazine, but her music wasn’t in their
library.
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| Kids enjoying their personal entertainment systems on the flight |
So I wonder what drives their media entertainment
system? A Windows server? If a reboot was the fix, then that’s my first
bet. Where do they store the server and
how are the displays powered? Are they
virtual pc’s all controlled by the main server?
I feel bad for the flight attendants who maintain the system – there’s
no calling for tech support when you’re at 30,000 feet. And the techs must have fun trying to
maintain the system. The plane has to be
on the ground in order to access the system as remote access is not an option
because these flights don’t have Wi-Fi.
Not too long after we were up in the air, lunch was
served. The menu had three options,
chicken bulgogi, chicken breast with pesto, and tortellini. But by the time they got back to us, the
chicken bulgogi was gone.
Delta hasn’t exactly endeared us with their experience to
this point. But we kept reminding
ourselves that flying isn’t what it used to be and we did save a bunch of money
on our flights. The of idea of “you get
what you pay for” does apply though.
There was a very kind Korean flight attendant who took to
our family. She told us a few stories
and then later offered us some bonus mileage for the inconvenience of the
system not working.
The kids each got a short nap on the flight. It was odd since we took off in daylight,
then it became dark after a few hours of flying, and then we emerged into
daylight again. Most people had their
window shades down so it was hard to tell.
Our route took us over Eastern Russia/Siberia and it was just cold
frozen land with no real trace of people.
We also flew over a part of China which was snow covered, but there was
signs of civilization. We landed in
Incheon a little after 4:30pm in full sun.
That was our first flight where we landed in daylight. By the time we cleared customs and boarded
our shuttle bus, it was 6:00pm and dark again, but the orange moon was rising
above Seoul.
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| "Who needs a room? I'll just sleep in the lobby at the Millenium Hilton Seoul," dreams Ian. |
We are now settled into our temporary home, the Millenium
Seoul Hotel, where we’ll be for the next five days. We’re then heading to Jeju Island for a three
day, two night tour, and then we’ll be back at the Hilton before heading to
Gangnum (in style!) to meet Alex.
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| View from our hotel room - Seoul Tower in a full moon. |
