Once upon a time,

Krystal went to the airport. She checked two large suitcases. She found her friend Elizabeth, and showed her how to get through airport security. Then she and Elizabeth found their gate. The gate that they were going to walk through to board a plane that would take them to LA. And then from LA to Seoul. And then from Seoul to Hong Kong. As in THE Hong Kong. In China. Just in case you were confused.

Krystal and Elizabeth sat down with some other friends to wait at their gate. And then Krystal cursed the forgetfulness demons who made her forget to take her Wackee 6 cards out of her suitcase. Bah humbug. Those cards could have sigificantly reduced the time spend in idle bordom during the layovers to come. Ah well. Ce la vie.

Then Krystal and Elizabeth and a whole bunch of other girls boarded a very large airplane and blew kisses (well, at least Krystal did) to Utah as they flew away to a big city called LA. For everyone's information. LAX isn't as crappy as everyone says it is. It's much worse. However, after asking for directions and a fair amount of walking, the girls from ILP found the international building - and obtained their boarding passes so that they could board an even larger plane (2 stories!) to fly across the ocean to Korea. TWELVE hours of flying later... (which meant lots of movies and attempting to sleep and reading)... they got off at the Incheon Korea airport. Now, Incheon is nothing like LAX. It is large. And clean. And beautiful. And very uncrowded at the unearthly hour of 4am. Also. Korea is very warm. And humid. At 3 something in the morning when our plane landed it was 77 degrees fahrenheit outside.

By the time the girls got to their second layover, there was so much to see and so much sleep to catch up on that Krystal no longer regretted leaving her Wackee 6 cards in the checked luggage. She wouldn't have used them anyway here in Korea. She spent time taking pictures of the sign that says the water in the drinking fountain is safe, and the random real red chili peppers growing in pots as a decor. And napping. Cause it's going to be a LONG day.

Now Krystal is sitting in Korea, thinking about her experiences so far. This is so unlike anything I've ever done. All the signs are first in Korean, then Chinese, and then English. Thank goodness for the English --- I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't read anything.

I'm also experiencing for the first time ever what it's like to be a minority. Even though there are over 30 American girls from ILP here.... we stand out like sore thumbs, nearly everyone else is Asian. It's kinda neat. And kinda weird. Especially since there have been quite a few curious glances our direction.

But anyways. This is it! I'm off! We'll board out plane for Hong Kong fairly soon.

Oh. And pictures will be following soon.

Wish me luck!