Timeless void

I have spent the last twelve hours unsure whether to eat, sleep, or try to contact people. It has been like some sort of detox center. For the last two days I have seen nothing but light, now my body is trying to slowly adjust to the idea that I am on a completely different schedule. I am awake yes, but should I be? I leave for work in just under 3 and a half hours. I did not bother setting an alarm, a bold move that kept me from getting any solid sleep out of nervous irritation. The hotel room keeps making strange popping sounds, like someone is throwing stones at the window to get my attention, yet I am on the tenth floor. Upon arrival I flipped through the channels and found lots of sports, including sumo wrestling, and a movie with Nicholas Cage in it. I unplugged the television. It is the awful kind that makes the faint buzzing sound even when in standby mode. There's that popping again, this time from the refrigerator I think.

The flight went mostly well. My traveling companions were Daniel to the left of me, an electrical engineer traveling to Korea with the purpose of programming some robots or something, and Il-Ryong Kim, an engineer businessman doing working with MGA on car crash testing in Wisconsin. His first reaction to America was largely the same as many others I had heard; everything is so big. He said he got to eat traditional American food like steak, but that he could not find a proper souvenir since everything that is cool and American can already be had in Korea.

Aside from blankets and pillows, each seat had a pair of slippers for the flight. I stowed my sandals. The cute stewardesses fed us well. We had some more traditional Korean food for what I might call lunch. I am not sure what to name any of the meals we had to be honest. It came with rice, beef, cucumber, tomatos, and other things that I ate without thinking. There was also a spicy ketchup-looking sauce that I squeezed out of a little super glue-looking bottle. Kim told me I was definitely going to like Korean food if I liked the airplane food. I took a sip of my red wine, then I spilled my soup on my lap. I wanted to scream but all I could manage was a whimper in my panic. I started fluffing up my pants, trying to keep it off my skin. A steward brought me a stack of towels and was able to soak most of it up and clean the green leaves off my pants and headphones. I asked Kim what type of soup that was and he did not give me an answer, either because it was hard to pronounce or he couldn't remember. Daniel just called it hot soup and we all laughed. They say Alan Shepherd urinated himself on the launchpad before being the first American in space. That being said, I thought I could handle some soup on my pants for the rest of the 11 hours it took to get to Korea.

I watched The Muppets. It was not good. I listened to Bob Dylan's album Modern Times. It was not good. I watched Young Adult with Charlize Theron; I am not sure why. It was also not good. Finally, I watched the Quiet Man. I had not seen The Quiet Man since I was a little kid and I remember two big things about it: it was really long and there was a good fight scene in the end. I rarely have time to set aside for a movie of this length so what better opportunity than now I thought to find out why my dad likes it so much. The scenery is beautiful. The characters are endearing, if maybe oafish and stereotypical. The love story is silly and rushed. You never get an idea for why John Wayne wants the girl beyond the love at first sight moment in the beginning. There is a surprising amount of joking about spousal abuse. Unfortunately, the parts that I remembered liking long ago were in the minimum. I loved the idea of a fighter who runs away from his country because he killed a man in the ring. That is interesting, and somewhat underplayed. I also loved the idea that he has to learn to stand up and fight again. This happens in the very end, and it is a solid ending with one of the better fight scenes probably in movie history.

In between all this, the weight of my travels began to settle in and I began to think of little things that I will miss. I will be in Korea for the next year. Kim helped me find my things and get through immigration. He offered to give me a ride to the hotel but I took the shuttle instead. The guy driving told me that E-mart is like Wal-mart out here. This is probably where I will go to grab some food today. I am not sure how long ago I ate, but if I eat now at least maybe I can get a breakfast in and get my stomach back on a normal schedule.