October 31st, 2022
Day 0
My first flight is on October 31st, and because of the time difference between the U.S. and South Korea, I will arrive on the 1st of November.
I woke up incredibly early in the morning, made myself breakfast, forgot to turn off a computer or two, and moved all of my luggages outside and started looking for a ride on Lyft. Normally Lyft is cheaper than Uber for me, that’s why I only looked on Lyft.
When I woke up at 6, Lyft charges $65 for a ride to LAX. When I finished breakfast, Lyft charges $139, and when I am ready to finally find a ride, Lyft charges $199. I thought I had no options, because it was the morning rush hour of a Monday. After messaging my Dad the price and ranted about how ridiculous it is, he told me to look on Uber. Uber charges $65.
When I immediately swiped through apps to cancel my ride with Lyft, someone already accepted the ride. I tried to cancel, but Lyft wants $5 cancellation fee. $5 cancellation fee is still better than $199, so I swallowed that price and went ahead and ordered the Uber ride. Let this be a lesson kids, always check both apps to get the best price.
LAX has a policy on ride-share cars back when Covid-19 started. It will not let Uber or Lyft cars into the Arrival (downstairs) area to relief traffic. I thought the same was with Departure, so I thought I would Uber to a friend’s place and let she send me off. However, I learned from my very friendly Vietnamese Uber driver that arrival and departure are different, that’s when I just changed the destination to LAX.
I am traveling with 2 big luggages, one carry-on, and one guitar in a gig-bag. I went to the ticketing station for Asiana, and they started to speak Korean to me. I swear, ever since this moment until I left for China, everyone’s first reaction to me was to speak Korean to me.
After checking both of my big luggages, the stewardess told me that guitar counts as another carry-on bag and you can only bring one carry-on. They wanted to charge $200 for that luggage, but to make me want to actually pay, the guy behind offered me 50% off. I mean that is fine, $100 to bring my guitar across the world. Not a bad deal.
Clearly I went to the airport too early in the morning, and I sat at the gate for 2 entire hours before they let us board. Asiana doesn’t let you carry your guitar onboard. You’re supposed to hand your guitar to a stewardess at the gate and you can pick it up on the carousel.
The flight was supposed to be 13 hours, but for some unknown reason, it got extended for another hour, and it just flew across the Pacific Ocean without touching Russian Airspace. Two meals were served.
I am sat next to an old Korean lady, who kept speaking Korean to me despite my best effort telling her that I don’t speak Korean at all. Once, she kept saying something and gesturing something, and I couldn’t understand. I stood up and started asking for help, but then she just put her legs on the middle seat. We all had a big laugh.
After we landed, someone in the backseat translated for me that she thought I was Korean American. That’s why she kept speaking Korean to me, because she thought my “Korean parents” would at least say something to me during my “Korean youth”.