wednesday morning, november 30th i set out from what was no longer my apartment in nonhyeon, seoul, korea, heading ultimately for my parents house on the other side of the globe in wilmington, delaware, u.s.a. the hardest part of the journey was the first 15 minutes as i had to lug all my heavy luggage up the huge hill to the bus stop. i was huffing and puffing and taking it about 20 feet at a time between resting. finally i made it, and the rest was relatively easy.

a ninety minute bus ride to incheon airport and i was from then on basically i was out of korea. once you set foot in the airport, you immediately feel like you're in an international zone. everyone spoke to me in english, and there were foreigners everywhere. as i walked into the check-in line with my head down, this white guy ahead of me in line said hi to me in a really upbeat voice. i was taken aback, and upon looking up saw a group of about eight white guys in black pants, white shirts, and black ties, all smiles and looking like they wanted to make friends with everyone.

for the next fifteen minutes in line i had to listen to one of their gang questioning the guy in front of me about his family, his army service in korea, and what he was going to do with his future. the soldier asked the interrogator where he was from and inevitably the response came, utah. as you can imagine, i didn't feel much like i was in korea any more, and shuddered to imagine mormons doing their missionary work in korea. don't get me started.

going through customs, they took my alien id card like they're supposed to do, and in about another hour and a half i was flying two and a half hours to japan. after another ninety minutes there i was on the almost twelve hour flight to chicago, where i had another ninety minute layover. one last two hour and fifteen minute flight to philadelphia and i was almost done my travels.

my parents met me and we headed off to my sister's house for me to see my new nephew ben, who was exactly a month and a day old at that time. he is really cute, and a very good baby. he hardly fusses at all, and at that time was sleeping peacefully most of the time. since then he's become more active, and he will be making many appearances on this site in the coming weeks, months, and years.