Homecoming

Stop me if you've heard this one...So I just flew in from Korea...and boy are my arms tired!...Cuz the entire plane ride, I kept flapping my arms and screaming, "Look ma, I'm flying! I'm flying!" until one of the stewards had to tie me up in a comfy white jacket that made me look like I was hugging myself. But boy, are army arms tired.

Almost two weeks ago, I flew home to Toronto for a quick weekend trip. The weekend couldn't come fast enough; not only was I excited and honoured to be a party of the wedding party for two of my favourite people in Chuck and Cheryl, but I was thrilled to see the family. I wouldn't shut up about it, as I'm sure anybody here in Ulsan could attest. When I said goodbye to my sister ten months ago, I hadn't bawled like that since Bruce Willis saved all of humanity in Armageddon. God bless you, Bruce Willis, you bald, beautiful son of a bitch. I still recall walking towards my check-in counter, two bags of luggage, a backpack, and my laptop all in tow, as I sniffled uncontrollably. I'm sure it was a sight to see. The people around me were politely avoiding eye contact, and I appreciated it. So to say that I was excited to visit home would be a severe understatement.

The initial plan was to hopefully get Thursday, Friday, and Monday off so that I could land early Thursday evening, go out for some drinks with my buddy, Perry, and then get home late at night and surprise the fam. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Thursday off, and so I had to tell my mom about my plans to visit Toronto, because otherwise she'd be at work when I got home. At least I'd be able to surprise Doris, though.

During Skype chats in the weeks leading up to the big day, though, my mom would take the iPad away from Doris and walk away to the kitchen, where  she would ask me questions in Spanish without even lowering her voice, despite the fact that, no matter how much she pretends she doesn't know, Doris understands plenty of Spanish. I figured there was no way Doris didn't know. Even worse was when mom would say things like, "So when you come home (long dramatic pause) in August" as she winked into the screen and spoke in a voice so loud that it was just a little too loud. Facepalm.

Nonetheless, surprise or no surprise, I wanted to see my crazy family. And so, I left my apartment at 10 pm on Thursday, May 29. I made my way to the bus terminal to catch the 12:30 overnight bus to Incheon Airport. I left my place two and a half hours early just to be sure that I'd get a ticket. I got to the bus terminal, and there were three bodies in the entire building. Three! Yet somehow, this lady at the ticket booth was trying to sell me this story about tickets being sold out. There were three people there! What, was there a party of 50 monks coming in at midnight heading for the airport or something?!

I had to get to the airport, one way or another; my flight left at 10 am on Friday morning. The next bus to Incheon was at 5:30, and somehow that one was also sold out! Really, lady?! Part of me just wanted to wait around all night, hiding somewhere behind the corner, until 12:30 rolled around, just so I could jump out of the shadows and yell, "BULLSHIT!"  The 5:30 bus wouldn't have made a difference either, because the drive itself is five hours.

My first thought was to go to the bus terminal across the street and try to catch a bus to Seoul in hopes of transferring to Incheon. Along the way, I called my buddy Sangook to see if he'd be willing to drive me all the way--just in case the bus to Seoul didn't work out either. Of course, the guy didn't pick up. It was a weekday, so he was probably wasted somewhere.

I got to the bus terminal, and wouldn't you know it, the Seoul bus was also sold out. Now keep in mind, this was a Thursday; it wasn't even a Friday! Nor was it a holiday. Who the hell were all these people heading to Seoul tonight?! I'd taken the overnight to Incheon once before, and it was practically dead! I honestly didn't believe this lady. I figured she must not have understood what I was asking.

I went to sit down and called the 1330 traveler hotline, which has saved my ass countless times in the past ten months. I asked the person on the other end, my guardian angel, if there was any way of getting to Incheon that night. Guess what she told me...she said there was a bus from that went to Seoul and that I could transfer to another bus that went directly to Incheon! I knew it!

I walked back to the counter and handed the woman my phone, and within minutes, I had my bus ticket in hand. I was heading home!

Four hours later, I arrived in Seoul at the Gangnam Express Bus Terminal and started looking around for where exactly I was supposed to catch my next bus. The woman on the phone said I was just supposed to go across the street and wait there, but I wasn't sure which direction I was supposed to cross. I guessed and crossed to a bus stop island halfway across the street. There was a sign that said to wait for the 6020 bus heading to Incheon, but there wasn't a sign that said "Airport Limousine Bus" like the woman on the phone had said there would be. I was very uncertain, and I don't like feeling uncertain.

I asked the first dude I saw, and he just shook his head and said, "No English" without so much as looking me in the eye. I don't like people like him. I asked a woman who was waiting at the bus stop as well, and she said I was in the right spot, but she didn't seem certain. The time was approaching when the bus was supposed to be arriving, and finally, a third person came passing by. I approached him and asked, and though he didn't know, he at least was honest and said he wasn't sure. I liked the cut of his jib. We then started chatting about this and that, and as we were talking, my bus went right past us. I was not, in fact, at the right spot. The guy saw it at the same time as I did, and he took off running, seeing full well that I was kinda weighed down with my luggage. He literally bolted mid-sentence. I love Korea.

The bus stopped at the bus where I was supposed to be waiting and the guy stalled the driver long enough for me to get there. Now I was heading home. There was nothing else that could go wrong. Right?

By the time I arrived at Incheon Airport at 5:30 am, my journey had already lasted seven hours, and I hadn't even left Korea yet. I checked in, got to my gate, had a Subway sandwich for breakfast, and got to lesson planning for my return on Tuesday morning.

The flight to Tokyo went fine. Hell, it was more than fine! Not only did the beautiful people of Korean Air give me a meal for my short two and a half hour flight, but I got a free beer to boot! Sure, it was Bud, but it was free Bud!

Then I landed in Tokyo...

Bit of a short backstory here: I burned my hand last month. It was pretty stupid. Thankfully, the nurse at school took great care of me, and it's now healed perfectly fine. At the time of my flight, though, I was still applying Aloe gel on it fairly regularly; hourly, in fact.

Now as you know, gels are frowned upon when traveling on a plane. Thankfully, Korean Awesome Air was cool with it after I explained my situation, but the dicks in Tokyo decided to be rather dick-like and insisted I go through customs and immigration and check in all over again for some inexplicable reason. I think the person's logic was that I could check it in with my luggage, but that would be useless, as I wouldn't be able to use it at that point.

In any case, I figured I might as well go, as it was the only chance I had of convincing somebody that I wasn't planning on hijacking the plane with a quarter of a bottle of Aloe. Thankfully, I had five hours before my flight, but I had really been looking forward to some quality nap time during that time.

As I went through customs, immigration, and even the check-in counter, everybody looked at me with the same look of pity. They all felt sorry for me; they all wanted to pet me and comfort me; they all wanted to buy me a beer. They understood; why didn't that bitch in security understand?

If you think that I'm being a whiny little bitch about all of this, just know that I hate airports. With a passion. The only thing that even comes close to matching my level of hatred are those Swedish sadists over at Ikea. (I'll tell you where you can shove that allen key, you evil bastards.) Maybe it's just that I hate how much authority airports have over people. I mean, they can just change your flight on you on a whim, which they did to me on my way back to Korea. Oh, and did I mention they wanted to charge me $200 to load a painting as a second piece of luggage?! Plus, I generally feel a sense of anxiety around people of authority to begin with; it's like I always feel guilty about something, even when I haven't done a damn thing. That's why I hate customs and immigration. Then there are the "random" security checks. If you recall in one of my very first posts, I got selected twice at Pearson. Basically, those places just really rub me the wrong way.

When I finally got to check-in, the woman at the counter suggested I tell security that the gel was medicine. It sounded like a decent idea, so I gave it a shot, and it worked! Two hours after landing in Tokyo, I was finally at my gate, miserable as hell. At this point, my journey had already clocked in at over 14 hours. Now I just had to fly to the other side of the world.

Amazingly enough, this was the easiest part of my trip. For one thing, I finally got to watch Anchorman 2 and World War Z. (The latter was just to see how much I would hate it. The answer: a lot. I think the highlight of the movie was seeing Peter Capaldi and thinking to myself, "It's the Doctor!") I also watched a pretty cool documentary about just how much the Internet and social media are warping the inner workings of the teenage brain--not in terms of making them stupid, but more in terms of altering their motives, thought processes, ambitions, and to an extent, their humanity. The Internet's a hell of a drug.

In between all of this, I went in and out of sleep. If only the rest of the trip had been like that.

I left my apartment at 10 pm on Thursday, May 29. By the time I landed in Toronto, it was 4 am on Saturday morning in Korea. But the moment I saw them, every single second of the past 30 hours had been worth it. Doris' face was one of shock. I burst out laughing. Somehow, Doris never saw through my mom's sad little lies. She was convinced she was accompanying mom to pick up an old family friend from Nicaragua. (Seriously, Doe, you bought that?!)

Doris came charging at me with such speed that I was genuinely convinced she was going to bulldoze me and knock me back over my luggage. She hugged me and didn't let go or speak a word for a good couple of minutes. Then my mom and Salvador gathered around. Nothing beats family. It almost felt like I had never left the airport; like the last ten months had just disappeared and time shifted over.

Then the wedding party had ambushed me! Cheryl had apparently been spying on my family from behind the shadows, like a friggin ninja, waiting until she caught a reaction from them to signal that I'd arrived. It was the perfect homecoming.

After hugs were shared, it was off to the parking lot. Doris kept taking pictures to prove to her friend (and I think to herself as well) that I was in fact in Canada. On the way to the car, I heard my cousin whisper something to my mom, asking if I knew about...something...and she said no; I'd find out when we got to the car. I kept my mouth shut, as I didn't want to ruin the surprise. My first thought was that my mom had bought a new car. But sure enough, the 13-year old Cavalier was still intact and waiting for us.

I opened the backdoor to put one of my suitcases, and there they were: my nacatamales. Nacas are my favourite Nicaraguan dish; they include rice, pork, tomatoes, potatoes, masa, and various optional ingredients, such as olives, raisins, and onions. Making them is a huge ordeal and usually takes an entire weekend. I'm not just saying this because she's my mom, but nobody makes nacas like my mom; when she feels like cooking them, she gets requests from the entire family and ends up making a batch of at least 70.

The thought had occurred to me just as the plane was landing that my mom might make them, but because I was landing on a Thursday, I just didn't see how she could've had time to make them. Silly me; I forgot she's Super Mom. Now it was the perfect homecoming.

We packed everything and everybody into the car and headed off to grandma's house. It was Mother's Day in Nicaragua, so it was the perfect day to surprise her with a visit. (Hopefully I didn't surprise her too much, if you know what I mean.) She was certainly surprised.

Unfortunately, we could only afford a short trip, as traffic was a bitch, and I had to be downtown that night, as wedding preparations started early Saturday morning. We got to my mom's house in Pickering, where I was greeted by little Sammy. It was especially great to see her, considering that just a couple weeks ago, the family thought they were going to have to put her down, since the medication the vet was giving her didn't seem to be working. I thought I'd never see her again.

Then, of course, there was Art, relaxing on the couch and watching his evening shows. It's good to know some things never change.

As I scarfed down my naca, my mom said, "Guess what's for dessert!" beaming with excitement. I couldn't believe it; she'd gone all out. Tres leches is a mouth-watering Nicaraguan cake that is absolutely soaked in rum. She makes it maybe once a year.

I felt loved, and so did my stomach. I would fly another 30 hours just to experience this day all over again.