Hello All from my usual stopover point of SOUTH KOREA! Trip 1 of Where in the World began 3:15 Friday morning with a van shuttle pickup at my house. Of course I felt bad that Robin woke up from my final packing and preparations, but when I called her at 6AM, she certainly fell back asleep!
I arrived at Philly Airport way too early, but its an international itinerary so they say you need to be there like 18 hours early. Checked in and said goodbye to my one, 53.5LB suitcase (it’s heavy because A. my clothes are heavy and B. I have the new tabletop Canadensis display that many of you saw at the reunion). Hopefully I will see my bag in Melbourne, Australia, my final destination, but I am nervous. Rewind 6 months ago when I thought it would be “fun” to travel to Australia the longest possible way. I thought I did that the last 2 years, but I one upped it and this year my routing is:
Philadelphia – San Francisco – Incheon, South Korea – Bangkok, Thailand – Melbourne, Australia
Getting back to the bag issue, they could only fit 3 cities on a bag tag, so my bag got 2 tags…a first for me! So the first tag said San Francisco and then the other “full” tag says Melbourne by way of Korea/Thailand. My concern is my bag made it to San Fran and is now going round and round on the carousel waiting for me to pick it up…hopefully I am wrong!
So, my flight from Philly to San Fran went off without a hitch. I couldn’t really sleep well, I don’t know why, so I talked to the 2 flight attendants for about 1.5 hours about travel, camp, etc. Had a 1-hour layover in San Fran and boarded a United 747 for Korea. The 747 has two decks and I was lucky enough to be seated on the top deck. For the first time ever, I actually sat in a BACKWARDS facing seat. I know you all think this is dorky, but it was awesome to experience takeoff facing backwards! The seat was amazing and I took a few pics, which maybe JCAL will post here, or else you need to hop on over to my facebook page (see: Camp Canadensis: Where in the World is Eric Forti). It was about a 12 hour flight and I only slept about 4 hours. So, tons of TV watching and tons of eating, but what else is new.
On the plane, I also met 2 ladies in their early 60’s whom are traveling around Bangkok, Vietnam, and Cambodia. We got started talking about camps and they went to a camp in Maine I have heard of and recently just spoke to the owner of! Such a small world. I was telling them how great Canadensis is and one of them has grandchildren in Virginia whom she wants to send to camp, but the grandchildren’s mother is not ready yet. So, maybe one day!
Now I am in Seoul, South Korea sitting in the airport lounge and it’s 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but in the lounge it’s like 120 degrees. No exaggeration, it’s so hot in here. I don’t understand why they need to pump the heat in Asia and keep these lounges so darn warm. I just took a shower and changed into a….Canadensis t-shirt of course with a Canadensis long sleeve shirt over it, HAHA. Too funny! Lauren Berry (GL from 2010) and I are skype IMMING or whatever it’s called because all of you are sound asleep.
I will check in again soon, but remember to check in at twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/WHEREISFORTI and “like” my facebook page by searching Camp Canadensis: Where in the World is Eric Forti.
For now, goodnight!
