Lost and Out of Translations

I've been asked to write about my plane ride over, so here goes the departure:

The date was July 4th. The time was too early to remember. As I removed my shoes, removed my laptop from my messenger bag, and emptied out my pockets for the airport security checkpoint, I could not help smile at the irony of spending my country's Independence Day leaving it behind. There would be no fireworks for me that day, only a 5 hour plane ride to San Francisco followed by an 11 hour plane ride to Incheon City, near by eventual destination and right out of Seoul.

I flew United Airlines, so I can't say much about experiencing Korean culture on the plane. I will say, however, that on the plane ride from San Francisco to Incheon, they fed us not one, not two but three times (little did I know that all that food would be a sign of sustenance for times to come..). We were flying across the ocean most of the time, so there was not much scenery. I did catch some glimpses of Japan from my window seat though, and I probably don't need to mention that it simply consisted of city-mountain-city-mountain, etc. with nothing in between.

The airport I arrived at was beautiful. Multicolored lights made up the directory signs, and there was almost a Feng-Shui quality to the arrangement and architecture of the building. I sometimes wish American airports were as aesthetically appealing as other airports abroad. Perhaps it would diminish tension, reduce the risk of terrorism, and lighten up the environment so much that people would never find anything to be angry about at airports

Or not...after picking up my luggage, and making it past customs, and finding there was no one to meet me (which was so different than my mental image of an Asian man in a business suit with my name on a big card), I became extremely stressed, and the pretty airport did nothing to eliminate my tension whatsoever. Was I at the wrong airport? Did I arrive late? Was I even supposed to come to Korea? Luckily though after making a few [wrong] phone calls and preparing to page someone at the information desk, a man came up to me and pronounced my name totally wrong, but at that point I was so relieved...he could have called me Snow White and I wouldn't have cared. My skin color obviously was the dead giveaway. I was never so happy to be white in my life. On the ride over, the cab driver didn't speak English well and I didn't speak Korean well, but we had a fun time practicing back and forth with each other. He told me my ride would be about a half hour. I sat back and enjoyed the scenery...

The time had come. The moment had peaked. I was now...the foreigner.