nz to nyc - Urban Scrawl

nz to nyc

Monday 15 October, 2001 at 3:33PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (0)

I have been meaning to write about my trip from New Zealand to New York. It was a 12-hour flight on Korean Airlines from Auckland, New Zealand, to Inchon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, where i spent about five hours before catching another fourteen hour flight direct to JFK International Airport in New York. What a mission.

The departure was pretty entertaining. After freaking out over the duty free shopping mall in Auckland which is reputedly one of the best in the world (you can only enter it after going through customs to leave NZ), I managed to score a carton of cigarettes for NZ$27 (about US$12), some aftershave (Davidoff Cool Waters - my favourite), and two of bottles of good NZ wine (of which IceQueen and myself have already consumed one). I also found out (too late) that there is no limit to how much wine you can bring into the USA - had I known, the two bottles would have been two cases.

The flight to Korea was on a huge Boeing 777, the movies were in Korean (figures) and I was a little concerned at the mystery meat they served up, but it turned out to be really nice - some local Korean dish on rice that was a bit spicy but yummo all the same. The heating in the plane was turned way up and I wondered why, but I figure they were trying to acclimatize everybody - we arrived in South Korea at about 5.30 in the morning (local time), and it was already 31°celcius (about 88°fahrenheit) and climbing fast. Pretty frightening since I had just left NZ in the latter stages of winter and temperatures of about 3°celcius (37°fahrenheit).

Of course it got a whole lot hotter as the morning progressed, so I found an actual hotel right in the airport that rented rooms at hourly rates and had a shower to cool down and freshen up (sounds seedy I know, but it was actually like a five star hotel). Inchon international airport is amazing - the place is huge! They have conveyor belts to walk on all over the place, as walking at a normal pace would take ages to get from one end of the airport to the other. It is spotlessly clean, very modern, and there are masses of shops and cafes and restaurants - I was waaay impressed. Except for the heat, I really enjoyed cruising around and checking it out. Even managed to phone IceQueen from there. *kisses*

The second flight was a slightly longer version of the first, except that there were a couple of very young children nearby and I am sure they were watching me, because every time I almost fell asleep, one of them would start screaming. Where's a muzzle when you need one? And again it was the Korean movies, and they were bad (some had subtitles, which didn't improve things in any way whatsoever). The food again was pleasant, as was the service. There was one stewardess I noticed that whenever anyone stood up, she would run and virtually pounce on them and tell them to sit down again. It was funny when I stood up intending to walk to the toilet and she pounced on me - I had to repeat several times that I was heading to the toilet, unless she wanted me to use one of their coffee cups or take a piss right there in the aisle. Eventually she got the message. She left me alone for the rest of the flight.

Finally I arrived at JFK somewhere near 11am Sunday morning looking pretty travel-worn and tired I'm sure, but totally excited because I knew IceQueen was there waiting to meet me. I wasn't hard to spot - everyone on the plane was Korean other than me.

Forgot to mention this earlier. The evening before 911 I caught the subway in to meet IceQueen when she finished work. I felt really nervous when I got off the subway in the city, and not because it was all new to me and a big city or anything, but I just didn't like the vibes I was getting at the time - rather than being excited and wanting to check everything out, I wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible, it was weird. IceQueen commented at the time that I looked like a scared rabbit. The next morning the nearby World Trade Towers got hammered.