Flying to America via Japan

So Sunday, May 31st 2009 I woke up to find our apartment cleaned up and ready for us to leave. Matthew had stayed up all night to finishing cleaning and packing for me because I was still recovering from my appendix surgery. I have the greatest husband.



Joony, one of Matthew's students came to say goodbye to us at the school and Ruth and Cleo with Pastor Kim took us to the airport. Ruth and Cleo came because Pastor Ryu and his wife were also flying to America, but they were doing recruiting. So Cleo and Ruth went to see them and us off.

Yes, I am wearing a dress on the airplane. A dress and sneakers because I couldn't bear the thought of wearing jeans the whole airplane ride back, since my surgery still made my stomach sore.

Pastor Kim, me, Ruth, and Cleo. We're so awesome.

Pastor Kim, me, Matthew, and Ruth.

We had a snack as we waited for Pastor Ryu to come and then we all said our goodbyes and headed to the plane. Our goodbyes were almost over, but since Pastor Ryu and his wife were flying on the same plane to Japan we had one more goodbye left.

This is our last picture in Korea.




This is Korea from the airplane, our last glimpses of the place we called home for about 10 months.

Traveling, especially by plane is very weird. It's almost like time travel or something because you get inside and then after a period of time you can be somewhere completely different.

The flight to Japan was short and then we said our last goodbye.

We were ready for some hellos!

Looking at shops and watching tons of people go by with face masks.

We had a 8-9 hour layover in Japan. So we tried to find some places to sleep, especially since Matthew hadn't had any sleep. We got some French fries from McDonald's because we were starving. Somehow our vegetarian meals had not been ordered. Then walked down until we found some empty chairs.

Storing our bags underneath I laid on the chairs and Matthew lay on the ground to keep the bags against/with us at all times.

Matthew woke up before I did. We wrapped the jackets around our heads to keep out the light and then Matthew gave me his jacket because I was so cold.

Peaking out of my cave.

This is money we got in change. We could use the US Dollar but we got change in the local currency.

It so happens that we went to sleep by Starbucks and were really excited because they had one veggie sandwich! So for our mid-day snack we had half a veggie sandwich each....

And white chocolate mocha....mmm. My favorite.

Then Matthew tried to throw paint on me and got the whole place messy!

So we decided to get more French fries because we were still hungry and weren't sure about the meals on the long flight.

This was a banner by the McDonalds, it showed other cuisine we could dine on. We chose McDonalds.

This was the awesome waiting area. There were regular seats in the other areas but this was where we decided to wait because it was more comfortable and I could lay down. This is also where they had "art" splattered on the walls. It was colorful and pleasant to be around.

After eating, waiting, sleeping, eating, waiting and more waiting we finally got on our flight to America.

We were going home.