Circa 2004, I was sitting in an interview for the job that would eventually move me from Utah to Las Vegas. The interviewer asked me “why would you want to move and make your career in Las Vegas rather than near your family in Utah?”
I thought for a moment, and gave him the truest answer my baby-lawyer heart knew at the time: “I’ve always wanted to make a bigger piece of the world my own.” Little did I know at that time how true this objective would turn out to be. Trips back to the U.S. always get me thinking about my experience of “home,” and this trip would be no different. With over 33 hours in transit, I have plenty of time to think about it.
We visited the U.S. last year over the Spring, but we have missed the last two Christmas Seasons. Both years, I made the most of my traditions aboard Sonrisa and consistently skipped over that Christmas-Song Bastion “I’ll be home for Christmas” any time it popped up. But this year, our time waiting for the North Indian Ocean sailing season to open up is a perfect time to get back home for Christmas. Unfortunately, we had bought airline tickets for this extravaganza before we met Kitty, otherwise we would have scheduled more feline-friendly transport options. As the case was, she had to move back to her original home, temporarily, and wait for us while being cared for by friends. It’s probably for the best. That tropical cat might freeze to death.
As we get ready to leave our Langkawi home to visit the US for a couple months, we squeezed in all sorts of dinners and happy hours with friends. Kitty’s caretakers, Astrid, Alva, and Esban, dropped by the boat to meet Sonrisa while she was still afloat.
We enjoyed one last happy hour at our favorite cocktail bar with Pete and Jen from Steel Sapphire…
Our friends Steve and Lila invited us aboard S/V Joan for one last dinner of home made and absolutely delicious Chinese food! (The real stuff.)
…and then Andrew bought both long pants and (gasp!) shoes.
He was not happy about this.
We tucked Sonrisa into her slot at the yard, and carried Kitty to Astrid and Phil’s apartment (the same land apartment we inhabited when we first met her). As soon as we arrive, Bess hops down off her BMW to boop Kitty’s nose through the door of the crate. We get Kitty comfortable, and then try to say a difficult goodbyes. “We will see you in two full moons, Kitty!” (Isn’t this in terms a roof cat might understand?) As I bent down to give her a snuggle, she wriggled away to go romp on her ledge and play with Bess.
But, our time clock to get to the airport was clicking. “Okay, Kitty. I will miss you.” I wave goodbye.
Then, we roll two enormous suitcases filled with souvenirs into the street, hoisting them into the back of a Grab (Uber of SE Asia). Our flight schedule was as follows:
“1 hour from Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur
4 hour layover
6 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, South Korea
12 hour layover
14 hour flight from Seoul, South Korea to Dallas, Texas.
3 hour layover
3 hour flight from Dallas, Texas to Salt Lake City, Utah. ”
“We need new neck pillows!" I declared, and bought us these strange, fleece lined neck braces that I am convinced will improve my round the world flying experience. I admire the giant atrium roof perched over our ticketing counters in Kuala Lumpur, and I feel the immensity of the infrastructure needed to transport millions of humans all around the world every day. It is so different than traveling across oceans on my tiny little boat. I can feel the mixture of humanity milling around in this enormous space. It feels like an echo sounds: bouncing, confused, and sonorous.
I drug myself with a sleep aid for the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, enjoying a nice snooze and waking fresh as a daisy. We stand in line at immigration to get a “one day visa ticket”. Then, we climb aboard a well air conditioned and strongly seat belted tour bus upon which we are whisked into the heart of Seoul.
We explore a Korean palace constructed in the year 1397. I am fascinated by the heavy old doors, bronze door knobs, and wood construction.
Located in the middle of the city, buses line the street outside the gate, and the sky is grey with the haze of car exhaust. But, the palace grounds are beautiful all dressed in fall leaves.
It reminds me a lot of the Forbidden City in China that we stopped to see on our Beijing Layover last year, only this palace is decorated with tourists renting traditional Korean clothing and wearing it for the “full experience.” The palace grounds are littered with colorful people taking their Palace Selfies.
“The rental industry is doing a brisk business,” Andrew remarks.
“I love it!” I say, watching Muslim women in head dresses donning the traditional clothing of Korean Royalty, converse sneakers and iPhones poking out of clothing that would have been worn hundreds of years ago. What an awesome mishmash!
After the palace, we change locations and head into the city to sample some traditional Korean food: Bimbibap and beef Bulgogi. Both dishes were served with small sides of Kimche, scrambled egg, Korean savory pancake, and sticky rice. It was delicious!
Then, to what do my wondering eyes appear? A PAPER STORE! Korea is known for it’s pressed paper made from mulberry bark. It is the paper commonly used for Asian style calligraphy, and it is beautiful. Being a lover of all things paper, writing, calligraphy, and pen related, I duck my head under the small door frame and find myself in a tiny wonder-emporium of paper. I pile a bag full of notebooks that open not like a typical book, but instead like an accordion! My mind flies through all the artistic potential of poetry or maybe even hand written wedding vows displayed with beautiful calligraphy on this folding notebook.
"Andrew! I have to have these. Coffee and Brian are getting married.”
Andrew shrugs, as he watches my pile grow not knowing exactly what Coffee and Brian’s wedding has to do with these little books. I’ll explain later.
The clock runs out, and Andrew pulls me through the city to find our tour bus and return to the airport. We leave one poor soul behind as he was late in returning. I feel the sympathy for a lost fellow traveler as we pull away.
Back at the airport, we find Seoul is offering FREE SHOWERS to passengers in transit. We make a three mile trek trying to find where these showers might be. We do not give up, though, because a shower is the most necessary thing of all between two long distance flights and a 12 hour layover.
“I swear we passed this hallway already,” I grouse as Andrew takes us through another loop of B terminal.
As it turns out, the showers were in an unmarked door through a lounge, down a hallway of offices, and tucked into a corner that is not easily found. But when you do: heaven! The showers have been recently renovated, offering an Oasis of peace for each individual. You are gifted a toothbrush with a smudge of toothpaste, a towel, soap, shampoo, and even a hair dryer! to take into your own private bathroom. FREE! I love the Asian-hospitality culture.
We shower up, then meet again at the food court where we order a meal pack with two bowls of noodles, two bottles of beer, and a bottle of South Korea’s national liquor: Soju.
Andrew takes a swig.
I take a swig.
Andrew takes another swig.
We both furrow our brows at the bottle: “what is the alcohol content in that?”
Thinking we had ordered a rice wine, with alcohol content more like a glass of wine, we discovered Soju is distilled! We are swigging South Korea's version of rice vodka! We put that away, and return to the lower octane beer, lest they refuse to allow us to board the plane for public intoxication.
Finally, they load us onto a plane heading toward Dallas, Texas and a mere 14 hours later we touch down on US Soil. We pass through customs and immigration, then find our gate while our eyes and ears adjust to a more frenetic pace that comes with our home territory. The usual business deal transaction is being organized via blue tooth headset to my right, and a man donning a full cowboy hat, rancher boots, and a handle bar mustache reads the newspaper to my left. Briefcases and business heels clatter and roll across the tile floor, adding a percussion section to the vocals over the PA system announcing regulations for security of bags.
“Does it feel like home?” I ask.
“No, it does not.”
I think back on our prior trips home; how each one feels different. In November 2016, our sailing trip dissipated into a dream-like state in my mind the moment we stepped into the white-grey interior of a commercial airline jet. April of 2018, the sailing trip remained tangible, but as we packed up and sold our land house the U.S. felt like the dream. This year, my mind has started interpreting all of it as “just another part of my strange life.” It is all reality, all another location on my nomadic experience of “home.” Somehow, for me, everywhere and nowhere feels like home all at the same time.
Our last flight banks over the Great Salt Lake, and I start hankering to get out there to take some salt flat photos in the full moon.
My Dad fetches us from the frigid passenger pickup line just before our tropical blood congealed to our bone marrow. “Tttttuuuurrrn up the heat!" I request, but he looks at me like I’m a loon. It’s 65 degrees today! “We are in BIG trouble,” I think as I look down the barrel of a November and December in these Northern latitudes. Long delayed hugs are exchanged.
By the time we reach internet again, Astrid has sent us this photo Kitty waiting patiently in her crate to be taken back to Sonrisa. And, my little heart feels the stretch of my “home” being spread across large swaths of this planet.
