Details of our Flights (Atlanta to Korea and Korea to Bangkok)

We obviously did not miss our connecting flight in Atlanta. Moreover, Korean Air even boarded late, so we had more time than we anticipated, which meant we abandoned our drinks at TGIFridays for nothing! But, as will be shown, it made no difference. 

Korean Air is hands down the best airline we have ever traveled with. Although their many amenities are comparable to any American airliner, in terms of customer care, they are light years ahead us. Every flight attendant greeted us with big smiles as we walked to our seats. I don't think it was a coincidence, but every flight attendant was a woman, wore a tight skirt, and physically, was tall, slender, and attractive. Every seat had a pillow, blanket, satellite television with movies on demand, and a goody-bag (with eye mask, slippers, toothbrush, and toothpaste). Throughout the flight, they served us complementary sodas, beer, and wine. The flight attendants circled the cabin every couple of hours with fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juices.

Our in flight diner

We had two meals (lunch and dinner) served on the Atlanta to Seoul flight, and lunch was served on the Seoul to Bangkok flight. The first meal was delicious (as shown). Although simple, meaning rice, chicken, spinach, cold pasta salad, coffee cake, it was actually quite good. In fact, it was good-good, not simply airline dinner good. For each meal, we had 3 choices, which was usually meant some variation of chicken, beef, or fish.

It was very hard to sleep on the plane. Although we were lucky to have an empty seat next to us on our 14.5 hour trip to Korea, we still did not have enough room to actually sleep. Danae, however, put up a good fight. She stretched out the best she could, which meant all-over me and the surrounding seats. I think she said she able to sleep about 4 hours. I meanwhile, simply could not sleep. This was surprising, because I stayed up the night before my flight thinking it would make me sleepy. Wrong! After I could not fall asleep on my own, I even resorted to drinking lots of complementary wine and beer. However, even an alcohol induced comma was only good for about an hour and a half worth of sleep on a 14 hour flight. Neither of us took sleeping pills because we did not want to be groggy. By the time we landed in Korea, I had only slept about 3 hours out of the past 48!

Korean Airport

We had a surprisingly short layover in Korea: 40 minutes. It was so short, that the flight attendants sought us out during our flight to Korea and moved us to first class so we could be amongst the first to leave the plane. As such, Danae and I sat in $7,000 seats for about 20 minutes. We were big shots, flying first class on a trans-Pacific flight. This move probably saved us 20 valuable minutes. Another reason why Korean Air is awesome.  

We get to Korea’s Incheon International airport. As we were rushing to our transfer gate, Danae was blown away by all the high-end retail stores, like D’or, Gucci, Prada, etc. Almost every store was a high-end Western brand. The airport was very clean and organized. All the signs were in English, so it was easy to get around. We even witnessed some kind of ancient Korean procession of some sorts (see photo). After walking nearly a mile, we reach our gate in time.

The flight to Bangkok was about 6 hours. At this point, it is about 5AM at home, but only 3PM in Korea. I still have only slept about 2 hours in the past 48, and I was exhausted. Danae was equally exhausted, but she managed a few hours more of sleep. Needless to say, we both crashed on the flight to Thailand.

We finally get to Bangkok at 9PM. The airport was nice, as shown Danae here at Bangkok international airport. The one thing we both liked was that there were no stair escalators, rather they were flat (shown below). We also get some Thai money called Baht. The exchange rate is abut 1 US dollar equals 30 Bahts.

We take an express train from the airport. The train was very nice. We get to the transfer station to take the subway to our hotel, when Danae decides she would rather take a taxi. The taxi dispatch guy spoke English, but the driver did not. Thailand was crazy at night (more of those details in a later blog). It took the guy an hour and a half to get to our hotel (for the record, if we would have taken the subway like I suggested, it would have been 20 minutes haha). It took him so long because he took a wrong turn the street before our hotel. The traffic in Bangkok is so bad, it took him 45 minutes to drive and find a place to turn around. More on the traffic at a later time.