We left Alaska on Thanksgiving morning very early and flew an uneventful flight to Seattle. The sun was rising as we flew into Seattle and there was the most gorgeous picture of Mt. Rainer I’ve ever seen, the sky was clear and the sunrise was beautiful. We had a short layover in Seattle and then flew to Los Angeles. I should mention that we’ve never been to LAX before, we flew via San Francisco and Seattle on our last 2 adoption trips.
LAX is not the most travel friendly airport. There are NO signs telling you where to go. After asking several travelers we learned we had to actually leave the terminal we were in to get to our connecting flight. Apparently each airline/terminal has it’s own security, so to catch your connecting flight you have to leave security and then stand in long lines to go through security again in the next terminal . The only positive I could find for this was that we got to absorb some of the California sunshine during the short walk to the next terminal.
We arrive at the International terminal and find the long, long lines. It seems at 12 pm in LAX there are many international flights. There were 2 heading to Seoul that took off within 10 minutes of each other. (Figure about 400 people per flight and you get the picture of the lines). We made our way past all the people to get to the no baggage checked line for Asiana Airlines. While we are waiting for our turn, we watched the baggage struggles. There was this one lady about 5 feet tall, who had 2 huge boxes. They had to call for help just to load them on the scale. Each box was 110 pounds. They kept trying to explain to the lady that she couldn’t take boxes this big onto the plane, but she didn’t understand the English or Korean they were trying to explain to her. They had to send off for a translator to try and communicate with her. We finally got checked in without issue, and we were even lucky enough to get seats together on the flight. (Since we had such short notice for trip 1, and the planes were full, our original tickets were not together).
Then we went down to the dungeons to go through security again. It really resembled a foreign country and not the USA. The security is literally in the basement with low ceilings and just crammed with people. Mark, in his wisdom sent me through 1 line and he took another. I want to point out that we said we weren’t going to separate, but I listened to him anyway. Why, I don’t know. So I go through security with no problems. Mark winds up with problems; they send his bag through 3 times. Finally they make him open the bag, then they literally pull everything out and check it all. It had to be all those boxes of Alaska chocolates we were taking as gifts. Again I mentioned to him don’t separate from me I look way more innocent!
It was a good thing we had 4 hours in LAX! We get through security and then walk about 2 miles to the gate. This terminal was under construction. There were no working escalators or moving walkways. Just long, narrow drywalled halls. We find the gate and had about 30 minutes to find food. Of course, it’s under construction, so we had to walk about a mile back to find the last food we saw to grab something to eat.
Then they announced boarding, so we had back towards the gate. Boarding on Asiana is by section A-D. Getting 400+ people on a plane takes a bit, you just join your line and shuffle along. Finally we’re on board, bags are packed and we’re in for the long 13.5 hours across the Pacific.
To be continued…
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