Delay

It is a good thing we arrived at the airport early....

Our flight was at 1pm. We arrived at the airport at 9am in order to pick up our tickets and eat that delicious breakfast at the Hyatt. We checked in our luggage at 11am. We're still excited to leave for China UNTIL....the report that there was a heavy fog hovering over Beijing. Our flight was delayed until 2pm, then 4pm, then 6:30pm, then 10pm. *Side note: During this incredibly LONG time I ate a lot of free KFC and Subway. I have never eaten so much in my entire life.*

Finally, we heard an announcement saying that the fog had lifted in Beijing and we would be boarding the plane. YES! It was time. We gathered our belongings and started to board the plane at around 11pm. We step on the plane and look out the window to see the thickest fog EVER. The fog has lifted in China, made it's way towards Korea and landed in Incheon International Airport. Sooooooooooooooo, we sat on the plane for 4 hours which was brutal. I was sitting near a Korean tour group and they were all drunk on serious amounts of soju. The smell in the plane was a mix between kimchi and soju. As you can imagine, the four hour wait on the airplane was wonderful. Finally after those long four hours there was an announcement in Chinese and then in Korean. Everyone started to stand up and get their things ready. We were getting off the plane. WHAT? I asked a flight attendant what was going on and she said the fog wasn't lifting and we had to get off the plane. They said they would try to take off at 6am so I found a nice hard bench to rest on and fell asleep immediately.

The next day the delays continued. The flight didn't take off at 6am due to the heavy fog. Emmanuella, Jen, and I were started to get annoyed with waiting. We had taken an unnecessary day off work. Instead of sitting around our office all day we had to sit around the airport all day. We decided that if the weather conditions didn't change soon we were going to cancel our trip. 10am rolled around and it was still foggy outside. We decided to go home. The airport employees took us to the customer service desk. We stood around waiting for a half hour. The representative said that the plane would probably be taking off at noon. I had faith. I wanted to wait until noon. I had a feeling we would be able to take off.

We waited, and at 1pm we were boarding the plane for the second time in 24 hours! We were actually leaving.

We spent a total of 28 hours in the airport. A day of our trip vanished. I'm lucky that I can sleep just about anywhere. I felt quite rested for the beginning of my trip to Beijing.