Previous - A Golden Week Trip to Korea - Pyongsong and Goodbyes
So in the morning I just collected my stuff and went down to the lobby. When everyone was accounted for we got on the bus and they handed us a foil-wrapped breakfast which contained a big sushi roll type thing and a hardboiled egg. I only managed to finish about half of it, but we were going to get another burger on the plane soon anyway. On the way over to the airport they also handed back our passports and visas.
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| Hadn't seen this in a week. |
The city was emptier than usual this early in the morning, but there were still people on the streets. In fact, there were lots of old people doing weeding and street cleaning, but other than that sight there was nothing special about the trip back to the airport.
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| Morning cleaning. |
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| Got a nice shot of this while heading out of town. |
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| The observatory. |
We had to fill out an exit card which was similar to the entry one, which we had to list all the items of significance that we were leaving with, so the only differences from what I came in with were less Chinese cash and a bunch of books and my embroidery and teacup. Same as in any airport we checked in and got our boarding pass, then said goodbye to all the guides (the three Koreans and Jessica) and went through security. Next was customs, which just took our exit card, but no searches or anything. We at least expected them to compare it to our list of declared items on our entry card, but nope. Then immigration.
Pretty much whenever Americans have gotten detained in Korea it was at the airport when leaving the country, and I imagine that it would be at the immigration window, so this was pretty much the most dangerous part of the trip for me I figured, but after a week here with no incidents I wasn't really afraid of being detained, although it still felt like that scene in Papers, Please where you're (spoilers) escaping to Obristan and give your papers to the immigration guy and there's those harrowing few seconds where you wonder what the verdict is going to be, but I got my passport back and walked into the concourse.
We had a decent amount of time before the plane would depart, so we just walked the small concourse looking through the gift shops and bookstores. Eventually we boarded and were on our way back to Beijing. Got our burger on the flight and nothing exceptional. Back in Beijing I had to change terminals to get my flight back to Japan, so I had to go through immigration, but since I didn't have to deal with the 72-hour transit visa again it was fairly quick, just show the guy a copy of my ticket and got a 24-hour transit visa. So I made it over to the other terminal and sat around for a few hours and waited for my flight. There was free wifi, but I couldn't visit any useful websites like Facebook or Gmail through the Great Firewall.
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| The Pyongyang airport tarmac. |
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| A nice shot over China. |
And then I was back to Japan, caught a couple trains back into central Osaka and checked into my Japanese hotel, Toyoko Inn, which is known for having a 95% female workforce (management included), and apparently big on promoting Naikan Buddhism from the books on this shelf in the room (including the first Bible in a hotel room I've seen on this side of the world).
In the morning they had a Japanese buffet breakfast and I headed out to the other airport, caught my flight back to Akita, managed to find my car, which I had apparently parked in the right parking lot and paid the $15 parking fee at the machine on the way out, and a bit over an hour later I was finally home. Had a nice shower, changed into some clean clothes, and got ready for work the next morning.
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