Three days, three ways to Incheon

I finally arrived at Incheon airport today. It sure took me a while.

Plan A called for me to leave Madison for Chicago on Friday morning and catch a non-stop connecting flight to Seoul. Total travel time would be less than 17 hours, which would have been great. I would arrive at 4:40 Saturday afternoon (Korea time), and then get a day and a half of rest before Monday.

This plan got wrecked shortly after take-off, when the pilot explained we had a technical problem that prevented the left wing from de-icing. Because Chicago and Rockford both had overcast skies, we had to land in Moline, which is on the west side of Illinois.

United Airlines arranged for van transportation to Chicago (a two to three hour drive) for all but four passengers. Since I'd be missing my connecting flight anyway, I opted to be one of the four. Since United flights from Chicago to Korea were booked for the next few days, I opted to take a flight to Minneapolis with Northwest. From there, Plan B was to fly east to New York, then west all the way to Seoul.

Plan B, however, got ruined by bad weather in New York that was slowing down air traffic there. Facing a two hour delay there, I would have missed my 12:30 am connecting flight in New York, so I persuaded Northwest to put me up for a night in a hotel. They also gave me some food vouchers, which made me happy.

Plan C was to leave Minneapolis at 3:00 pm for Tokyo, then go from Tokyo to Seoul immediatley. This ended up working out fine, though by my arrival time at 9:30 on Sunday evening I was really tired.

So I left on Friday morning and arrived on Sunday evening. Tomorrow at 3:00 pm I start orientation at my new job.