Sunday & Monday, 12-13 August 2012 Anchorage, AK to Incheon, South Korea (0 miles) Total Trip Miles – 4723. 0 hour riding time. Total flight time – 15 hours. Miles – 6500

Set the alarm for 2:30 am, finished packing up the gear and headed over to the airport to check my 4 bags for a 6:20 departure…the bag check took close to an hour due to the compressed cans of chain lube, stove fuel, fire extinguisher and the like.  To assure the gear made the flight Alaska Airlines recommended that I take each bag to the TSA oversize bag check point which took some time due to all the pets, hunting gear & fishing gear being checked. TSA would not approve any of the items, so I had to donate them to the trash can…oh well, that’s just air travel today.  To make things even more difficult and since I was traveling internationally, Asiana Airlines charged me $100 per bag totaling $400 – OUCH!

Anyhow, the gear must go, so I pulled out the credit card and paid the bags way to Inchon.

The flight from Anchorage to Seatle was just over an hour with a 3 hour layover before boarding Asiana Airlines for Inchon – an 11 hour flight which is scheduled to arrive at 6pm local time or 4 am on Monday central time.

Since I doubt there will be many opportunities for a burger & fries, I ended up having one for my breakfast/lunch…man was is good!

The flight ended up being delayed for about an hour, but the service and aircraft was outstanding…served two full meals along with drinks and snacks which made the 11 flight bearable.  Also, each seat had its own video monitor offering a wide selection of movies, TV shows and the like.  Once I landed in Incheon and made my way over to baggage claim, the only bag that arrived was my duffle bag that contained most of my gear that is strapped to the bike like the tent, sleeping bag and the like.

As I was about to make my way over to the claim department, I noticed a security officer carting my panniers and top case; one was wrapped with a large, red locking cable and security tape.  Apparently something suspicious showed up on the x-ray and what would be equivalent to ourTSA, removed all the contents from one pannier clearing me on my way.  While searching for a taxi, I stopped by an information booth to see what I could find out about ground transportation to Dong Hae tomorrow.  I wasn’t quite satisfied with the initial options which included me lugging a couple hundred pounds of my gear onboard a city-type transit bus and given I haven’t had a shower in a week (been Sponge Brad, Square Pants) & limited sleep the last 48 hours, I decided to deal with that issue tomorrow.

Grabbed a “jumbo” taxi to the Best Western – Incheon and winding down hoping to get some rest and a nice shower!

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