Amanda Takes Off...

I cried leaving Good Man at the airport, cried my way through all the security checkpoints. The guards had seen Good Man, they were kind to me. Thank you.

Waiting to board in Tokyo, I listened to some idiots (seriously, a huge group of eight or nine college-student-like people from Kansas and Detroit) talking about the difference between McDonald's chicken nuggets in China, Japan, and the States. Shut up, please.

Asian airlines must still have weight and age limits on flight attendants that American airlines don't. That flight attendant looks like my ninth grade social studies teacher.

I got off the plane, went to the bathroom, looked for the bin for the tissue. There was none. Oh, yeah.

The customs woman asked what I thought of Korea. I said, "Korea is a sadistic mistress that you want to leave, but just can't." Shut up, Amanda, don't say such things to immigration folks! But I said it.

While waiting for my stepdad, I listened to so much noise around me. "Why didn't you come earlier?" some woman screamed to someone on the phone. "If she's not here in ten minutes, it's another five hour wait" a woman dressed like a Mennonite said. "And I was like, 'whatever, jerk, don't call'" a girl dressed in Korean-style postage stamp size shorts and a tight, glittery tank top said to her similarly dressed friend. They all speak English.

I was overwhelmed by size. Cars are bigger, roads are wider (have to plow the snow to the edges of the streets), houses are single style, low and squat to the ground, my parents' small bathroom is bigger than my last bedroom, and there are miles and miles of... Grass! And yards and yards of carpet.

I ate chili for dinner, with turkey meat in it. I haven't had turkey in years. I want to eat licorice. And Taco Bell. And wild rice. And real bread.

And I already miss Good Man.