Point of Embarkation
“You must have proof of negative results on a Covid-19 PCR test before you can board. This is the point of embarkation for your trip.” The agent at the Spokane airport counter was polite but firm. It was odd that in the double vision of my frustration she had suddenly grown a toothbrush-style mustache. Sig Heil!
We had planned to have our VERY expensive travel Covid-19 tests run in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We had even made reservations and paid for them. It made sense for us to get it done en route, right? Wrong? Dallas was not our “Point of Embarkation.” Spokane was. For the Korean Government and American Airlines, we had to meet all the conditions for travel to Korea in Spokane even though the plane that actually flew to Korea was 26 hours and almost 1900 miles away in Texas. It would have been nice to know.
Consequently, the 6:00 A.M. direct flight to Dallas took off from Spokane without us. Early morning covid tests are fairly rare on Saturday mornings in Spokane, but not totally unheard of. By 8:00 A.M., we had tracked down an urgent care that provided the right kind of testing and documentation for American Airlines, Korea, and the Third Reich. By 10:00 A.M., we had the documentation we needed to fulfill the eight-step online obstacle course required to get a magic Q-code, which unlocked the point of embarkation into Korea. The process has great potential for becoming a massively multiplayer online game.
Our fortune held, or as gamers say, the RNG (random number generator) was with us. We were back at the airport in time to get booked onto a flight that took us to Dallas via Phoenix. They also saved the best seats for us, the ones all the way in the back of the plane that mysteriously fail to recline. We are Lutherans after all. What seats could be better? And to improve the ambiance they had included an unidentified passenger with a terminal case of flatulence. We tried to be sympathetic, that is, when we could breathe. It did bring to mind Martin Luther’s legendary epitaph, “It’s better to fart in church than not be there.” I’m not sure how this transfers to air travel but I feel confident that it does.
We arrived in Dallas safely but somewhere between frazzled and comatose. Again RNG was with us in the form of a particularly talented shuttle driver from the hotel where we planned to stay the night. As we rounded the first turn on most of two wheels, a carnival ride called “The Wild Rat” came to mind. This questionable attraction used four-person cars on a radically curving track designed to test the limits of centrifugal force on the human body. Needless to say, the shock therapy of the shuttle ride to the hotel brought us to full consciousness just in time to go to bed.
The next morning our international flight sat indolently in its berth leaning nonchalantly against the gangway. It couldn’t have cared less about the harrowing gauntlet through which we’d passed to gain access to its petite-sized seats that the American diet has amply prepared us to use. It actually turned out to be a pretty good trip. With the assistance of 200-mile-per-hour headwinds, I was able to set a personal best for most feature-length films watched on a single airplane flight.
The fifteen-hour flight passed in a flash—that is, a fifteen-hour flash carefully edging its way around the world’s current sensitive political geography. But before we knew it, South Korea manifested itself on the graphical flight information system, particularly since we’d finally dropped off to sleep in the moments before it appeared. The flight crew considerately thought to wake us with their hustle and bustle while dealing out a breakfast. My hand of culinary cards included what might have been eggs, some green stuff, and some red stuff. It looked a little like a Pan-African flag in a Tupperware dish. As I studied the stolid poker faces all around me I decided to sacrifice my ante and fold.
Our landing was delightfully unremarkable, and we pulled up to Incheon’s wonderful combination of solemnity and whimsy characteristic of Korean architecture. Inside the airport, we encountered what looked like the movie set for an apocalyptic catastrophe. We were greeted by echelons of Korean workers in long blue paper smocks, K95 masks, and face shields. They waved us this way and that, through cordoned lanes and gateways. Then suddenly the hours of work creating the magic Q-code paid off as a split-second scan produced polite nods and a welcoming bow.
When we cleared customs, we encountered what might have been the most disturbing moment of the whole trip. At our point of embarkation, we had dealt with long lines of travelers checking in. All along the way, we had to search for and carefully protect our seats at crowded gates. At Incheon, we emerged into a giant ghost town of a terminal. It’s true that Korea always challenges my sense of personal space, which I tend to define in acres. But this experience with a nearly empty midday airport was bizarre in the extreme. We were only too glad to be greeted by the happy wave of our youngest son who towered over the small bunch of Koreans waiting to pick up arriving passengers.
As I thought back on our long trip from start to finish, I saw our challenges as emblematic of so much that our world has recently been through. Looking around at the vacant Incheon International Airport reminded me that not only have we individually undergone deprivation and lost friends, but whole cultures have suffered as well. On the ride back to Seoul we heard about Korea’s recent massive wave of infection which is now ebbing toward herd immunity and a return to normality. As we crossed the beautiful bridge that connects Incheon to Seoul it occurred to me that our world is currently at a new point of embarkation. The enthusiastic hugs from my grandchildren that soon followed made this a very hopeful thought indeed.