Arrival
There has to be a name for this: despite how long, mundane, or insanely uncomfortable a flight can be, once you land it feels like it never happened.
Psychologists call it the “peak-end rule”. We remember experiences by their most intense moments and how they concluded, not the hours in between. The duration barely registers. No matter if it’s a 4-hour flight or a 14-hour flight, they both end with the rush of finally arriving at the destination.
Flying out of San Francisco to Asia typically takes you over the North Pacific, arcing near Alaska. It can be a rough ride. That’s where different weather systems collide. I appreciate United’s in-flight experience because it shows the plane’s route along with a weather radar.
It helps with the nerves.
If you’re wondering, I’m the type of person who stares at the flight map the entire flight. You know the one — while everyone else is watching movies or sleeping, I’m tracking our altitude and watching the little plane inch across the Pacific, counting down the miles to arrival. I also find pleasure in doing Wikipedia searches of the towns we fly over, learning about some small Alaskan village or a remote Russian outpost I’ll never visit. I think it’s a lingering habit from when I used to read encyclopedias as a kid.
I feel there are two moments that mark the real transition into a country before physically setting foot on the ground: flying on that nation’s flagship carrier, as passengers, flight attendants, and in-flight safety videos represent the language of the destination, or walking from the jet bridge into the airport. It’s like stepping into a realm where immediately the language is different, the temperature shifts, and sometimes even the smell. Since we flew United, this was the latter. The humidity in the air a departure from the dry Bay Area climate, the Hangul on every sign.
Annyeonghaseyo!
We finally arrived in Korea. As flights from SFO to Seoul go, we landed absurdly early. 4am to be exact. The last few days we had been running wide-eyed with little sleep, so by the time we touched down it was a struggle.
Once we got past immigration I immediately ran for the coffee shop. I needed an espresso but opted for something a little more adventurous. A “Monster Coffee.” It was espresso mixed with tea. Maybe I was a bit delirious from the lack of sleep, but I didn’t realize the Monster they were referring to was actually Monster Energy Drink.
It definitely woke me up. To its terrible taste. Not the best introduction to a country where cafe culture is practically a way of life. That part, we’d come to understand later.
This wasn’t our first time in Korea, but it would be the first time for us as a couple. Cindy had taught English in a town south of Seoul for a couple of years before we met. I came here in 2022 for a day-and-a-half layover. In 2024 we passed through with my father. But we’d never really gotten to know the place. Just impressions, glimpses. Over the next month and a half, we decided to get a taste of the most notable neighborhoods in the city: Gangnam, Myeongdong, Hongdae.
Just because you arrive at your destination doesn’t mean you can check in to your accommodation, and on that note, we still had about eight hours to kill. Fortunately, Cindy had worked some magic with the owner and got us an early check-in by a few hours.
The commute from Incheon took about an hour. The sun broke through the clouds on our way to Seoul like a brief welcome, despite the rest of the day being gloomy with occasional showers. If we wanted to doze off, the Uber driver made sure that didn’t happen, darting between cars and switching from lane to lane.
As we got closer to the city, the traffic got busier as the morning rush started to pick up. The sparse residential high-rises slowly gave way to denser clusters. We knew we had made it once we saw a glimpse of Namsan Tower. The moment reminded me of my childhood, when my brothers and I would compete to see who could spot the Sears Tower or the St. Louis Arch first after our road trips from Milwaukee in the summer.
Gangnam felt like a mix of Midtown Manhattan and Wilshire Boulevard. A place where people wanted to be seen. The buildings cast shadows, the boulevards were wide, high-end stores lined the streets. We saw a high density of luxury cars and large billboards of K-pop celebrities advertising the latest beauty products. I’d eventually lose count of how many GS25s, 7-Elevens, and Paris Baguettes we passed. Stitched onto every block like a quilt.
We finally pulled up to the Airbnb. We had our assumptions. A doorman maybe, a check-in counter, a security key to gain access. We walked straight in. When we looked around and no one was there, we realized: people here were very trusting. Cindy had asked the host if we could store our luggage at the front desk and they insisted we just leave it there unattended, reassuring us it would be ok.
It hit me immediately. The large umbrellas over crosswalks, benches for the elderly to sit and rest. The lights embedded on the streets, flashing red or green so you’d know when to walk. People leaving phones and laptops at cafe tables to hold their seats — never a second thought.
Small gestures of collective care and safety, built into the infrastructure.
Maybe that’s what arrival actually is. Not just landing somewhere new, but starting to notice how a place thinks about the people in it.
The flight felt like a distant memory, Korean sensibilities were now a reality, even if just for this moment in time.
Korea was now in focus.