Entry for April 24th

Finally taking my first significant vacation in my professional career. After 6 and a half years at Harvey & Company, the firm that I started working at right after graduating from USC in 1999, it was finally time for me to use all the vacation hours I had accumulated. I think I had the second most accumulated vacation time in the entire firm!

I chose Korea because it was finally time to visit my mother's side of the family. My father's side of the family was essentially in the states so I've already seen them several times. Plus, my grandfather on my mother's side was 88 and not in the best of health. All my other grandparents from both sides had already passed away and I wanted to see my maternal grandfather before he would finally pass away. Furthermore, I wanted to explore Korea, the nation of my birth, sightsee and absorb culture. Lastly, exploring its much touted nightlife wouldn't be a bad thing either... =)

I'll be taking two digital cameras along with me to take photos of my journey. The simple to use and small Nikon Coolpix S1 for casual shots.

...and my 10.2 megapixel professional grade Nikon D200.

The time difference between Los Angeles and Seoul is 16 hours. Thus, I left LA at 11:45 pm on Monday and got to Incheon International Airport at 5:00 am Wednesday. I boarded Korean Airlines flight 012 from LAX to Incheon International Airport. It was a 12 hour flight but thank goodness I slept through 8 hours of it. In my opinion, red eyes totally make sense for transoceanic flights. By the time I woke up, only four hours remained so in a sense, it felt like a regular domestic flight to New York or something!