Let’s get to the good news first! We made it! From Seattle, USA to Cheonan, South Korea! What a relief! The morning started out with our 5:30 AM blaring Iphone alarm. Granted, our flight wasn’t until noon, but Delta told us we had to get to the airport at least three hours early since we had animals. We also had to finish getting our condo-unit ready to be vacant for a year. Everything needed to be unplugged and we had to get some stuff poured down the sinks so the pipes wouldn’t end up stinking. Then we had the challenge of trying to get the cats to go to the bathroom and getting their harnesses on. Have you ever had to try to get a cat to go to the bathroom? It’s pretty much impossible. After numerous times of repeatedly putting the cats into their liter boxes, they both went! YES! I was not expecting that! I did something right in my past life for that to happen. I don’t care what anybody else says, that was the biggest achievement of the morning for me. After a somewhat frantic and successful morning, our friend, Kirsten, showed up at 7:45 to take us to Sea-Tac International Airport. We loaded up our checked four bags, our two large carry-on backpacks (like awkwardly stuffing the backpack into the overhead compartment and hoping the flight attendant didn’t notice large carry-ons) our two cats, and we were off! We arrived at Sea-Tac and had to go to the Special Services Line to check in and get the cats cleared for the flight. Apparently, when you fly with an animal you cannot check-in online. The agent checked us in at the counter and we paid the $200 fee for the cats. The Delta agent asked to see the USDA stamped South Korean Health Certificate and checked to make sure that it was actually a cat inside the carrier. After a quick glance, the agent sent us on our way to security. When we got to security we had to take the cats out of their bags and walk through security with them in our arms. I (Brittany) took Kiko and Casey took Ninja. We had stashed a leash in the pocket of each of their carriers and before dumping the terrified felines out of their bag, we quickly open their carriers and connected the leash to their harnesses. Next we tilted their carriers and pretty much dragged the cats out. They immediately clung to us. We walked through the metal detectors and waited for our backpacks and cat carriers to come out of the x-ray machine. The guy in front of us had his bag re-ran several times, so it took longer than normal for our stuff to get through. When the cat carriers finally came through, we opened the doors, and the cats darted right back into their carriers. We had plenty of time before the flight (over 2.5 hours) so we hung out at the food court for a while and decompressed a bit. Well, maybe it was me that just needed to decompress, Casey seem totally fine. So a little confession; a few days before leaving, I was getting nervous that we were missing some kind of paperwork for the cats, so I pretty much called Delta everyday verifying what I needed for the flight. We actually ended up driving down to the airport to talk with an agent. Bless Casey’s heart and nerves of steel. That poor guy tolerated my crazy antics for three days straight. I mean seriously, who could handle somebody talking about cat paperwork? Anyway, after drinking some well-earned coffee and inhaling a Qdoba breakfast burrito, we decided it was time to wander over to our gate. We hopped on the train and headed over to our gate and verified the flight was still on time. Next we decided to make sure Kiko and Ninja were still doing okay. We found a family bathroom and pulled them out one by one. We refolded their blankets (Casey had their favorite blanket altered for them so it would fit in their carrier J) and put their potty pads on top of the blanket. I hated using the potty pads but we had to in case they had an accident. The potty pads made their carriers really really hot. I also cut up an old T-shirt of mine and put a little piece of it in each of their carriers. I read this might help calm them down since it’s a familiar sent. We also sprayed their carriers a few times with Feliway. Who knows if it really works but it was worth a shot. We gave them hugs, took their harnesses off, and put them back into their carriers. The next thing we knew, the plane was loading and I was getting nervous. We had upgraded our seats to Delta Comfort Plus, so we got to board the plane relatively early, and there was a lot more room between the seats. We had soft carriers, which I would highly recommend. That way if you need to squish the top of the carrier a little (which we did) you can get it under the seat. We had to call Delta to get the dimensions of the soft shell carrier that would be allowed on that flight. Our carriers may have been an inch longer than the allowed length, but when we checked-in nobody actually measured or inspected our carriers. A lot of people asked if we used any type medication to calm the cats down. We had decided not to give them anything for the flight. Our cats had driven across the country twice. Once from Reno, Nevada to Boynton Beach, Florida and then another time from Boynton Beach, Florida to Seattle, Washington. Both times, they were amazing. They would cry a few times here and there in the car but that was it. So we decided for the flight we would not subdue them. We made the right choice. They didn’t make a sound the entire flight. I was most nervous about take off but the take off was actually pretty quiet. After we leveled off, we stuck our hands into their carriers. They were still moving around but were way calmer than expected. After some time, they became still and I assume just completely fell asleep. We checked on them every few hours and they seemed fine. It was just shy of a 12 hour flight, and they did well on it. When we landed Casey and I hustled down to immigration. We had been to Korea twice before and learned and if you don’t get to immigration quickly the line can get really long really fast. All the international flights from the west coast get in around the same time, and on our first trip to Korea we took our sweet time walking to immigration. What a mistake, the line was a mess. So this time we were prepared. We rushed down to immigration, filled out all our paperwork correctly on the plane, and made sure to enter the foreign passport line. We got through immigration super fast! Next we walked to baggage claim. We grabbed two luggage carts (which are free at Incheon, holler!) and waited for our baggage. Amazingly enough, we only had to wait about 20 minutes for our luggage. While we were waiting for our luggage we took a look at both of the carriers and realized Kiko’s carrier smelled a little. I took her into the girl’s bathroom and she had thrown up L. I think during landing, the slow decline of the plane made her sick. I pulled out her potty pad and wiped her down the best I could with the rag we had put in the pocket of her carrier. I laid a new pad out and reluctantly put the poor cat back into her carrier. I met back up with Casey and we headed over to quarantine for the cats. Our vet that helped us with all our paperwork was amazing, but I was still so nervous. The quarantine station consisted of a table and a sweet lady with a binder. Behind her was the quarantine room. The room looked like something you would see at your vet’s office if your pet had to stay overnight. It was a wall of relatively large kennels. We placed the cat carriers on the table and opened Ninja’s carrier first. The quarantine official had the chip scanner and reached into his carrier to scan his chip. Ninja’s chip was hard to find, so ultimately she gave up and handed the chip scanner to Casey. We knew where their chips were since we had recently seen the vet scan them for the health certificate. Once Casey scanned Ninja’s chip, she took the scanner and compared the scanned chip to the chip on the health certificate. It matched and she moved onto Kiko. Kiko’s chip scanned almost right away and she compared Kiko’s scanned chip number to the number on the health certificate (both cats were put onto one health certificate). She wrote down the cats’ names and chip numbers in her binder and gave us the thumbs up. She ended up keeping the certificate and we had been expecting that. We had made copies of the certificate just incase this happened. Next we dropped our paperwork off with customs and headed toward the exit. Casey was awesome and set up a car service that would drive us the two hours from Incheon to Cheonan. Right when we stepped out to the main arrival terminal there was a sign with our name on it. The driver stepped forward and we followed her out to her van. We loaded everything up and we were on our way! The car ride to Cheonan wasn’t bad at all. We hit a little traffic right when we got into Cheonan, but other than that everything went smoothly. Our school director had contacted the driver we had hired (he had gotten the car service’s phone number from us) and he was able to give our address to the driver in Korean. She called our director when we got into Cheonan, and he was at our new apartment when we showed up. He was awesome and had purchased us the necessary items before we arrived. He had ordered a queen bed, small table, small couch and a litter box with litter. I brought the cats into the changing room (I’ll post a video of our place a little later) and filled up the litter box. Ninja bolted out of his carrier and straight to the litter box (it was actually pretty funny, but oooo that poor guy). I gave them some food and filled up a water bowl I had brought for them. After just about 20 hours, they were so happy to be out of their carriers. Casey and I were tired, stinky, and hungry. Our director insisted on taking us out to dinner, which was great for us because we were planning on eating ramen from our closet convenience store the first night. I was nervous to leave the cats so quickly, but we needed to eat. He took us to a small Korean restaurant within walking distance of our apartment. He ordered us some sullungtang and bugolgi and it was delicious! I hadn’t eaten much on the plane since I’m not a fan of flying and I was just so nervous about the cats. So I really did some damage on the food.
Our director walked us back to our place, and made sure we knew all our building and unit codes. He said goodbye and we were left alone inside, delirious, full, and ready to shower. Casey went to shower first and realized we had no hot water. Ugg! I was not the mood for a cold shower. In Korea, you have to turn on your hot water when you want to use it. Our thermostat showed the hot water unit was on, but only cold water was coming out L. So Casey braved it first and took a cold shower. I was not having this. I was frantically scrolling through blogs and stumbled upon one that said to make sure the pilot light wasn’t out. Casey is a genius, because he realized the pilot light ran off of gas and when our director was showing Casey how to turn on the gas to get our stove burners to work, but the burners weren’t lighting either. Our director told us he would call maintenance in the morning and we were totally fine with that. But if the gas to the stove wasn’t working and the gas to the water heater unit wasn’t working, then the main gas must not be on. Casey went out to our hallway and found a bunch of meters with levers and unit numbers over them. Our lever was down, and everybody else’s lever was up. Casey flipped the lever and bam! Our gas was working. Warm showers for everybody! Casey re-showered and I showered and we were ready for bed. I seriously don’t’ remember lying down, but we when we woke up the next morning we were ready to start our year adventure in Korea.
0 Comments
|
Archives
April 2022
Categories
All
|