The long voyage home back to Korea came in several stages. First I had a 7am flight to San Francisco so had to be at the airport for 5am check-in. I had ordered a cab and the Indian driver was telling me his daughters fiance's sister had just gone to Korea two weeks ago and was hating it the first week but was settling down now. Although I had done an online check in when I went to do my bag drop the lady was giving lots of attitude. She said my check in wasnt successful even though I had entered my new passport info online which she didnt re-enter, and that I should line up in the huge check in line. She went ahead and checked me still giving attitude. My bag went thru ok at 23.1kg as the allowance was 23kg. We flew over Square One Mississauga and I could see the 401 and 410 highways. I had a window seat. The girl beside me asked if she could have it which I said no as I always request window seats. Then she curled up in her chair, put her hood over her head, and pulled the strings tight covering her eyes so you could only see her nose. In her black hood she looked like a ninja assassin. The flight to San Francisco was 5.5 hours and you have to purchase meals. The selection wasnt good so I had brought my own food as had others. Also you can listen in on channel 9 to the pilots communications with air traffic control. They have to ask for permission for each altitude change. Landing back in SFO we didnt go anywhere near downtown this time so no sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had a 90 min connection in SFO but when we landed they said the gate wasnt open so we had to wait about 20 mins on the tarmac. When we left the plane I hardly had any time to goto the washrooms, look around, or eat and went straight to the gate which had already started boarding Business Class Luckily in SFO you do not have to go thru any security screenings and just go to your gate so that saves time too. United is the official airline of the US military and there were many military personnel heading back from leave. They have a much more generous checked and hand luggage allowance on the website at four pieces of checked luggage. The flight was about 1/3 army personnel. Again I had a window seat. At first a larger army guy with a buzz cut was sitting in my seat so I had to tell him it was mine. He must be civilian support as he was overweight and went thru about four bags of chips in the first two hours. He also had a packet of beef jerky stuffed in his seat and I was smelling ham for about half the flight On take off we didnt get to see the Golden Gate Bridge again as it was shrouded in cloud. There is another identical bridge downtown but it is grey so I didnt think that was it. Then I was worried if my checked bag had made it to the connecting fight as the flight was already boarding when I arrived. I had brought food items and chocolate. If they missed this flight they would have to sit in SFO for about a day till the next flight to Korea. Then since I dont live in Seoul it could take another day for it to be delivered to my home in Daegu. By that time the cheese and food items would have completely rotted in the 36+ degree heat in Korea. They are also getting very fussy now about cameras insisting anything with an on/off button must be switched off, even though my camera does not have any wireless feature and I've used it on every flight I've ever taken. The flight was about 11 hours and once again we did not have personal tvs but instead the overhead displays. We had just watched an intro movie from the CEO about how they are spending 1/2 $Billion on retrofitting the fleet with personal tvs. Also surprisingly we had a female pilot for the long haul flight, the first I think I've ever had. This time we did not have the cockpit commentary on channel 9 so I just listened to the 80s channel for most of the flight while I tried to sleep, still worried about if my checked bag had made it onto the flight. Landing at Incheon I was going to use my new passport for the first time and hoping it wouldnt cause problems with Immigration since they had the old number, but I went thru ok. Anxiously I waited at the luggage belt and after a few tense moments my bag came around. The next test was customs as I had cheese and most of my suitcase was food items. But they were double wrapped and in plastic containers so hardly any odour. They had a sniffer dog so I didnt walk near him. Fortunately customs is very relaxed, probably for fear of having to talk to a foreigner in english! As I came out the terminal building I saw a Daegu bus parked so ran across the road while another bus was driving and waving me to get off the road. The Daegu bus was leaving at 2.50 and it was 2.48. I threw my bag in the luggage area and told him to wait while I bought a ticket. He waited and pulled out as I got back. That was lucky since the bus is every hour and a four hour bus ride. Had I waited for the light to change he would have left. After passing the Incheon Bridge he got off the highway, drove around Songdo for some reason, then got back on the highway. The bus only had about 7 passengers so I was free to sit where I wanted and put my bags on the seat. When we got in Daegu traffic was not moving and it took another half hour to get to the bus station. Upon arrival at Daegu I told a cab driver I wanted to goto Chilgok Homeplus. He said he didnt know. I kept saying Chilgok which is a quarter of the city, and he kept saying he didnt know. I tried to walk away and look for another cab but he was the only one there I tried again to explain how to get there, paldal bridge, maechon-dong, taejeon-dong, eumnae-dong. Eventually he understood Homeplus and said Suseong-gu which is the other side of the city. I kept telling him paldal bridge (paldal-gyo) and eventually he understood. Finally I made it home and all my food items came thru ok so I tossed them in the fridge and freezer. This is decision year for me as I start my third year teaching in Korea. When I was in Toronto it felt like the last two years never happened and I could just go back to my old job the next day. Now that I'm back in Korea I feel as though I've built a life here and I can carry on for a year or so. What I would miss the most if I left is the language as I'm able to have simple conversations with people now so would lose all the language I've learnt. I'll see how it goes this year with the new school and have to decide what it is that I'm going to do.