Day 0 in Korea: More Like Ground Zero in Korea

I had a comically awful first day en route to a Model UN Conference in South Korea.

This is a picture of me smiling at 4AM inside of Charlotte-Douglas International Airport before we (our Model UN school group) boarded our flights to Detroit, Michigan and Incheon, South Korea:

This is a picture of me at 3:30 PM (South Korea time) inside of Incheon International Airport after we got through customs and arrived in Korea:

You may be thinking: “what the heck happened?”

Well, what happened was 🤮.

Right when I thought I had just successfully completed a 16 hour flight without throwing up, I puked out almost everything I ate that day.

But not everything I ate, because I puked once more in the airport bathroom (we didn’t tell anyone, so maybe the puke is still there all over the toilet if you are interested in checking it out)!

I also got vomit all over my clothes, my backpack (which still smells like vomit), my phone (had a lot of vomit crust in it), and even in my shoes.

No, I’m not kidding, I did in fact get vomit in my shoes.

And without a spare change of shoes at the time, I was stuck at the airport with puke filled shoes for 5 hours.

Unfortunately, the bus that was supposed to pick us up couldn’t arrive until 8:30PM, and I was stuck in the airport for five hours. This was especially unfortunate considering I was in a foreign country and it was very difficult to lay down and find rest in the airport.

When the bus finally arrived at the airport to save me from my misery, I found out that the bus ride to the conference center we were staying at, Cheongshim International Academy, was over 90 minutes away. Hooray!

By the way, I recently learned through a local that Cheongshim International Academy is owned by a cult-like group called the Unification Church, and that someone who I was talking to at lunch today may be part of the group.

Anyway, when I finally arrived in Gapyeong County, home of CSIA, I found out that my room did not have a bed. Instead, it had a traditional Korean mattress, or on top of a yo and underneath an ibul on ondol heated floors. Normally, this would be fine with me, but since I was sick and needed rest, this was less than ideal.

An image of my room.

I woke up at 3:18 AM the next morning sweating in the extremely warm room. The floor was hot, and I could not bear staying in a room that felt like a hot car anymore.

In order try to solve this problem, I decided to open the door to my room and tried to go back to sleep.

I was somewhat successful, as I woke up once more ironically feeling cold, yet got some shut-eye that allowed for my stomach good enough for the conference the next afternoon.

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Overall, Day 0 was so bad that it was funny. It felt like something out of a movie.

Have you had any comically bad travel experiences? Let me know in the comments below!

-Zach