A week in the States...

While some people get to take 3 months off to swan around the USA, the rest of us have to make do with a 5 day business trip and so it was that last Monday I jetted off to LA for a week.

It almost started with a disaster at check-in when the airline announced that the only row with three seats together was a row that they weren't planning on using cos the personal monitors were broken and one of our party said we'd take it anyway (what is it with the Korean obsession with doing everything together?). Luckily common sense prevailed and we were soon distributed through out the plane and ready for our flight.

It was a 10.5 hour flight to LA with a 16 hour time difference and consequently we got there 5.5 hours before we left, although personally, I'd prefer it if it wasn't a Monday that I had to live through twice. Mind you we lost most of that 5.5 hour gain waiting to dock at the terminal, waiting to get through immigration, waiting to get our luggage, waiting to get our rental car and then driving out to our hotel in Laguna Beach. The hotel was just one of the major chains but it was quite comfortable and each room had a jacuzzi although somewhat bizarrely it was in the room rather than in the bathroom.

Anyhow, after getting ourselves settled we took a walk along Laguna Beach...It was very pleasant after the hustle and bustle of Seoul. Of course, sometimes the Californian beach lifestyle is not all it's cracked up to be.... The next morning we were up bright and early and ready to start work. But first, breakfast on the terrace among the Birds of Paradise... After that it was a day of hard work and we only just got back to the hotel in time to catch the sunset...We made good progress with our work on Tuesday and therefore we'd finished our work soon after lunch on Wednesday. Of course if you're on a business trip with Koreans you have to go and play golf... and after that we just wondered around enjoying the OC. On Thursday we chose to go wine-tasting. (Well, I was driving and the others were wine-tasting). We went to the Ponte Family Estate Winery in Temecula... My colleagues were able to choose 6 wines to taste out of the many available and of course being Koreans those six mouthfuls completely wiped them out... The grapes were still very small so there wasn't that much to see...But it was a pleasant enough way to spend a day...Driving back to Laguna Beach we were thinking how it would be very easy to get accustomed to such a lifestyle... We had just enough time to take in one last sunset...


Before it was time to head off to the airport for our flight back to Seoul... Here we are taking off for the 13 hour flight back to Seoul (why does it take 2.5 hours longer to get back to Korea than to fly from Korea?)