1 day till Korea

My traveling commenced yesterday with a trip from home to New Jersey.  I started off the first leg of the trip driving down to Scranton, PA.  It was the normal make your way down I-81 starting off with very few cars then accumulating more as we got closer to Scranton.  I've only been down in Scranton once before doing a jazz gig for one of my friend's grandmother's birthday parties and as I remember Scranton was unassumingly nice town.  Though I didn't remember much of the town, I always get reminded of it every time I watched the Office on TV.  This time driving through I was waiting for Dwight to whip in front of me in his crappy Camaro on his way to his beet farm.  It's funny how TV paints a picture of a town. 

Anyway, we told the GPS to take us to an Italian restaurant and ended up at the remnants of that restaurant.  Lucky us we were able to find a mom and pop bar/kitchen down the road.  The food was pretty good and ridiculously cheap.  What did we learn out of this whole ordeal?  When the GPS fails good is always around the corner.  Dad then drove all the way to New Jersey to my aunt and uncles place.  They've been offering us the chance to come and visit while in NYC but I've never had the chance.  This was the time.  It was great to kick back a few glasses of wine, eat a few bites of peach pie and say good bye to one of the better parts of the family.  

We then headed about two blocks to our hotel.  Convenient (If I keep saying this it's because something is convenient and because I can't spell convenient and need to practice).  The room we have is quite spacious with two queen beds, a fold out bed, 2 lcd TVs and a kitchen.  The hotel also has a gym, sauna and pool that I will be taking advantage of tomorrow to get me so tired I sleep the whole 14 hour flight.

Today, we had a touristy NYC day.  One of those strap on your fanny pack and sling your cameras over your shoulder kinda days.  We went to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Empire State building.  I had previously did the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island run, a few months back, but my father and brother have never been.  The only highlight of that leg of the tourist trip was watching a movie on Ellis Island about the immigrants and trying to find my great great grand father in the Ellis Island database.   Great great grandpa must of come to a different gateway than Ellis Island because he was no where to be found.  It's funny because most of my family has been in the US since the early settlers but great great grandpa from my mom's side.  The Empire State Building was a cueing nightmare.  We jumped ahead of the line, due to reserved tickets, but still waited in line for 2 hours.  Once we reached the top, we spent about 15 minutes taking pictures.  Really not worth the wait.  However, we did have liquor at an Irish pub that washed away all of our standing pains.  All in all the NYC trip has been a success.

Now I've had a small adventure with the family and really have had my attention diverted from going to Korea.  So I'm still left sitting here feeling like nothing new is going to change.  I'm banking on when I say my last good-byes to my family, I'll really start to realize that I'm actually LEAVING.