Arriving at LAX: My First Chaotic Day in Los Angeles
I had never set foot in the Americas in my entire life, so I really wanted to visit a country there during my time off. I ended up deciding to travel to the US, crashing at a friend's place in San Diego for about a month. Despite the brutal exchange rate hovering around 1,330 KRW to the dollar, I was blinded by the prospect of free room and board. I used my miles for the flight, so I only had to pay about 400,000 KRW (approx. $286) in airport fees. While there were absolutely no mileage tickets for other airports, LAX had plenty available. Thanks to that, I was able to tighten my belt and prepare for the trip even though I was broke.
And then, the highly anticipated departure day arrived.
I layered up as much as possible with thin clothes to somehow survive the wait at the airport bus stop, and then changed into comfortable sleeping clothes at the airport. Wearing sweatpants, a neck pillow, and bare feet in slippers, I boarded my Asiana Airlines flight. It was a spacious plane, so even though I was stuck in a middle seat in economy, it was reasonably comfortable. I couldn't really sleep, so I watched 'Along with the Gods' (based on the comic by a recently controversial artist) and bawled my eyes out on the plane. Before I knew it, 10 hours had flown by and we had arrived.
Seeing the Stars and Stripes welcoming me, I really felt like I was in the US. I realized I was truly in LA when a Latino airport officer fired off rapid English at me—treating foreigners with true equality—and grilled me for about 10 minutes, asking why on earth I was staying at a friend's house for a whole month. What a beautiful, equal, and discrimination-free country! My head was pounding the moment I arrived, and I just wanted to get on a return flight and go back home.
Completely drained of energy, I went to baggage claim, only to face my second problem. The baggage carousel made a loud noise and stopped, as if it had broken down. If this were Korea, a staff member would have sprinted over and fixed it within a minute, but 10 minutes passed and no one came to get it running again. Seeing the other waiting passengers just accept it and stare at their phones made me feel like I was going to explode from frustration. Seriously, why do they even charge 400,000 KRW for airport fees?
Feeling a newfound appreciation for the greatness of Incheon Airport and the hard work of its staff, I got into my friend's car, who had driven 3 hours to pick me up. The area in front of the airport was beyond a parking lot; it was pure chaos. Everyone was frantically moving around in front of the airport, probably because of how expensive parking is. I barely managed to load my luggage and get in the car, feeling completely exhausted. They say an airport is the mirror of a country, and this was definitely different from the sparkling, heavily hospitality-armed airports in Asia. LAX is incredibly slow, seems to have zero maintenance, and it's nearly impossible to find any staff managing the congestion. To soothe my exhausted soul, there was one place I ran straight to: Starbucks.
We headed to a Starbucks near LAX, and I was taken aback when homeless people welcomed us as soon as we arrived. True to California, where the weather is so nice even in January that it's perfect for autumn clothes, there are a lot of homeless people. I knew this because I had heard about it before coming, but I didn't expect them to be sitting inside Starbucks, eating and resting. I was confused whether I should view this as equality, regardless of whether someone is homeless or not.
The area around LAX airport is a high-crime zone. It's probably because the noise makes the land cheap. You could say it's similar to Seoul Station, but the difference is that American homeless people just walk right into any place. In Korea, if a homeless person were sitting in a Starbucks, the police would be called, but that doesn't seem to be the vibe here. It had only been about 30 minutes since I arrived in the US, but from what I could tell, it was just so incredibly different from Korea.
Will I be able to survive this US trip...?
