Early Bird Gets the Worm

Okay, so, we have said before that we have 3 suitcases fully packed and ready to go. And, we were planning on bringing home a total of 8 bags. Reasonable, right?

Well, I got online to check the baggage fees and dimensions to find that since we have bought our ticket, you can no longer check 2 free bags on international flights. $70 for the second checked bag. After some initial "WHATTTTTT" we did more research and found that since we bought our tickets in May, we still get 2 free checked bags...BUT, each additional bag will be 230,000W or 230$! WHATTTTTT? So, after finding this out, I call the airline again to make sure we can make all three of our flights. We are scheduled to depart Seoul, fly to Japan, arrive in Dulles, D.C. and take a small jet to Atlanta. Now, we have an hour stop in Japan...here's to hoping our flight departs on time. Then, we have 1 hour and 11 minutes to claim our bags, go through customs and recheck our bags AND make our connecting flight to Atlanta. If we don't make the flight, we get bumped to the next available flight which is at 10:40pm! Or we can transfer across the United States and eventually get home, hoping our bags make it too!

So, we reevaluated our plan. We unpacked the 3 packed suitcases, went through the closets, cabinets, drawers, kitchen, laundry room, piano room, bathroom, etc, compiled the world's largest pile of clothes, books, shoes, souvenirs and went to the post office to buy more boxes. Derek, a professional packer, then packed to the brim 6 boxes of our stuff that we expected to take on the plane with us and have access to in America. We shipped them (by boat) to both Ga and Wa. Winter clothes to Wa. Summer clothes to Ga. Oh man! We hope to see those boxes again in 2 months. BUT, what would have cost us over 1,000$ in baggage fees only cost us under 200$ in shipping fees.

Now, we both have 6 shirts in the closet, a couple of pants and a dress or two. Everything that can't fit in with our electronics (Derek's mics, the stereo, etc) will be donated or trashed. Oh man! So thankful we checked the bags and customs rules one more time!