Stateside arrival

A week ago yesterday I landed at LAX after an incredibly long series of flights to get back to the U.S. from Tokyo.
It turns out that flying straight to Los Angeles from Tokyo is incredibly expensive. Like two and a half grand expensive. However, by being creative with flight scheduling, I was able to tweak a significantly cheaper route by first flying to Kuala Lumpur, then switching flights entirely to take a separate airline back via Seoul, South Korea. It was nasty in terms of spending time on planes and at the airport. Here's a break-down.
Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur - 8 hours flying time (backing up over a time zone to boot)
6 hour layover at airport.
This wouldn't be so bad if the airport was closer to KL in general, but it takes roughly an hour to an hour and a half to take a bus in from the airport to the city. Couple that with having to go through security again, it just was a better idea to stay in the airport.
Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, South Korea - 8 hours flying time (back OVER the time zone)
8 hour layover in Seoul.
I did take the opportunity to explore the city this time. I took an hour bus ride into the historic downtown part of Seoul and walked around a bit, freezing my ass off in the 19 degree weather with just a long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker. I wanted to go into a temple or shrine, but they charged for admittance to everything, so I just took some pictures from the outside. Then I went into a local restaurant and ordered some Bugolgi and Kim Chi before taking the bus back to the airport to go through security again.
Seoul to Los Angeles - 10 hours flying time, crossing the international date-line.
So I spent roughly 40 hours straight in planes or airports. It was not pretty, but I saved roughly a grand in costs and actually got to check out a little bit of Seoul in the process.

I arrived at LAX at around 8:30 in the morning on the 13th and fellow Las Vegas hasher Special Ed picked me up in my WRX, so I could complete my trip driving in. With the assistance of one Shrimp Skanky in San Diego we were able to score a couch for the night as well as make it to that evenings hash with the...

Porter's Pub Hash House Harriers
Based out of the Porter's Pub in the center of UCSD, they did a fine job of laying an inner-campus trail A to A style that incorporated some mixes of mild shiggy and pavement. The group definitely contrasted the hipster mix of college kids and overall it was just a good fun time.
Trail was done differently from others that I have done though, with each check acting as a hold point. Basically you followed trail to the check, then waited there for the rest of the pack to catch up before moving on. Checks were frequent enough that you never waited for long and the addition of the RA(?) using quiz questions to determine who left when, kept things entertaining. It was almost like a hashing version of burst running training which I found to be a refreshing change from the standard trail style.
At the beer-stop I took my time and ended up falling behind the group. It was easy to follow trail, but I was using my ears more than eyes to try and shortcut a bit to catch up with the crowd and ended up passing them on trail by a fairly decent amount. Eventually they caught up and I rejoined them to the end at the pub.
Circle was low-key and fun with some high quality beer. There was no beer cooler though so you had to buy your own, but the first beer was discounted and the down-down beer was included. So if you want to drink more, find reasons to get charged more. I did!
After things wrapped up, Afterbirth gave Special Ed and I a heads up about the OC Hump Hash the next evening. One more hash to notch the belt before returning to L.V.