Space travel through time

Returning from the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, requires another look at time - the human devised method of keeping time. I left Hanwoori Hall, the dormitory at Ewha University, before seven on Friday, June 24, 2005. I arrived at the Portland, Oregon, airport at seven thirty on Friday, June 24, 2005. Nearly ten thousand miles. Magic?
Is that time travel or what? Those hours were very real so it wasn't an instant 'beam me up, Scotty' experience. I rode the airport shuttle through the streets of Seoul and along the fabulous "new" Airport highway, walked through the delightfully designed Incheon Airport in Seoul, slept cramped in an Airbus seat, walked through the somber gray Narita Airport in Tokyo, dropped crumbs from many snacks and meals, slept in a cramped Airbus seat, spilled juice in the seat pocket, woke with a dry mouth to a hot towel before breakfast cramped in an Airbus seat, and finally walked through Homeland security in the colorfully carpeted Portland Airport. All that in at space of twenty minutes? Not exactly. Did I live a day longer? Can I hide the day I aged? Or did I lose the day altogether?
There was still an hour's flight to the Pasco Airport but I was in my house at noon. What a trip! I think I had enough sleep so I won't lose a day but I must make up for the exercise lost. The way we accommodate the change in days is clever, I suppose. It has to be done somehow but on the face it seems pretty weird, don't you think?
Naomi Sherer