It has taken me a full week to recover from 24 hours in transit from Bangkok to Incheon, Korea (Seoul) – 6 hours, arriving at 5:20 a.m.
Then an excruciatingly boring five hour layover spent drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (the only fairly decent cup of Americano we had in Korea) and peering into the windows of over-priced fashion and doodad stores. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a Samsung outlet, which is what we’d hoped for, because Hub needs to trade in his one-step-up-from-a flip phone brick.
Next up, the final leg, was a thirteen hour flight which actually got us back to Toronto half an hour before we left Korea, thanks to the International Date Line. There was turbulence over Hudson’s Bay and the Arctic Sea, but not bad enough to stop food service. I’m fascinated by the looping polar route that took us over Russia and northern Asia – 11,302 km. Apparently, passenger aircraft are not permitted to be more than a certain distance from land. Comforting, I guess.
Regrettably, yet another child whined and nattered for half of the flight time. As much as I sympathized with the parents, after hour three, I wanted to scream, “Get that kid some Gravol”.
But I didn’t, because the cabin crew of the Korean Airlines flight were amazing, there was decent leg room, the food was excellent and the young man beside me wasn’t a twitcher, so when I dozed off, I was able to get some rest. And thank goodness for my Bose noise cancelling earbuds. Lifesavers. I watched Magic Mike XXL (oh my), Trainwreck (surprisingly good), Minions (somewhat funny) and another movie I can’t remember. Hub, a seasoned traveller, eats the meal, drinks some wine then falls right to sleep. Lucky guy.
Another shout-out to downloadable audiobooks from the Newmarket Public Library (One Click Digital and Overdrive). I blasted through three historical romances (heavy on the ‘rigid shafts’, ‘broadly muscled chests’, ‘heated cores, ‘steaming sheaths’ and mucho pre-marital sex in boat houses, hay barns, castle bedrooms and summer houses. I hadn’t realized the mid 1800s were literally hot horizontal surfaces (occasionally beds) of lust.
But I digress.
Arriving at Incheon Airport was a treat. Before we even got off the aircraft, the screen in front of our seats told us which baggage carrel our luggage would be on. What a difference from Pearson, where the environment is reminiscent of a Cold War quonset hut, all cold glass, miles of featureless walls and poor signage. The Incheon terminal is enormous, but well marked. The walls are lined with art, scenic posters and archaeological exhibits.
Seoul (population 14 million city, 10 million suburbs), is a city of 44 bridges, most of them coloured a shade of rust-primer pink. No one knew why.
I asked our limo driver about the low haze, that I took to be fog. He said it was ‘white dust’, particulate matter, the origins of which no one was sure about. He said that in the spring, they endure weeks of ‘yellow dust’, but that comes from China. Add to that multiple lanes of buses, choked roadways of cars and motorbikes, and it got pretty intolerable.
I’m usually impervious to stuff like that but by the second day, I had to purchase a dust mask to wear outside, it was so bad. The thing is, the damned thing fogged up my glasses. What a choice – breathe relatively clean air or see where you’re walking.
Nevertheless – we loved Seoul!
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