WAYSIDE KOREA: THIS AIRPORT'S GOT SEOUL!

26 July 08
4:54 AM
Inchon Airport, Seoul, Korea
Welly’s Food Court

Is this a decent hour for a beer? It’s 4 am here, 4 pm at home, but I think it is actually 5 pm in the Caribbean… and they don’t care when you drink beer there, so here’s to Aruba, Jamaica and all the Kokomos worldwide.
The local brew is called Cass—spelled differently, but pronounced precisely like the Dutch word for cheese. In hopes for international symmetry, I can only hope the cheese here is called Heineken. Cass tastes…like beer. Which is so much better than beer that tastes like chicken. Or even cheese.
It has been a 27 hour journey from the quiet, rolling hillsides of Knoxville, Tennessee through the hustle, bustle, and crowds of Atlanta airport and on to the hubbub of Los Angeles International, LAX. I didn’t really feel like I was going to Asia until I got in line to check in at Asiana Airlines at Tom Bradley terminal. I was standing there minding my own business when I felt someone pressing into my backpack. As I was checking my bags and my instinct to turn around and see if they had fallen forward during a faint or seizure, I remembered my destination—places where both outer space and personal space have very little meaningful application in daily life. Crowded locales where the biggest, most aggressive guy gets the attention of the office clerk. Either that, or they have to be very slippery, because when you are just another face in the crowd, you have to be either a huge face, a really important face, or someone small and sly enough to weave your way at the level of waistlines and knees to get yourself to the front. This probably explains why none of our Asian friends go home and write us letter—aside from the fact that much of the mail never leaves the country. Unless your buddy or mine is a gargantuan oily bohunk, they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being able to purchase a postage stamp.
Which brings me to another quite tangential comment about the LA airport, just in case you are traveling there and make an unwise decision such as I did to pay all your bills en route and then just mail them at the terminal. This ends up being a very imprudent indeed plan. Why? Not entirely because, like nearly everyone else, I haven’t graduated into the 21st century of paying all my bills on-line. No, it’s a much simpler reason. There are no post boxes at the LA airport. A Latin-appearing security guard explained, “They took them all out, because of the terrorists.” I suppose in some manner this makes a modicum of sense, but what about all those USA stamped post cards that foreign travelers are disappointedly carrying back home in their carryon without a US stamp or postmark? There’s a world of discontent there. So give us a break. Put back the mailboxes. Make them plexiglass so everyone can see the contents. That way, no business traveler cheating on his/her spouse can mail a clandestine post to their illicit lover without at least fearing getting caught. And the postman never has to worry about a surprise encounter with a snake or some international traveller’s inadvertently discarded open yogurt container. And may I point out to the authorities that the name of the airport is, after all, “lax.” (And will someone please forward this blog to my mortgage company? Preferably before July 31st. I could try to mail it from Korea, but I am afraid I’d never get a stamp.)
Which brings me to the next tangential point… Sleeping on airplanes. Something I am really, really good at. I slept about 10 hours straight on the way here. Didn’t even hear the plane take off. So many of my friends say, “I can’t sleep on planes.” I have had a number of people ask me if I could prescribe them sleeping pills so they can snooze across the Pacific. I always tell them, “Heck, they named it the Pacific, because it puts people to sleep. Just look down at it for about 20 minutes and you’ll be out like a light.”

So for all you sheep counters out there, let me give you a great formula for falling to sleep on airlines. (1) Stay up all night the night before. Yeah, you can do it. Just think of all the things you are leaving undone and that you will actually worry about when you are away. The neighbors will forgive you for mowing the lawn at 3 AM, as long as it is just once a year. If they act persnickety, mosey over and get their lawn, too. After all, you’ve got all night, right? Or give your koi some quality time. They deserve it. (2) The morning and afternoon before your departure, relocate. That’s what I did. Sure it took some help from some friends (Thanks Jane and Paige), but all those trips down a third story walkup really wore me out. Slept like a baby and didn’t need any other pacifier over the Pacific Ocean. If I ever attempt to fly to Mars, you can apply now to get your lawn mowed and your furniture moved. First come, first serve.

But all that sleeping does make you groggy when the flight attendants shake you awake to ask you to return your seat to its full and upright position in the anticipation of serving the pre-landing breakfast. I awoke to a lovely dark-eyed Asian face saying in mildly accented English, “Please to put your seat up.” Blinking and bleary-eyed, I tried to get a bearing on where I was. The little Korean couple next to me digging forks into an unidentifiable and fragrant cuisine helped me remember that I was on a flight. The stewardess then leaned in closer and queried, “Octopus or omelet?” carefully enunciating every syllable and making them sound like “OCT OH PUSS or OM EL ET?” I was a bit confused. It took me back for just a second to the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral where the usher is trying to escort an elderly guest to his seat and asks, “Bride or groom?” and the grumpy,confused old guy says, “It should be perfectly obvious that I am neither.” Then it hit me that she was asking for my breakfast order. Admittedly, during the twenty-three years I have spent working with surgical interns, I have occasionally wished that I were an octopus-- an amorphous, malleable living creature with eight available arms to assist them. Nonethelss, I knew instinctively that despite efforts to remain culturally sensitive, I would not eat an octopus for breakfast. Ever. “Omelet,” I croaked. She smiled as she delivered a cutesy airline tray filled with eggs, hash browns, ham, a croissant, strawberry yogurt. She filled my cup with steaming tea. John and Teresa Kerry will be very ecstatic to know that the catsup served was Heinz. It was the only item on the tray whose labels were not in Korean, a language that, unfortunately, I have not even a rudimentary familiarity with. And that probably explains the unsweetened, heavily salted tea.

Yep, from now on, I am sticking with the beer. After all, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.