Daegu-Incheon-Tokyo: from the airport

When I fly out of Korea, I can choose between leaving from Incheon, a suburb of Seoul about a 4.5 hour bus ride away, or Busan, which is a 1 hour ride.

The Busan flight was at a crappy time, and was more expensive.

So I set off for Incheon in the middle of the night, on the “airport limousine bus”. The slightly more expensive bus (35 000 won) has seats that are more like a Laz-E-Boy. Huge, they lean back and have foot rests. Standard bus etiquette is to sleep – maybe that’s why people pay more – they expect to catch some zzs – and I have been told to shut up on more than one occasion. This time I slept for four hours straight, opening and closing my eyes briefly at the rest stop, then woke up right at the door of the airport.

I work pretty hard in Korea. A full time job, media work that gives me overtime, salsa, freelance writing, and dreaming about what I want to do with my life...it can wear a woman out. So when I decide to vacation, I like to spoil myself.

Incheon is a huge airport that puts Toronto’s Pearson to shame. Full of designer stores, cafes, restaurants, a muslim prayer room, beauty salons and more, I had budgeted my time to explore the airport and enjoy a little bit of pampering before flying out. So I headed to the basement to the sauna. Now a sauna in Korea is not simply a steam room with the possibility of a hot tub. You can rent private nap rooms, or just sleep on one of the heated floors – a cheaper alternative for those who don’t want to go to a hotel - and enjoy hot tubs of various temperatures, steam and salt rooms.

A close cousin of the more elaborate jimjilbang, upon arrival at the sauna you are given a key, a towel, and a shorts and t-shirt combo that looks like high school gym class. You lock up your shoes in a shoe locker. Then go into the change room that matches your sex. Looking at the menu of services, I settled on a “scrub”. The thai massage was a whopping 110,000 won – (about $100 CA) which is a crime when you have memories of paying $6 for an hour of full-body massage in Thailand itself, which Ainy describes as “stretching your body without having to do any work yourself.”

I have seen these scrub-downs in Jimjilbangs and saunas. An ahjumma, or older woman, usually wearing a black lacey bra and panty set, prepares a massage table. I have seen cucumber slices placed on faces, mud and salt rubbed over skin, and vigorous vigorous rubbing.

My ahjumma was also wearing some gym class shorts on top of her bra and panty set. She dumped a bucket of water over the table and told me to lie down. She put on an exfoliating mitt, and got to work scrubbing my body. Starting at my feet, she really left only the most intimate of places un-touched. The scrub down was so damn vigorous, that my body was raw, and I debated telling her to stop, or say, “that’s enough!” more than once. But I didn’t want to be a wimp – and I wanted to see what the full treatment was anyways. First I lay on my back. Then my side. Then the other side, then on my stomach. Then we did it all over again. I don’t think I’ve been this well-exfoliated in a long time. So I went into the steam room to complete the purification process. And then feeling like my entire body was exactly the same texture as a baby’s ass, I proceeded to leisurely apply creams and make-up, and emerged glowing.

Then it was time to check-in. I was wondering why there were so many Americans. How do I know they are American (soldiers)? First of all, the un-becoming crew cut that so many white and Hispanic soldiers sport. At least most military black guys have the decency to shave their heads with a proper fade. I mean, why the hell would you get a crew cut when you can have the perfectly acceptable and arguably more attractive evenly shaved head? Sometimes I get exasperated when men ruin their look – I firmly beleive that it’s way easier to be a hot guy than a hot girl.

The other military sign is the camo backpack. Yeah. Anyways a lady came by with cards promoting some service that I didn’t catch, and only handed them out to Koreans. She started at the back of the line, and would sometimes step slightly in front of someone, or move up just enough to see the side of their face, before approaching them. This was her checking to see if they are Korean. I find this hilarious – often when I am downtown, people tap me on the shoulder to ask for directions. When I turn around, and they see a foreign face, they walk away. This also happens from the front when I wear sunglasses. I chalk it up to my decidedly Korean 5’3 stature and skin colouring – Sharifa would often lose me in a sauna without her glasses because naked, I blend in pretty well.

Back to the line? A flight attendant came by and spoke to only the Korean people in the line – in Korean. I watched her as she skipped the foreigners, talked to Koreans, and then the Koreans would leave the line and go to a First Class area with no line up. When she approached the couple in front of me, I finally heard what she was saying. She was offering them the chance to by-pass the long line with “self check in”. I followed the Korean couple and let her know, in Korean, that I was also going to Tokyo and would also like to go with the self-check-in option. She smiled courteously with a slight bow of the head and said, “ne.” My Korean is far from perfect, but I still have to laugh at the fools that don’t even bother to learn how to read the alphabet (and I am solely judging those who stay in Korea to work for more than a year, which definitely justifies learning to read Hangeul, a feat which can be accomplished in one day minus a few tricky pronunciation glitches which can be smoothed out in a short time) and miss out on opportunities to usurp “Korean only” opportunities.

One more airport feature that stands out is the collection of "Traditional Korean Areas". Women dressed in Hanbok speak English and teach you how to make a traditional craft for free. I made a little wooden desk today as I chatted with the ladies in Konglish, and listened to a traditional music performance. Last year I decorated a plate with coarse traditional paper which my mother has.

Next up... stories from Tokyo itself. I'm staying with Kaz, a friend I met about 12 years ago who went to high school and university with me.