We loved Air Korea! A smart slick plane, endless media, perfumed towels, a comfy spacious seat and really gracious service: the way air travel used to be.
And as we were enroute to Istanbul we were given two hotel rooms and all our meal vouchers for a leisurely overnight stop at Incheon, about an hour and a half from Seoul.
The drive from the airport reveals a city in the throes of rapid growing pains: the sky is littered with cranes, and the air is thick with construction dust. People wear masks to breathe. Massive clusters of new concrete coloured high rises are being pasted to the dusty sky, like cutouts in a storybook.
Just ten years ago this part of the country was made Korea’s first free economic zone, opening the port and harbour city to modernization and investment. Samsung lives here, and occupies a large tract of the dry flat land enroute, for its mega global enterprises.
If money means music Korea would surely be singing. It is all a’ happening.
But there are traditional things honoured, too.
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| Chain shop in Chinatown |
We had time the following morning to take a leisurely stroll around Incheon’s Chinatown, past little shops that haven’t changed for centuries.
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| Incheon Chinatown |
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| Jayu Park |
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| Tulips all in a row |
After a transfer back to Incheon Airport we checked out the shops and some are among the most glamorous we have seen.
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| Gorgeous glass and display |
But, in the way of many countries in Asia, they tend to be completely over-serviced. Sales staff line the counters almost shoulder to shoulder. It is impossible to imagine how many of them actually sell one thing most days. I fear most of them must be mind-numbingly bored.
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| Elegant Dior |
oooOOOooo
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