the joy of transfers

Next time you have a choice of airport to transfer at have a look at this site. It lists the best and worst airports to sleep at. I have been at the top three, but have really only used number eight to sleep at. It's Incheon Airport, in Seoul, South Korea, where we waited for eight hours to transfer to New Zealand. After enquiring whether it would be possible to check out the city of Seoul, we decided not to take the risk and just roam free at the airport.

Even inside the airport you've got to be prepared for a bit of a culture shock though. Quite a gender-biased society, so it seems. Already in the plane our Korean neighbour had to complement Jon on his "beautiful wife", before he started talking to me. O_o ... very polite, I guess? But then there were also more confusing moments. We, that is, I, asked at a helpdesk whether we could go outside without a visum, and they answered politely to Jon that we could. Wait, did I see that wrong? So I asked another question, and yes, they answered it again - to Jon. Mmmm how weird. So we walked around, when two cleaners dropped a mop. As it happened right next to me, and their hands seemed quite full already, I intuitively wanted to pick it up for them - but they seemed in a sudden hurry to snatch the mop, look at me as if they saw a ghost and run off. Oh.
Obviously that futuristic, empty and extremely clean building the shape of a plane / whale desperately needed a mop :).