A ten hour layover in Souel South Korea can leave one feeling a bit empty inside. Flying in around 5am to a desolate airport in another country with nothing but your backpack and a stale airline muffin. No one to meet you at the gate and no one expecting your call. Thousands of miles from where you came, and still a few hundred from where you are trying to go. A wandering time traveling zombie, hours ahead of the time zone you just left.
Watching the city lights twinkle as the plane pitches forward and the lights flicker on and off heading in for a landing. Sitting between two Korean men for 12 hours has taken its toll on me. Sleeping on my arm and twisting uncomfortably between one side of the hard arm rest and the other. Fading in and out of consciencness earphones plugged into my head to try and drown out the snorts and sniffles of the man sitting next to me. He seems to have contracted some sort of snorting disease uppon entering the plane. He sits next to me uncontrolably snorting like a mad horse. While the man to my right seems to have forgotten to wipe. Odd fecal smells loom around him, or could that be the fact that we are sitting next to the airplane bathroom? The fact that the fecal smell seems to be mixed with a stagnant kim chi odor leads me to believe he just forgot to wipe. Plus its too early for the recently cleaned bathrooms to smell like that. Limbo is interesting,boarded the plane on Wednesday its Friday here already, still Thursday where I came from and when I arrive in Bangkok it will be Friday night. So here I sit, in limbo, waiting for the jumped hours and days to catch up. The sun will be up soon, and the quiet will disappear as the local flights fill up and go out.
Everyone is speaking another language and the airport looms around me ominusly tall and bright. I catch my breathe and then begin my marathon wait for my next departing flight. The hallways are empty and quiet, no restaurants or food vendors are yet open. I tug at my backpack straps nervously as I make my way from one hall to the next.
People come in waves, filtering out of the planes and into the terminal, waiting, the rushed,the hurried and the sleeping.
The huge red sun begins to show itself behind the tarmack, and it rises up above the flight tower in all its glory. Bringing in a new day in Korea, I stand in the window a speck watching the red ball of fury rise, in between flashing signs for boarding Istambul, Turkey, Singapore, Washington, and New York flash around me. For a minute it feels like a strange game show. Pick a place, and the door opens. A completely surreal experince happens in airports if you pay attention. The world becomes your playground, and anyone with have an imagination can spend hours entertaining the possibilities.
For now I need to stay awake. Badly. I can feel the jet lag creeping towards my brain, begging me to close my eyes to fade into blissful sleep for hours while I wait. I have played this game before, and I know all to well the doom that impends should I give in and sleep here in Korea. The depression and lag will follow me for days into Bangkok and kill my motivation and ambition. Leave me confused and twisted for longer than this layover. If only they were serving beer now.
Sleep dep is starting to blur the real and whats next and my movements have become slow. Watching my backpack and making sure to keep putting everything back is key now. Losing your mind is one thing but losing important documents is completely another. The walls beging to wabble and shake, and I feel like Ive just run a marathon. Outside the planes land and take off one after another. The sky has turned to full daylight and the tarmack is a bustling center of activity.
Asian airports have a host of ammenities lucky for me creating pleanty of distractions and tasks to take part in during my layover. I quickly lay out a plan for the day before the sleep dep completely drags my brain into a stagnant lull. First stop will be the shower room, what an ingenuis idea. A bathroom with nothing but shower stalls private and complete with hot water. Perfect for wasting an hour freshening up and pouring water overyourself to stave off the halucionations. Eating and reading are out, both require to much sitting. Eating especially rides the line a bit to close. Everyone knows all you really want to do after eating is take a nap. Having a resting lounge complete with reclining leather loungers doesnt help either. There are tons of stores in the airport unfortunately they are all the same. Its a bit like a cartoon you walk and the backgrounds change but only in a loop. Burberry will appear again in exactly six more stores. Stores are good for staying awake though, lots of activiy and harsh lighting dont allow for alot of sleep related problems.
Right now nothing really makes much sense, my brain is offically melting. Wandering keeps me moving but I fear I will get lost if I dont watch myself. With all the stores looking the same and only one information desk with my boarding pass held hostage for the rental of a universal adapter. I must keep my wits. I watch as people like myself wander around the airport. Dishevled and lost, "do you speak english?" "can I buy a CD player here?" I field questions from other brain strained travelers.
There are people milling, standing staring into space and vacantly idling here all around. Children are screaming somewhere far away in the vastness of the airport and I flash back to my last day in LA.
I shuffle on back into the stream of traveling people bustling about. Watching the Asian girls furry boots and sno hats in front of me as I aclimate to the other-side of the world.
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