Greetings again from the "Land of the Morning Calm," Korea. We were last here in 2014, and my, how changed is the experience.
The journey got off to an inauspicious start. Our trip was supposed to be 1.5 hours to Detroit and then 14-ish hours to Incheon, depending on headwinds. Instead, during the preflight check in Elmira, already buckled in, it was found one of the engines was malfunctioning. It would take 4.5 hours to get a replacement plane, and of course we would miss our connection. This necessitated a four-hour layover in Detroit, five to Los Angeles, another hour's layover at LAX. But once ensconced in our business-class seats on the way to Incheon, things began to look up again.
At Incheon the troubles were renewed. I was pulled out of line for a temperature of 37.5°C, which is a low-grade fever. What kills me is that I was already hauling two heavy bags and didn't want to carry my sweater and coat as well, and thought it might elevate my temperature. Well, I was right. The quarantine officer separated me from Laura (she was sent on to her quarantine facility), and I was taken behind a screen to strip off my outer layers. I subsequently tested at 37.1°C, which is elevated but usually not considered a fever. Nevertheless, the quarantine officer ordered a dual-swab test, which she said would take 6-12 hours to return a result.
I was ushered to a carrel and told to wait. Maybe half an hour later, someone came to escort me to the testing site. As it turned out, this was outside on the tarmac, and I still in my short-sleeved shirt. But I found the minus-3°C cold infinitely preferable to the nasal swab, which is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever had happen to me that didn't involve a dentist. (Yes, ladies, I am aware doctors do much worse things to you, but I can only speak to my experience, which, subjectively, was unpleasant.)
I was returned to my cubicle, where I was given a bottle of water and a mylar blanket, and told I could stretch out on the floor to nap if I wanted. For the next seven hours, I saw no one except a menial who brought me a fish baloney sandwich—three words that should never occur in sequence, anathema sit. I am not ashamed to admit that as the sixth hour approached, I was beginning to crack up. I stood up on my chair to look around and saw the terminal deserted. I gingerly peeked into the other carrels—16 in all—and found mine was the only occupied one in the place. Had I been forgotten, left to rot in a low-pile-carpeted oubliette?
A bit after the seventh hour, just as I was looking up the U.S. Embassy, a pert young quarantine officer appeared and asked if I had received the test results in my e-mail. By God, no, woman, or would I still be here? I would have raised such a hue-and-cry as to have brought half the airport staff running, so on edge was I. Why I needed to receive it in my e-mail was never explained, and I never needed it for anything else, but this required half an hour of back-and-forth with their IT department to get it successfully into my inbox. I was then sent to the immigration desk, and after taking my biometrics and pouring over my documents, the immigration officer, confused, sent me to a back office for her supervisor to handle, and the process began anew. At least this woman's facility with English was good enough for my nervous jokes to land.
Thankfully, my checked bag was still waiting for me at the baggage claim. I collected this and the customs officer took my declaration slip, dropped it into a basket unexamined, and waived me through. The cordons corralled me into another cubicle, this one quite sizeable, erected around a low garden, with a desk manned by half a dozen police cadets, all staring intently into their phones. One looked sleepily through my documents, and told me to sit on the bench for the bus that would take me to my quarantine hotel. After a few hours, I asked when the bus might come, and was told it was delayed because of the snow, which seemed doubtful, at least from an Upstate New York perspective. Anything less than six inches is hardly an impediment back home.
Two hours later, after a large group of arrivals joined me, the bus finally showed up. I think the real story was that I alone was not enough to warrant a pickup, but they were the critical mass. We boarded and not much later arrived at our quarantine facility. It turned out to be the Marina Bay Hotel, much hyped in YouTube videos by internees, and shown to have beautiful rooms and a wonderful arrival package. Surely I was about to be recompensed for all my sorrows. After more paperwork, and my documents being examined once more, I forked over my $1,680 for the room and was sent up to the 11th floor to lock myself in for the next fourteen days, in peace and comparative luxury.
I think you know where this is headed.
To be continued.
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