Honeymoon Express to Manila

Arg! I take it back about Asiana’s leg room. Obviously this applies only to trans-Pacific flights, because the plane they wedged me into for a four-hour flight from Seoul to Manila was built for dwarves. Short dwarves. Short dwarves with stumpy legs. My right leg was actually twitching above the knee by the end of the flight.

And little did I know that I was on the Korean Honeymoon Express. Apparently, the Philippines is to Korea what Hawaii is to America: a lush, exotic, sunny aphrodisiac of a beach destination for newlyweds. No sooner had I found my seat and gotten comfortable that my neighbor asked if I could switch seats with his new wife, as they were on a honeymoon. He didn’t have to point her out to me: they wore matching shirts.

Five minutes later, my new neighbor also asked if I could switch seats, as he was also on a honeymoon and his wife also didn’t have a seat next to him. And before I even had a chance to sit down in my new seat, it happened a third time. Call me Cupid, matchmaker of amorous Koreans.

I ended up firmly wedged between an old woman most certainly not on a honeymoon, and another couple with bright blue patterned matching shirts. I don’t know if they were on a honeymoon or not, but the guy had immense difficulty keeping his oversized paws off her, there was lots of intimate whispering, and had they been slightly skinnier or the rows less ridiculously cramped I would not have been surprised to see him attempt to mount her right there and then.

This plane load of romance landed a long four hours later, and it was all I could do not to sprint off the flight. The twitching held me back.