Ham, Tuna, and Imitation Crab

Place of Purchase: CU, Incheon Airport

Cost: 2300 KRW ($2.05)

KCal: 310

Yet another triple-decker sandwich for me, and crustless. I'm coming to expect triple bread in my sandwiches and fear disappointment if I am ever again presented with a paltry two-bread sandwich. I'm intrigued because quite visibly through the plastic I can see macaroni right in there, and I've never had macaroni on a sandwich. Also visible is some lettuce and what appears to be a tuna salad.

I live very near the Incheon Airport. It's one of the world's best and most modern airports. My apartment building is filled with pilots, flight attendants, customs people, and lots of other airport workers. Sometimes they talk to me on the elevator because most airport workers are pretty good at English. Talking on elevators makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time I live a lonely friendless existence so I'll take a little conversation where I can get it. 

I am also cursed with a condition in which I wake up every day at like 4 or 5 in the morning. It's not insomnia, I get six or seven hours of sleep a night, it's just my particular monkey-brain is programmed to wake up early. That's how my doctor explained it, anyways. My doctor is another story, that man is unusual and deserves his own place here.

So on the weekends I get up well before light with not much to do except be very quiet and not awaken the often ill-tempered ogress drowsing in my bed.

Fortunately for me, there's a place for people like me, and that's the airport. It's always open and only a 15 minute drive and has everything a guy like me and his unusually wired monkey-brain could want; Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Shake Shack, and lots of other fast-food shops, that all are open by 5am. There's even a really big casino near there. Rarely do I buy anything at all when I go because it's expensive and fattening. Usually I just like walking around and watching people. The airport is a good place to look at people and wonder where they're going. I like the energy there because most of the people are happy and excited about traveling, and even though it sounds sappy, that kind of thing makes me smile and I like to be around it. 

On this day, I am a bit hungry and decide to get a sandwich from one of the convenience stores that can be found very frequently in this immense terminal. The cool thing is that the prices for everything in the stores here are the same as everywhere else, no hyper-inflated airport premium. 

It's a good sandwich, nothing too exciting, not different from the tuna sandwiches that would be in my school lunch bag when I was young. It seems the tuna is really dominating the tone of this sandwich party, which isn't a bad thing except for the expectations I had of the flavor explosion of ham and fake crab would bring. Lies. The ham just disappeared into the taste of the tuna, and as for the fake crab, well that was just MiA in this whole thing. The thing about this that impressed me the most is what the macaroni brought to this whole affair, it's a lovely textural element and works well with the tuna, in a delicate sandwich harmony. Macaroni should be in more sandwiches, that's my new position on the matter. Color me pleasantly surprised with this. 4 stars (deduction for superfluous fake crab and unnecessary ham)