Lounge Check: Inside Korean Air's Skyteam business lounge at Incheon Airport, Seoul

Modern, with many configurations of furniture: the lounge at Incheon Airport was huge. Photo / Supplied

Stewart Germann visits the Korean Airlines Skyteam business lounge at Incheon Airport, Seoul

Arrival: I was greeted by a pleasant lady who scanned my boarding pass and waved me in. The lounge in Terminal 2 is located on the first floor of departures — there are two, being the east lounge and the west lounge and I visited the east lounge by gate 258 as my flight was leaving from gate 267 nearby.

The architecture: Very modern with many configurations of furniture and the lounge was huge. I sat in a soft armchair which was very comfortable with a table next to it.

Food: A good mixture of hot and cold and my favourite were the tuna and egg rolls which were fresh and delicious. There were many hot foods including noodles and a variety of cheeses.

The drinks cabinet: There were two beers on tap, a local beer and Budweiser. You take a cold tankard from the fridge, put it on a shelf in a machine and push the button of choice. The machine roars into action, raises and tilts the glass just like a barman would do and the beer pours to the top and stops, the machine lowers the glass and voila — a fresh cold beer with not a drop spilt. Excellent Korean technology just like Nokia and Samsung products, which are made in Korea. There were also a variety of white and red wines plus coke, sprite and water.

Reading material: Not good except for the New York Times.

The bathroom: Spacious, very clean and a nice smell.

Who's there: Lots of locals plus Europeans and some very well-behaved children. Many people were sitting with their eyes closed having a doze.

Lounge atmosphere: Serene and relaxing and not like the current Air New Zealand lounge at Auckland airport, which seems to be very full and tiring and hard to find a seat in.

Bottom line: A pleasant surprise in a city of 10 million people and country of 50 million with daily traffic jams which make the Auckland motorway look like a picnic — I really enjoyed my 75 minutes in the lounge before a 11.5-hour night flight to Auckland.