Just two weeks after the March 11 triple-catastrophe in Tohoku, and a mere 90 minutes after leaving Haneda Airport in Tokyo, it was almost unreal to be standing in Kimpo International Airport just outside Seoul and listening to excited Japanese tourists chatting about what and when they will eat and where they will go for a drink after shopping.

For sure, anyone who wanted to could walk through a "geiger gate" at Immigration to be checked for radiation — and most of my fellow passengers did — but even that did nothing to disturb the eerie air of normality into which Fukushima and all that madness seemed to have suddenly disappeared.

A short taxi ride later, in fact, and it was obvious everywhere that the capital of South Korea is major getaway (from it all) mecca for Japanese tourists.