I am writing this whole listening to the first presidential debate or, as my mind sees it, "the snake oil salesman battling that nice black man."
Anyway. Let's talk about Korea.
I came into Incheon. The flight was nice and short. I was frustrated that the flight attendants served the Japanese men next to me before me even though it was out of order for our seating arrangement (starting in the middle, working to the window, then coming back to the white girl)...but otherwise it was good. I even spent most of the two hours playing a "Learn Basic Korean Words" game from Berlitz. It wasn't bad, but didn't teach me how to read. I like reading stuff.
This meant I couldn't watch the random episodes from season 2 of Sherlock, which was hard to pass up, but I want to watch them with Tomo, so it was better to wait.
The airport was easy to manage and if you have a credit card that isn't a debit card as well (like me) then you can rent a cell phone easily. So, that was a waste of time. Then I took the train, easy peasy, and I was in Seoul.
Seoul stole two hours of my life. Here's how.
I got off the train and took the elevator up to the main floor. I went to a handy maching, punched in Pyeongtaek and paid for a ticket. Then I went to the bullet-train desk and bought tickets for my brother and I to go to Busan on Saturday. What I should have done next was buy the ticket to Pyeongtaek from the same people and got on the dang train. Instead, I went down to the only information desk I could find (basement level 2) and asked the only people not staring at their feet about it. One woman who didn't know squat then sent me to another woman who said "Go up. Take exit 2." But nothing else. The look of "And then..." on my face that would have made a woman in Japan go on explaining, maybe using a map to do so, did nothing for this woman. She just repeated, with frustration, "Exit 2."
So I took exit 2, and found a multitude of options. I could walk around the street side stuff in 2 directions or down one of two different subway entrances. I picked one I saw a man in camo going down and followed him. None of the signs below indicated Pyeongtaek. I looked at a larger station map. Pyeongtaek, being outside of Seoul, was of course not on the subway. That didn't stop the information desk from sending me there.
Then I freaked out for a little while. I wanted to cry. I wanted to call my brother, and could have, but thought better of it. Instead, I put myself and my massive luggage against a pillar and thought for a minute.
I went through a larger gate this time, not getting my luggage caught on the turnstiles I found a security guard and asked him, "How do I get to Pyeongtaek?"
"Pyeongtaek?" He asked, stopping to talk into his walkie-talkie. "No subway."
"Okay, then how?" I ask, wanting some form of pointing or information.
"Go inside." He points at the doors to Seoul station, through exit 2.
"But where do I go then?"
"Inside. Go Inside," he said, before turning profile and ignoring me.
So I stormed past the foreigners, who looked at me strangely. And I thought a little too loudly, "I already hate this fucking country."
Mind you, it's not really the country I hate. It's people who can't be bothered to help you. If I had gone on their advice alone, I probably would have been murdered somewhere in Seoul that night.
So I go inside and think about finding internet or something similar. Then and only then did it occur to me that Pyeongtaek was on the same line that went to Busan. Duh. So I bought a ticket for the train leaving in less than 10 minutes and raced down the well labelled stairs to platform five. I found my seat and tried to relax.
The woman next to me offered me a strange green fruit, which I tried to humbly decline before remembering that in Korea, they won't ask over and over, and I don't know how to tell her anything at all.
So the next hour was spent in uncomfortable silence, but I succeeded in getting to a zen state for a moment.
Pyeongtaek would prove just as challenging.
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