chungyeong university

Have I ever told you about the time I was lost in South Korea? No? Well, pull up a chair and grab some popcorn whilst I spin you a tale.

It was about this time one year ago - Spring Festival break had begun in China and I hopped on a plane - no, train - no, a train and then a plane... and then another plane and flew from middle-of-nowhere China to Soeul, South Korea.


I had everything ready: hostel booked, directions to said hostel, plane schedule, passport. Check. I was totally prepared for a sojourn in a foreign country. My plane was due to arrive at 10:30PM. The hostel was supposed to stay open for check-in until 11PM. That gave me half an hour to get from the airport to the hostel.

The directions seemed straight forward: take bus # something to so-and-so stop then follow shops because streets in Korea don't have names.

Just to verify (because you can never be too careful), I stopped by a help desk in the airport and asked the woman which bus I needed to take to get off at the prescribed stop. She told me the same as my directions, and she was nice enough to write down the name of it in Korean on a post-it.

So I got on a bus. And the bus went on and on and on. And I never heard my stop (because apparently the name had changed as I found out later), and there I was at the last stop and the bus driver (who did not speak English), just sort of shrugged and said something in Korean as I stood there helplessly.

Now I was in the middle (or outskirts? Who even knew) of Seoul, in the middle of the night, on a time schedule, and not a clue where I was. It also happened to be freezing with sludgy piles of snow still on the sidewalk. My first thought, as would be anyone's, I'd hope, was to call the hostel and hope they could help me. So I went searching for a pay phone, which I found and was then broken. Hooray.

My further attempts to get someone to lend me a cellphone went mostly ignored because I was a crazy laowei (or whatever they're called in Korean - a foreigner). I was starting to panic, as anyone would probably. So I did the only thing I could do - I almost got hit by a bus. No, really, actually, I only got honked at by a bus and probably broke Korean law by jaywalking.

I flagged down a cab.

It was all I could think of to do. It was nearing on 11PM already and the hostel front office would then be closing until around 7AM and I'd be stuck out in the cold. It was not an appealing prospect, and that was only if I could find the hostel.

Of course, the cab driver didn't speak any English, but he was a nice, older gentleman who probably thought I was a little crazy wandering around by myself in the middle of the night. I think he could tell that I was certainly lost and more than a little panicked. Surprisingly, I actually hold my own quite well when panicked. It's mostly a lot of nervous laughter followed by an, "Oh God," muffled in my hands.

So how did I ever get anywhere, you ask? Because obviously I survived to tell the tale. Well, that little post-it the woman at the airport gave me. It was my only sliver of hope.

The driver, whose only English vocabulary consisted of "hello", read my little post-it, asked a question I had no idea what it was, and took off. Sounds sketchy, right? Tell me what my other options were, why don't you? Plus, I've never had anything but good experiences with taxis in Asia.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going or if this little post-it would even take me to the right place, since it was, after all, the name of a supposed bus stop. It was dark, and I watched the clock tick past the eleven o'clock mark and the panic melded with the nerves and fear and me thinking that this was the worst travel day ever. What a way to kick off a two-week excursion, eh?

The driver had his cellphone on the dash, attached to a little thing to keep it upright and there was a TV show playing on the screen and I thought to myself how entirely unsafe that seemed, but also thinking that my assumptions about Korea and their obsession with technology was correct.

The clock was ticking later and later on the dash and my hope was falling that even if I did manage to find the hostel, the reception would be closed.

I think the driver took pity on me, being obviously a foreigner and quite obviously lost and about to lose it any second. He echoed my, "Oh God" which I'm not sure was mocking or sympathizing with me. He tried to talk to me in Korean, which didn't really work since I know absolutely no Korean. I don't even know how to say "hello". I did manage to mime borrowing his cellphone and then, quelle surprise!, the phone number didn't work. Such is my luck.

We drove for probably twenty, thirty minutes around streets lit up with Burger King, Subway, Dunkin Doughnuts, and Pizza Hut signs - which, at another time, I might have appreciated considering it was the first sign of western civilization I'd seen in months.

I still had my directions clutched in my fist, as I nervously kept an eye out the window for the shops I was told to look for while also frequently checking the meter, having no idea how much a cab ride would be (hence my grand idea to avoid them in the beginning. See how well that worked out?).

Then we turned down a street, one side bordered by a brightly-lit Dunkin Doughnuts, and as I stared out the window, I saw it! One of the stores specifically listed, and on the other side of the street, the other store! My heart leapt and I probably made a sound that was something like a choking cat and a word trying to escape - something like, "Yay! STOP!" - which the driver took as a good sign and he did a u-turn.

It was the right street! Praise Heaven and all things that drive! I paid the cabbie and he went on his merry way with a comforting pat on my arm, probably to tell his family about the pathetic foreigner he drove around that night.

It was nearing on 11:30 by this time, and I had very little hope that the reception would be open, but lo and behold as I came upon the building, the lights were on, the door was unlocked, and there was an American behind the desk, which made things so much easier (especially considering they didn't have my reservation - just to add a little icing to the cake).

The reason I'm telling you this story (other than the fact that it's one of those things I never wish to repeat), is that tomorrow, I'm headed to Germany... on a bus. Clearly, my experiences with busses are not good and I can only hope that what happened in Korea will not happen again.

Remind me to tell you the story of how I got lost in Japan sometime. It's not quite as horrifying, but the weather is colder.