Sorry....

...I've been so busy with my first true week of school, I haven't had time to do much else. Bloggin is not a way of life for me yet.

I've been doing my immigration run this week. Lots of running after school to health checks, and various appointments to get my alien registration card which I need to get my home internet and a phone. (I'm using some business's wireless signal right now, which is nice but who knows how long it will last)

Well, people at school actually try to talk to me now. I really do need to speed up the "learning Korean" process. Life is so much easier when you can understand what people around you are saying. I did have the guts to venture into a restaurant by myself last night. Ok, maybe it was an Italian restaurant, but still! The menu looked like.....TGIFridays I guess. I think that many "American" style bars and restaurants are kind of modelled after Fridays. It must've been the first American chain to come here. The Cajun Fried Chicken Salad and Junebug really give it away. I had a good (expensive) dinner and tried to get to know the bartender. I figure that it can never hurt to know a bartender, though I don't know if I could pronounce his name again. Kim Tson Chung or something like that. I can read many of the words now, but hearing them spoken is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

The importance of bridging the language barrier can be best illustrated by a story from my second night here in Seoul. The sickening terror that I felt that night has subsided, so I think I can talk about it now.

Okay.

So, the old teacher that I met the first day had told me that there was an Emart(Walmart clone) just down the street. I don't know what "just down the street" means to you, but to me it means....just down the street! I had me own address written in my pocket, and I felt confidant that I could take a quick cab ride to pick up a garbage can and be back in a jif.

Hailing a cab is easy here. You don't hail it at all, you just look at the cars driving by for a sec and a cabbie pulls over for you. Most cab rides are less than $5, in fact many don't even go above $2, so they are a nice way to get around. I jump in the cab and ask for Emart. The cabbies don't speak english, but they know landmarks or big stores. The cab drives off, and keeps driving....well past my definition of "just down the street". I nervously asked if we were going to emart, and he just repeated emart and pointed up ahead. After another turn(??) I was not liking the situation.

We finally get there, I pay my $3.30, and jump out. Emart is not worth wasting keystrokes over, so fast forward.....

I exit with my garbage can and a few other little things. I find the line of cabs pointing in the right direction and get in one. I show him my address and......nothing......he has no idea where it is. I get out. I try the next one and same story. This is where I start REALLY getting nervous. I wonder if I can walk and retrace my trip here, but I'm really not sure where the turns were, and it would be a really long walk anyways. I do have a phone, the one that the old teacher gave me, but I can't use it to call out. It only takes incoming calls. (another reason for me to get my own cell) And who would I call anyways? My mom in Detroit Lakes, MN, USA??? After standing on the sidewalk for ten minutes pondering my options, I try another cab. He also didn't know where it was, but I guessed my only option was to try to retrace, so I figured I could do so in a cab directing him where to turn. He said he could go to the district that I lived in, so I just prayed that I either remembered the turns correctly or we passed something that I recognized. Neither one happened.

He turned before I asked him to, and when I asked him to go back, he pointed ahead and said Officetel. (the name of the kind of apartment I live in) He turns again, pulls over, and says "Officetel". This is not my apartment. I have no idea where we are. I try to explain that I don't live here and show him my address again. No good. He seems to be empathetic for a moment, but soon shooes me out of his cab and drives away.

The good news is that I didn't have to pay him for dropping me off in a random place in a city of 20 million people holding a garbage can. It's 10:00 at night, do you know where your home is?

I hadn't seen any westerners around since I got here, so I had no hope of finding an English speaker. All I could do was walk in what I guessed was the right direction and hope to run into a police officer. I figured that they at least wouldn't leave stranded me on a corner somewhere. The streets SEEMED safe, but this was my second night in town, what the hell did I know????

Long story short, okay, it's too late to be short, but still.

3 blocks later I see a store that I think I've been to. I have. 25 minutes later I'm in my own shower cleaning the "freak-out" off of me and preparing for bed.

The lesson boys and girls??? Never leave the safety and security of your own, warm home. Outside is evil. Agoraphobia is the way to go, man. Call Dominos once in a while and you're good!!

toodles from the eastern hemisphere!!

~tony