the mini-fiasco!

Wow...so Sam flew in today...I was supposed to meet him at the airport. Supposed to, mind you. Let me start at the beginning of this day...

I wake up...eat my usual toast and egg. I piddle around on the computer and post replies on blogs and figure out how to post pics up on my blog. Read a little bit. Take a shower and stuff. Just killing time. A little before 5, I leave for the usual bus/subway trip to the middle of Seoul. Except that silly me, I forgot to borrow my aunt's cell phone along the way. So I don't know exactly where the airport limo bus thing is supposed to pick up, but I figure I'll just get off at the subway station that has a whole bunch of activity with 3 different subway lines converging. It's called Jongno 3-ga. Well, I get out and realize that it's huge. I have no idea where I'm going. And I gotta find an airport bus sign post somewhere in the midst of all the craziness. Sigh. I start walking, thinking, well, I'll walk for a little bit and if I don't see a promising large plaza type area with hotels, I'll go back to the subway station and go to Gwanghwamun (where I normally go) or perhaps take the subway all the way to Incheon and figure out my options from there. Normally, this would be okay except that I must have gotten distracted or something for half a second cuz I end up very lost. I remained lost for about an hour or an hour and a half? I still have no sense of time since I don't have a watch or a phone, and the only clocks I seem to easily find are the ones in subway station walkways. And that's only some of the time. Anyhoo, I manage to wander somewhere familiar and go check the time. I might have time to make it to the airport and meet Sam still. Okay. So off I wander again in search of the stupid airport bus sign posts. This time, I keep a stern eye on my surroundings. I find the airport bus sign things, and so I wait. I wait for about 15 minutes. While I'm waiting, it occurs to me that I don't know which direction the darn bus is going from where I'm at. I could be on the wrong side of the street. So the bus driver tells me I'm on the wrong side. I trot back down the subway station walkway underneath the street and come back up on the other side. As I come up, there goes an airport bus. Damn! So I wait some more. I think I waited for about 25 minutes before crying tearlessly in frustration about what to do. By now, I'm sure it's too late to get to the airport in time to meet Sam, and I don't want to pay for a taxi (it's expensive) and I don't know if I should continue trying to get to the airport if Sam ends up giving up on me and going to his brother's place. I imagine scads of fun scenarios where we miss each other going in opposite directions. So, I wander down to the subway station and use the pay phone to try calling my aunt's cell and see if Sam has tried calling. No luck. Tried calling Daniel. No answer. Tried my aunt and uncle's apartment. No answer. Tried my aunt's cell again. Nope. So, fun stuff. I get logical, luckily, and decide since I have no phone, no way to get hold of Sam and no way of knowing where he is, I should go back to the apartment and sit tight until something good happened. And that's what I did. About 15 minutes after I came back, my aunt and uncle and cousin trooped in and rejoiced that I wasn't lost. Then scolded me for not taking the cell phone with me. Sam called and told me that he was getting on the last bus from the airport towards Seoul and that he would be going to his brother's place. I felt terrible cuz Sam waited for around 2 hours to make sure I wasn't wandering around the airport looking for him. At least he rented a cell phone so I can call him now. And we have plans to meet up during the day. Yikes.

So I'm tired. And all that bus riding made me nauseous. Well, c'est la vie.

Oh, I thought I was going to my grandmother's this weekend, but I was wrong. I'm supposed to stop by with my aunt on Tuesday. Yay! I like short trips. :)

I'll be taking lots more pictures soon. I'll be sure to post a few of them here and the bulk of them elsewheres. Only another week left!

Love from K-land,
Bannanas