Next Stop, Home

Friday May 8, Day 10

I am out of bed before my alarm goes off, and already packed for home. I store my luggage with the hotel staff and wait for my friend in the lobby.

Side Note: We went to school together fifteen years ago, but have not seen each other in almost ten. She has been back in Seoul for awhile now and is from here originally.

I hop in a cab with her and we go to a restaurant close to where the cable cars load passengers.

My friend orders for both of us, and I am delighted to hear that we are having bibimbap, a meal I hadn’t yet sampled while in Korea. We caught up on life and joked about our days back in film school. She talked about her involvement with an animal welfare group that has its hands full fighting for rights of dogs bred for meat, the Nureongi breed. I am floored that this is happening in 2015. In the last 12 hours Seoul has opened my eyes up to a bigger picture of the world than I’ve had before and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.

We walk down a path after finishing lunch leading to Hanok Village. This was totally unplanned, and I had not mentioned a thing to my friend, but this was the only place in Seoul that I felt disappointed I had missed. It is funny how the universe works those things out.

I get to enjoy it with a local who had also never been, a really nice moment to have. It is sad to say good bye, but I need to be back at the hotel by 2. We hug each other and promise to stay in better touch.

I make it back to the hotel at the same time as our group and we all leave for the station together. The airport check in goes smooth and I’m comfortably seated in my aisle seat heading to Vancouver.

Confused by the time change when we land, I am unable to answer my mom’s text when she asks when I will be home. The plane has already taken off from Vancouver when I finally get the math right. I’ll be home before 9 pm but it’ll I can’t reply until I land so I turn my phone off and pass out for the flight.

Coming home to Toronto always feels good; I miss my dog, my mom, and my life. There’s that feeling of accomplishment when I return, that’s another 2 checkmarks on my list of life.

A Room With A View

Tuesday May 5 Day 7

It’s a travel day. Everything is going as expected, but not to plan. Perfect! We can’t all fit on the shuttle bus – awesome! We are late to catch the train – great! We manage to make it to Narita airport on time so it’s been an all right morning, until I am forced to check the sword. Who knew that bringing a toy sword on board a plane wasn’t going to fly? Not I that’s for sure. Relieved I don’t have to toss it all together, it gets bagged, tagged, and thrown on top of the suitcases. See you in Busan nephew’s Samurai sword. Problem averted and it’s smooth sailing through security. Bestie and I browse the airport shops and then look for a spot to get comfortable.

There is a fairly regular stream of nonsense and sarcasm that leaves my mouth, so it takes a skilled and astute individual to be able to recognize when I’m kidding and when I’m not. So when I suggest to Bestie that we wait for boarding in the massage chairs, she practically races me to them. I wasn’t kidding and she knew it. There was just enough time to work out the kinks of Japan before getting on our flight. Next stop South Korea.

Cue the fish smell. Might I remind you that I’m on an airplane (you should be yelling that last part). This is not a nightmare, my eyes are open and I’m actually watching the stewards’ pass out trays of this stuff. With one now in front of me, I’m still in disbelief. I felt certain that the smell had to be coming from a lone pescetarian’s special meal. Nope, it’s everybody’s’. I promptly hand my tray back to the first attendant I can and spend the next few minutes stressing about smelling like fish when we land. I resolve to sleep it off.

My phone starts to vibrate as soon as we touch down; it’s an email from the consulate. No big deal, just some emergency information and contacts to carry with me during my stay in South Korea. For the record, I have never been emailed by the consulate while travelling. Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore. This place is going to require more street smarts and we haven’t even left the airport yet. I’m happy that Bestie is well travelled and won’t be scared to explore regardless of how dicey it gets.

View from our room in Busan

We freshen up at the hotel and ditch a tour of the city with our group. Instead we take off on our own to check out the largest shopping complex in the world. Joined by Pretty Lady and her roommate, we walk together to the subway. The streets are not as clean and the people less friendly than in Tokyo. Not even on the subway yet, we have a small altercation. I’m not sure who pissed off the karma gods but this day continues to get worse.

At the mall our luck doesn’t change, Pretty Lady is declined when she asks to try on a dress and the reason given is that the dress is too small. Insert impregnated pause here. Ferocious at this point we head back to the hotel to call it a night, but not without incident.

The subway we ride back on is fairly empty, so the four of us sit on bench seats at the end of the car. Note that all the seats around us are unoccupied. A young guy in a baseball cap presents his iPad to Pretty Lady and she reads it out loud for the rest of us. “These seats are reserved, please abide by the laws of Korea”. We get up immediately and stand. At the next stop a local woman around my age sits in the exact same spot. What does Pretty Lady do? She pokes Baseball Cap on the shoulder and gestures about the woman now seated there. He sheepishly creeps over and explains to the woman in Korean, she tells him her ankle is sore and he tries to communicate this to us, but we are mad and escalating. At the next stop 2 more woman join Ankle Lady on the bench, and Baseball Cap slithers to the other side of the car to avoid having to take further action.

Not feeling this place at all, I bail on dinner plans and go back to the hotel room to wait for tomorrow to come. Bestie and Pretty Lady have their own adventure with Korean BBQ and then bring the after party back to our room. The dancing goes until dawn and I am unsure what time I actually fell asleep. With the alarm set for its usual time, tomorrow will be a better day.

Great Expectations

Rewind the clock to just shy of 2 weeks ago.

Wednesday April 29 Day 1

Oh travel days, there once was a time when the airport was a part of the trip excitement for me, but those days are long gone.  After a few trips across the planet I’ve learned that things go wrong on travel days and your goal is just to survive it.  The airport shuffle makes me cringe, and this time is no exception. Screaming baby – check, bad food – check, seat kicker – check, but at the end of the day I started in Toronto and will finish in Tokyo so I can’t really complain.

I guess it might be fun to share a bit of what I am expecting on this trip, since pre-conceived notions and reality rarely intersect this might be a funny re read upon my return. Obviously I am expecting everywhere to smell like fish; to be the only blonde head in a never ending sea of black ones; to get lost more than once, but find something awesome in the process; to order plenty of things that I won’t actually end up consuming; to consume plenty of things I didn’t actually intend to order; to be confronted with technology I won’t yet understand; to be confronted by people who won’t understand me; to be humbled by tradition and gain insight into the where, when, and why it still has a place in this world; to reconnect with old friends and maybe make some room for new acquaintances; and to add a few more niceties to my foreign vocabulary like “hello”, “thanks”, and “please”. Although there is a lot that I am scared of, the bar is set pretty high for East Asia and I am not one who handles disappointment well, so I intend to hit the ground running.

Let me loose on this town, I’m ready for it!