So we woke up and finished watching Freaky Friday (heartwarming) while eating a fantastic breakfast laid out by Jeannie :) And Deanna and Jeannie convinced me to wear my pink dress outfit. And I’m so glad they did! I felt so Korean-adorable all day and they get full credit. We got out the door with just enough time to grab a taxi to the bus station to catch our 10:40 bus – only to find out that no taxis were going to the bus terminal this morning because of the marathon that was going on! What??? The group staying at Sai’s apartment was having the same problem (and so began our travel troubles for today...). Luckily, Jeanette lives close enough for us to walk – but she wasn’t exactly sure how to get there, so we wandered in and out of market stalls (and runners). And got seriously distracted by pet stores along the way (some ajummas snickered at us when we yelped, “oooh”ed and “aaah”ed over some puppies that walked towards us and tried to play through the window). We finally found our way to the bus station, where we found all of our friends too. Before we got on the bus, Deanna and I really had to pee...so we braved the squatters. AH! But we survived. Then we all headed to line up in the boarding area – with 12 of us, we had to do everything we could to make we were all on the right bus. Once the bus arrived, Sai inconspicuously body-blocked the other passengers so that we all got on and could get seats :D We only had a slight problem at the next stop – Hwan got off to use the bathroom and a guy took his seat! :( So he, Darryl and I had to resort to squeezing 3 people into 2 seats. Once we got over being angry, it wasn’t that bad. Finally, we arrived in Masan...but we still had to figure out how to get to the festival site in Jinhae. On our way to finding the right busstop, we ran into a group of TaLK scholars! It was so random! I love when that happens though. After that, we found the right busstop, waited for a long time (or, what felt like a long time...we would learn about long waits later), took pictures and finally boarded. It was so crowded!
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| Or, what felt crowded...we would learn about crowded later... |
There was a ton of traffic into Jinhae (the official festival site) so our bus ride was long. When we finally arrived, we were really happy to see that the predicted 10% of blossoms blooming was a very low estimate. The trees looked so beautiful.
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| (Photo courtesy of Darryl) |
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| (Photo courtesy of Ruby) |
The weather was completely gorgeous and we wandered, ate, took photos, and bought stupid souvenirs. OH and I tried silkworm pupas!
Yeah it was weird and I didn't like them, but hey, I tried them. Around 5:45, we started heading back to the busstop. And so began our adventure getting home...
We walked back to the busstop and waited for the bus numbers we knew would take us back to Masan (so we could catch the 8:30 bus back to Gyeongju). But as we were waiting, buses that were supposed to stop just kept driving past – because they were completely full! People standing-in-the-doorway full! We started formulating...
Plan B: Take taxis to Masan...but there were none coming. And when we called the cab companies, they said they wouldn’t send anyone! How rude. Onto...
Plan C: We would walk to the train station and try to catch the last train to Daegu, where we would then take a bus to Gyeongju. So we started walking and eventually made it to the train station...where we discovered that we had missed the last train by about an hour. Sooo...
Plan D: Find a taxi near the train station – we figured there were probably more around there anyways – and take the taxi to Masan to catch that 8:30 bus. Well, as it turns out, the taxis didn’t even think the traffic was worth the money, because there were none out and none would come get us. So we stood in the street for a little while hoping against hope that we’d find one (and seriously considering paying a normal Korean to drive us somewhere...anywhere at that point). Especially because we’d heard that motels/hotels/jimjilbangs were either full or too expensive. Ahh running out of options! Sai and Hwan even ran back over to the train station to see if there were ANY trains left that night (even one to Seoul) – but there weren’t. Eventually, we decided on...
Plan E: Take the next city bus, no matter what number it was – we’d figure out where it was headed once we were on it and finish the Plan from there. Finally having somewhere to go and a plan that didn’t involve waiting got us pumped up again...enough to do a cheer right in the street in front of about 100 Koreans. We circled up, put our hands in the middle and shouted something – and when we turned around, literally all 100 of those Koreans were staring at us. Not inconspicuously either...flat-out gawking. We all burst into laughter. Our adrenaline was pumping but I think it would have been hilarious under any circumstance. So bus 315 arrived and most of those Koreans had the same idea that we did. But no way were we getting split up. I ending up being in the position to allow our whole group to get on the bus...so I blocked anyone else from getting on with my long arms until our whole group was in. There were some grumbling Korean men but I didn’t care. We were all going to be on that bus. And we were...it was soooo crowded though.
Since everyone was a little stressed out, I played “Fantastic Baby” on my ipod, so that everyone could hear it.
After playing it several times throughout the day, that song kind of became our theme song and it was more and more helpful and hilarious as the evening progressed. At the playing of it this time, we all said “Wow...fantastic baby” at the appropriate time and the Koreans around us just smiled. Hey, at least they weren’t throwing or shouting things at me :) After that, Hwan, Chanda and I started forming a new plan...
Plan F: It seemed like this bus was heading towards the Jinhae bus station...awesome! Catch any bus out of here, preferably to Gyeongju, Pohang or Daegu but we weren’t going to be picky. Then we found out this bus was actually headed away from the bus station. Oh. So with the help of the bus driver and an아주씨who turned out to be an off-duty bus driver, we found out we were actually on a bus that would take us to Busan. Seriously??? We happened to board a bus that could actually get us out of the God-forsaken, black-hole-of-public-transportation that was Changwon/Jinhae??? Lucky is too insignificant a term. The bus drivers gave us all the information (in Korean, so thank goodness we had Hwan, as well as Liz, Joe and Sai) to form...
Plan G: Take this bus to the outskirts of Busan, then follow some students who will be going the way we need to go (yes, kind of weird) onto another bus, to the subway or taxis, that will take us to the train station, where we will board a KTX (express) train to Gyeongju. Great! When we arrived at our stop, the bus driver told us to get off and we all cheered as we exited the bus. I’m sure we confirmed for MANY Koreans that foreigners are 미쳤어that night. So we’re at the bus stop.
But the bus is taking forever to get there and we were getting antsy, partly because we’d been trying to get home forever and partly because we weren’t sure what time the last train was – waiting anywhere was dangerous. So along came...
Plan H: Take taxis to the train station (it can’t be that far, we are in Busan after all, and there should be more taxis around here anyways)...but nope, talking with the students we were told to follow confirmed that the bus was the best option as there weren’t actually many taxis in this area (yeah, we had only seen like 2). Eventually the bus did come so we reverted back to Plan G and followed the students. On this bus, we relaxed a little as it went through several outlying neighborhoods on our way to a subway station. We were very amused at one point because Hwan was telling us the next part of the plan and he turned behind him to tell that person – except it turned out to not be someone in our group and he scared her so she scared him...and we all burst into laughter because everything was funny at that point. The bus driver yelled at us (in Korean) to be quiet. Okay, so then we got off the bus, enjoyed Busan for about 3 minutes and disappeared underground to buy subway tickets (which you can purchase with your TMoney card – cool!).
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| Our 3 minutes of Busan |
After a quick bathroom break, we made our way deeper down to wait for the train and buy cheap vending machine coffee. We had to wait a long time for the train and now we really started to question whether we’d make the train. Another option had been to get taxis when we got off the bus but as we were debating whether to ditch the subway go do that, it showed up. We piled in and all got seats (woohoo) and started charting out our timetable for the rest of the evening. After some quick math and a conversation with a Busan native, we realized we were not going to make the last train. So...
Plan I: Take this subway line to the Busan bus station (the end of the line) and catch the 11:30 bus (the last bus) back to Gyeongju (it was going to be tight, as our subway was expected to arrive at the station at 11:15 and we’d have to buy tickets).
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| (Photo courtesy of Darryl) |
Many of us slept most of the 59-minute/32-stop ride, but as we approached the last stop our adrenaline got pumping again because we realized the only way we were going to make it on time was if we literally ran. So we stretched our muscles (yes, we actually did this) and stood near the doors and when they opened, all 12 of us booked it. We were slowed on the stairwell by other people who were not in as much of a hurry but after that, we were unabashedly sprinting through the subway and bus stations (which, thankfully, were connected). Hwan bought the tickets, I peed REALLY fast, and we ran out to the platform. We arrived at 11:25 and even managed to all get seats (much to the chagrin of a few 아주씻). WHEW!!! We were so happy and seriously couldn’t believe it. When we arrived back in Gyeongju (only about an hour later), I practically kissed the ground. Most of us were starving so we took taxis back to the restaurant area of town (near Jeannie’s apt) and Sai took us to a Chinese place he knew of – but they wouldn’t seat us because there was 12 of us. How rude (but isn’t that kind of how our night had gone?). So then we went to a 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal – Korean barbecue) restaurant...and as we walked in they were playing “Fantastic Baby”!!!! Ahhh, more perfect timing could not have been planned! It was dubbed the perfect place for our victory dinner (plus, it was called “Beef Before Flowers”...AHH!) and we thoroughly enjoyed the food and drinks that followed the incredibly unpredictable, unforgettable, unifying day that was April 7, 2012 :)
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| Mmmmm |
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| Beef Before Flowers! |
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| Jeannie, Sai, Christian, me, Darryl, Hwan, Chanda, Julian, Joe, Deanna, Ruby and Liz...we survived! |
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