Of Cab Rides and Coughing

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So, the Japan trip. After almost missing my flight to Busan, I got a bit of paranoia in me and didn't sleep very well. I was awake well before the alarm went off and finally rolled out of bed at 4:45. I took a shower, put my bag over my shoulder, gave Jen a kiss, then headed out into the dark. There is nothing worse than getting up when it is still dark outside. I caught a cab to the Marriott, a bus to the airport, and a plane to Seoul. ALl pretty boring and standard stuff. I caught the plane to Japan, arrived in Osaka, and finally things started to get interesting.
Coming off the plane, I hit a wall of easily 200 people all slowly trying to clear immigration. The line snaked its way back and forth like a ride at Disney World except there were no speed passes available-believe me, I asked. I informed a wandering official that I would only be in country for 8 hours and asked if that made a difference. She smiled, nodded, then shook her head, then walked away. So I waited. Jen and I have already written about the Asian sense of personal space, in that personal space is a concept they do not endorse. Here again is another example. The woman in line behind me was chatting with her friend. As we all shuffled slowly along, the woman did not use her eyes to let her know when to stop, but rather simply used my body. When she ran into my back, she knew it was time to stop. I huffed and stared and cleared my throat to no avail. When we rounded one corner, she even coughed on me. As the immigration officials were all wearing surgical masks this was not a very welcome sensation, but it is Sunday now and that was Wednesday so hopefully I will not get sick!
In this mass of people I counted 5 people of obvious European descent, 3 men of Arab descent, and the rest were Asians. All 3 Arab men were detained by immigration: racial profiling at its least discreet. Anyway, I made it through the line in about 50 minutes and hopped a train for the Korean embassy (detailed directions had been provided by the school, and for those who know me well, be assured that I prodded for even more detail because I could get lost in my own backyard). I saw on the train a white man who I had seen on the plane and in the immigration line. He was with a white woman, and as stop after stop went by I began to think they were on a visa run too. They exited at my stop so I greeted them and they were indeed there to obtain their visas. He was a teacher from Toronto, she was a model from Poland. They had just met as well, so we all traipsed off to the Korean embassy.
We had about a two hour wait before our paperwork was ready so the three of us roamed Osaka and had a couple of drinks. We found out the model made $500 a day and I gave her a glamour shot of myself and told her to hook me up-I am still waiting on that call. Osaka was very much like Busan in that I couldn't read a thing and the buildings were all crammed together, but the Japanese in this city dressed much less conservatively and didn't stare quite as much as their counterparts in South Korea. At any rate, we obtained our visas, made our way back to the plane, and flew back to Seoul with our new Japan stamps safely in our passports. I bid them farewell and caught a bus to my train, arriving in the rain with a full four minutes to spare. I called my recruiter from my borrowed cell phone and had her talk to the ticket lady, got my ticket and dashed to the tran with a minute to spare. By this time it was 11 PM and if not quite looking forward to a 5 hour train ride I was still looking forward to sleep. As I stretched my chair back and closed my eyes a chorus of snores sprang up as if cued by a conductor: I opened my eyes and quite literally at least 14 of the 20 people in my compartment were snoring happily away. I passed a miserable 5 hours and 17 minutes wide awake. I arrived at the train station, caught a long cab ride home, and plopped into bed a little after 5 AM. I got up at 9 to go to work. Bleh. But it was OK. And now I am good to go for one year.............
The rest of the school week went fine and Jen and I embraced the weekend with happiness (I can't believe it is Sunday night again!). Friday night we went to a little Vietnamese restaurant. After, we decided to eschew the subway and take a cab home. We got in, and I, in my best Mr. Moviephone voice, with almost no Southern twang, said "Jangsan station", which is the subway stop right next to our tower. The language here is very guttural, and Jen and I both have soft voices, and I hate putting on an Asian accent because I sound like and angry fool to myself, but the cab driver queried back what sounded like "Jangsan?", I nodded, and off we went. Jen immediately noticed we were going the wrong way. She asked the cab driver "Jangsan yo, yes?", which translates to "Jangsan stop, yes?" He nodded and waved her away, yet off we ploughed in the wrong direction. Jen gave him to the very last place to turn the right way, then when we blew by that she had him pull over. She wrote the name of the place on a piece of paper, and surely enough, he recognized it and figured out he was going the wrong way. So instead of taking us to Jangsan, he took us back to where he picked us up, charged us the full fare, and let us take the subway home. It is frustrating not being able to speak the language!....
We got up early Saturday and rescued this laptop I am typing on from the taxmen who were holding it hostage. I think they wanted to tax us (my parents had shipped it in and I found a note in Korean on the door-I took it to school and one of the Korean teachers told me that "they" were holding it for tax purposes and told me how to get to where "they" were), but when they asked us if we spoke Korean and we told them no, they exchanged a glance and handed the computer over. We did some other stuff but I will save some of the stories for Jen.......Forgot one thing: Friday was teacher's day, which was kind of nice. We got a bunch of presents, but again, I will leave that to Jen. Hope everyone is healthy and happy out there!

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