Entry 11: Whirlwind Weekend

The wind came out of the tunnel at a refreshing pace. The sound of the subway crescendoing through the entire station. It was the first subway of the day. Five forty one in the morning. As we stepped onto the subway train, Cici looked at me and said "Did that really just happen?"
"I think so. It is really all a blur." I said, as I lazily held on the handle to keep my balance as the train started to gain momentum.
Cici, Grace, and I started to chuckle a bit, but were far too tired to give out a boisterous laugh similar to the ones that we bellowed during the previous hours. The train bulleted away, but even the journey home is simply, a blur.

The previous night had been a chain of accidental events, with nothing going according to plan, but not with the connotation of misfortune and disaster, but simply things did not go how we thought they were going to go, but they we still had an unforgettable night. A night full of one thing, shopping.

On the ride back to Kyung Hee University, I reminiced and tried to somewhat coherently place together the jumbled pieces of memories that made our trip to 동대문 unforgettable. It started with the boosting of my pride.

Our trip to Seoul was a bit different simply due to the increase in the size of our group. "This group is too big." Cici whispered to me as the bus jerked forward, "and I don't even like all of these people."
"I'm sure everything will work out. I'm really hungry. Let's just go eat instead." I said, while rubbing my stomach, as if it would subside the hunger. We all got off of the bus, and headed to the subway station.
"So, let's take line 2 to line 3 then go to line 4" I said.
"No. That is not the right way. It's line 2 to line 4." an unfamiliar voice belted my way.
"I'm pretty sure that this way is faster." I replied.
"No. That is not better. That is not faster. We are going my way." She said with a stony face.
"I think you should listen to her, she is from Korea.", a third party had interjected to decrease the amount of rising tension between us.

The subway arrived, we all got on. "Let's get off at this next stop. Alright?" I said quickly to Cici and Grace. As we got off at the next station, I shouted to Tiffany "Hey! We are going to Line 3, we will meet you there!" as I was being pushed out of the car. We made our transfers, and arrived at our destination. We were 10 min ahead of the other group. Victory. My heart threw a fist in the air, as if I got first place in the 100 meter dash. My pride inflamed.

The other group reached us and we started to go up the stairs to reach the ground level. My stomach was eating itself and I'm pretty sure that I could hear the stomachs of the others.
"Hey, I think we are going to go eat...." I said with a bit of reluctance to show that I was sad that I was changing the plan. The others became aware of their hunger. So we parted ways. Interestingly enough, no one else joined our small group of three. Which was fine, but it was a bit sad leaving Tiffany, but I was sure that she was going to be just fine in the bigger group.

We were the victorious ones. We had food in our stomachs (ddukbokgi, fried octopus, and korean style fried chicken) and we were ready to shop. So we hopped on the subway to dongdaemun. The now infamous dongdaemun, where the shop vendors had called me overweight, but this time I was going to come out victorious. It was a goal. I would conquer dongdaemun; it was not going to conquer me. How foolish I had been to let my hubris get in the way.

After having the feeling of victory of getting to our destination more efficiently than the "native" and having eaten quality food instead of trekking up a large hill, I was ready to tackle anything. In the first 30 minutes of shopping, I had been able to buy two quality t-shirts for 5,000 won. I was on a roll. Then time started to move in a very peculiar way. Hours passed seemingly slowly. One hour had felt like two. Ironically, this change in the time continuum, had effected my differently than it had the girls. The girls had forgotten about time itself. They were entranced by the clothes, the bags, the earrings, oh goodness the earrings had killed me on this night. I kept my mouth closed about the fact that we had been shopping for 4 hours straight. I wanted to conquer dongdaemun. I waited until the girls said "We should start heading back" at 11:40.

This is where things start to get blurry.

We started to walk towards the subway station. I would begin walking, the girls would get distracted by a random shopping stall. I heard them call my name, so I had to continuously walk back and forth for close to a mile. I think at this point I had walked close to 10 miles. We were stopped from proceeding forward by: shoes, shirts, skirts, bags, watches, sunglasses, PUPPIES, necklaces, and EARRINGS. We were feet from the subway station when the girls stop again, at a store that sold accessories.

"Look at these earrings! They are so cute! And only 1,000 won!" Grace exclaimed.
"Are you going to buy any of these?" I said, extremely patiently.
"No. They aren't my style, but look how cute they are. :D" She said while in her trance.

By the time we reached, I was walking closer to a jog than a walk. Once I was in that station, I walked a few meters ahead of the girls, not worrying about how much distance was between us. I was then stopped by an older man, who regretfully told me "the last train has left".

"NO TRAIN?" I said using disrespectful sentence structure. I turned around and started to mumble to myself the different ways that we could have gotten back to our dorms. Sadly, there was no viable option. Taxis would cost double at night, there were no more buses.

It was 12:45. How the. What the. Huh?!?!?

We left the shopping center at 11:45. How did it take us an hour to walk less than a mile? What the heck happened? I was left utterly confused.

We went to a Coffee Bean, got a few coffees, and laughed. We literally laughed for a whole hour. We were drugged on the fact that we missed the subway/train/any way to the dorms. We laughed till our sides burned. It was a laughter of exhaustion and utter surprise from the fact that we shopped close to 5 hours, and took an hour to get to the subway station that should have taken closer to 10 minutes.

The events that unfolded after coffee bean are incoherent. I think we shopped some more. I think. I really was on zombie mode.

As the sun was rising, we walked for a second time to the subway station. We conquered dongdaemun, but dongdaemun had definitely put up a much larger fight that I could have ever imagined.

Once it was time for me to hit the sack, I literally collapsed and was instantly knocked out.

I woke up from my slumber, went out to eat with my roommate and his group for the first time, and had a good time. I just realize why I hadn't done it in the past. It was a bit awkward for me to split the check differently since I didn't order any alcohol. They were a fun bunch and I wouldn't mind to eat with them more, but I think the whole drinking scene is not for me.

I met up with Clara on Sunday after church. She helped me get a phone, we got coffee and talked about the good ole days when we were like 10 and then we went to the mall where we played Korean arcade games and took sticker pictures. (BTW, the Korean English sermons I have heard so far are of such high quality. My notes are actually substantial. I feel convicted and victorious after each service. Refreshing.)

This weekend did not disappoint. Sadly, I have very few pictures to prove it. Nevertheless, Korea and I are doing well, we wish that you would enjoy yourself too.