Last Thursday was the day of Wes' arrival. He was going to get shown around by his school director, so we decided that we'd meet in a cafe near his school when he was done. We saw on the map that there was a Paris Baguette nearby, so we said "let's go there, and whoever gets there first just waits for the other".
Well, I went early to the Paris Baguette I thought it was, one in Dongsin-ri near a school, a half-hour bus ride away from my motel. I waited for three hours, getting increasingly worried that Wes couldn't find the place, had fallen asleep in his flat, had had his flight cancelled, or that his plane had crashed... well, after three hours I was sure I must just be in the wrong place, so I spoke to the cashier in broken Korean, explaining that I was meant to meet someone here much earlier, and if by chance he showed up later, could she give him this note? And then I dragged my luggage back to Cheonan (I might mention that it was roasting, and I was dressed up nicely in a dress, and it was nearly an hour's walk). Eventually I found a place with unsecured wifi that I hacked into to check google maps.
There was a Paris Baguette further towards Asan. "That must be the one," I thought, "but the buses have stopped going, and it's like a three hour walk. Do I go now, or do I find another motel for the night?"
In the end, the idea of postponing finding Wes until the next day seemed like too much, and I thought if I could just bear with the three-hour walk then I would find him and it would all be over. So I set out, with my luggage, my backpack and my handbag, in my best dress and with a hoppang (steamed bun with filling) in my hand.
I reached an intersection and had to ask for directions. I had the address written down. "갈산리 이쪽 이에요?" The petrol station attendant and the customer he was serving looked at the address and said, yes, it's that way... but it's very far. "Are you walking?" they asked. The customer said it's too far to walk, I should take a taxi, and he gave me 10,000 KRW (~£5) to take it, and told the attendant to flag a taxi for me. I did my best deep bow and thanked him. Once he was gone, the petrol station attendant just said, "you can flag a taxi here," and walked off to attend to his duties. Well, although I'd watched westerners be refused by taxi drivers just two days prior, I managed to flag a taxi and showed him the address.
Now, during my stay in Korea, I've heard "you speak Korean so well" more times than I can count. People are instantly twice as helpful when they see you attempt to speak in their language. Some people will try to grade their language, or even say just the key word (sometimes followed by the same word in English, if they know it). Some people think that I should be able to understand anything they say, and just keep talking at a million miles an hour while I smile and nod awkwardly. The taxi driver unfortunately belonged to the latter, and our conversations consisted of me outright guessing what he said ("Oh, I heard the word for phone! He must be asking if I can call someone!") and replying to what I thought he said.
Although I had the address clearly written down, and he had a fancy gps, he didn't seem to understand where I wanted to go. We eventually found a Paris Baguette in Tangjeongmyeon-dong... but it was unfortunately the wrong one. Of course, because I had no idea where we were, I didn't know that. I had received a Facebook message from Wes (who'd logged into a school computer) saying that he had a meeting at 7, but he would come there right afterwards.
So I waited in that Paris Baguette from 7 PM until past midnight, when the staff eventually (about half an hour past closing time) apologetically kicked me out. "It seems like he can't find this place," I said, all choked up, because I didn't know what I was going to do all on my own at half past midnight in a place I didn't know, where I didn't really speak the language. "Do you know of a motel near here?"
"Yes, if you go past Mun University, there's one right there," he said and brought up Google maps on his smartphone. "We're here," he started, "and if you go down this road it's right here--"
"Wait, wait," I said, and snatched the phone from him. "Where here? Isn't there also a Paris Baguette over here?" I scrolled the map and showed him.
"Yes, I think there's one there," he said, and looked at me sympathetically. "I guess that's where you were meant to meet?"
"I must be an idiot," I said. They told me that that Paris Baguette would also be closed by now, but I insisted that they write down the address for me. The man wrote it down, and called a cab for me, and when it arrived, he told the driver where to take me, and I got bundled into another cab.
When I arrived, I ran up to the cafe, and found it closed (obviously). It was almost 1 AM at this point.
This Paris Baguette was located inside a mall, and the mall building was still open. There was a chicken house opposite the cafe that was still open. I looked through the mall and didn't find Wes. Well, I hadn't expected him to wait past closing time. I found a corner with a power socket and nestled in on top of my luggage. I had nowhere to go and no way of getting there. Even if I managed to find a motel, who was to say it would be accepting customers at this time of night? This was indoors, and there was internet, and if I knew Wes, he would come back to the Paris Baguette first thing in the morning, since this was where we had arranged to meet.
Of course... this wasn't the right Paris Baguette, either. It was only a five-minute walk from the one we'd arranged to meet at though, so it was close.
At about 2 in the morning, Wes somehow managed to fool his Xbox into letting him online even though he couldn't remember the password for his account. He'd just come home from the Paris Baguette near his school, where'd he'd waited for seven hours since he got out of his meeting. We somehow figured out that he was actually in Cheonan, and not in Tangjeongmyeon at all, and that I was at the wrong one still as well, meaning that we'd spent nearly 20 hours between us waiting at four different wrong Paris Baguette cafes.
Before Wes could make clear where he was and how I should get there, though, his XBox realized that he shouldn't be connected to the internet after all. I knew he was in Cheonan, but I didn't have enough money to take the taxi there, and besides, Cheonan is a large place. So I resigned myself to being homeless for a night (at least I was indoors and I had internet) and tried to go to sleep on my bag.
Just past 4 in the morning, before I've gone to sleep (I never could sleep in strange places -- I don't think I'm well-suited to being homeless) I'm startled out of my slumber by a crazy man pounding on the glass doors demanding to be let in. After a moment I realize it's Wes, who somehow found me, at 4 in the morning in a deserted mall in the middle of nowhere. Turns out he'd chatted up a seven-eleven cashier for directions, who'd given him taxi money.
The moral of the story is: Korean people are super friendly and will even give you money to take the taxi if you seem distressed enough, and help in any way they can. The taxi drivers don't know where anything is though and will consistently take you to the wrong place (our taxi back to Cheonan didn't get us where we wanted either), and they speak even less English than everyone else.
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