An Adventure in Korea, really

This blog site is appropriately called, "Adventures in Korea." Though I will not post this blog for a few days I am writing the morning after--after frantically trying to get to one of my student's performances in DaeJeon.

For 2 weeks we had planned to attend a Saturday youth service with Sara. She carefully planned our trip so we would have no problems in our experience. She wrote down all of our trian travel information including a Korean note to our Taxi driver to find the church. She had told all her friends that her professors were coming to see her perform in her group's dance routine.

At 12:30 Bonnie and I made our way to lunch. The plan was to eat and then take a taxi to the train station. Up to this point we had no gliches. We arrived at the station an hour before the train was to leave. Plenty of time, except for one problem. When we walked up to the ticket window we were informed there were no seats left on the train. It was full!

We were devastated. We frantically began to write Sara text messages and apologized. I really felt sick for Sara. She had worked so hard on this trip for us. The night before she had written me to tell me she was translating the songs into English just for us! Wow! That is a lot of work! We started to walk out of the station when we decided to check other trains--all full! The only one that had room was standing room only and it would arrive too late for the performance.

Not wanting to give us yet and with 2 hours still left to get to DaeJeon we headed for the bus station, a 10 minute taxi ride from the train station.

We hurried to the taxi and arrived at the Bus station. By this time Sara was text messaging the name of the bus station in DaeJeon--Dongbu. Unfortunatly she left out the "g" and the ticket agent had no idea where we wanted to go. During this time Sara, discovering her own spelling error, was now frantically text messaging to Bonnie trying to correct the spelling! We finally bought the ticket to DaeJeon and figured we could get more details after we arrived in the city.

People were already standing in line on the boarding dock waiting to be seated. We had only minutes to spare. When we were finally seated on the express bus Bonnie called Sara to update her on our progress. She sounded so relieved! In an earlier call Bonnie could hear the disappointment and concern in her voice. We proceeded on the 1 hour trip to DaeJeon where we then took a 25 minute taxi ride to the place Sara had written down on the note for the driver. We walked across the street and walked into the building--no one! Nothing! The buiding was all dark. We had about 20 minutes now to get to Sara before the performance began. As far as we knew we could be in the wrong part of the city, and it is a big city! And, her routine was first so if we were late there was no need to go.

We called Sara and tried to tell her where we were. Did you ever try to tell someone where you are and everything around you is in a foreign language?! You cannot even give a street name!

Sara told us to stay put, she would find us. We stood on the busy street as Bonnie looked one way and I another. Finally, after several minutes I saw 2 specks waving frantically toward us about 2 city blocks away. By this time we were so glad to see each other we all acted like family members being reunited after a 2 year absence! We hurried to the church. We made it with 10 minutes to spare!

We were so glad we didn't give up! Sara was elated we got there to meet her family and friends. After the 2-hour service Sara went to the church office and on the computer made reservations for us to get home. We were nervous about full trains at night! With reservations in tow we then went to eat together in a very nice restaurant--the Flying Pan! (they pronounce the "R" like an "L.") It was there we took the above picture with Sara in her group shirt. It reads, DaChum, meaning "Dance with David." With full stomachs and full hearts from the service Sara escorted us back to the train station where we finally boarded and came home. After arriving in our room I commented to Bonnie that the trip was such a whirlwind I don't remember much after lunch!! This was truly an "Adventure in Korea, really!"