Moving Day

Most people start their day to the sound of whatever alarm they have set to wake them for work. People normally choose music from their favorite artist or perhaps their favorite factory ringtone. Worst case scenario is an unchanged factory setting because someone doesn’t know how to change it or is too lazy to do so.

I expected that, like our last trip, I would wake to the sounds of the city outside our window as Seoul and its’ citizens begin their day. Anyi. (Please, you had to have known that was the answer. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a story, eh?)

Each day at approximately 6am we get ‘treated’ to cricket chirping. Now cricket sounds can be very soothing as you sit on the back porch on a hot and humid Louisiana summer evening sipping an ice cold sweet tea. But anyone who has ever had one get into the house knows good and well that it gets annoying very quickly. You go crazy trying to find the darn thing so that you can return them to their rightful place out of doors.

The first morning when I heard it, my half awake self said to myself, “Awww. We have a cricket in the house. That’s supposed to be good luck.” As I came closer to consciousness, my next thought was, “I didn’t know there were crickets in Korea.” As I regained more and more of my faculties as I came closer to being fully awake I thought, “What is a cricket doing in an apartment in the middle of a major metropolitan city?”

Just as I was set to enter that final maddening phase of “I have got to find that *&^% thing and shut it up” Mallie got up out of bed and turned off her phone.

I was quite pleased with myself that I didn’t throw the pillow across the room at her. Lizzy and Kim must have felt the same since they also refrained. However, we all demanded, “Why on earth would you have an annoying cricket as your alarm?” Her reply left us laughing uncontrollably - “It’s not my alarm. It’s a text message alert. That one means I have a text from my ex-husband.” Though Mallie probably doesn’t feel the same considering who is on the other end, I figure that it’s always a good thing to start the day with a smile which we do now every morning as we chirp ‘ex-husband’ when the phone goes off.

It is very interesting to watch Mallie. She is me on the last trip. The only Korean she knows is what little she has picked up from KPOP and KDrama. Her motivation to visit the country the same as mine was then – to see in person the places that we’ve admired or related to in scenes that we’ve seen on TV. So she has been a bit bewildered more than once as the rest of us have prattled to servers in restaurants, salespersons in stores, etc.

Lizzy, Kim, and I have made a very concerted effort to try and speak in Korean as much as possible while we are here. This includes to each other even when we are in the apartment. This has been quite amusing even outside of the fact that we still talk like grade school children.

Lizzy has been studying longer than either of us so is more conversational than Kim or I. However, Kim has been vocabulary champ in our class two years running and I am usually better at grammar than she. So we go around correcting each other constantly and arguing. It is not unusual for Kim to say something to me and for me to repeat what she said adding “nun” to one of the words and for her to grumble about subject markers. Then after we finish grammatically constructing a sentence, Lizzy will pop up and tell us that even though it is technically correct, no one really says that but say ‘blah, blah’ instead. Aish!

Through this all we translate to Mallie. Amazingly, she seems to have an ear for language. After the first day, she began to respond ‘ne’ or ‘anyi’ to questions after saying them in English rather than ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Quickly following were the words for please and thank you and she picks up more words and phrases daily. WTG Mallie! You’re going to need them all later today …

Today is moving day. We are switching to the Hongdae area of Mapo-Gu as we work our way closer and closer to the center of the city. One of the reasons that we are doing this is because neither place was available for the full time we wanted to stay in this district so we split it between the two. The distance is only about five miles in a straight line from our current location. What could possibly go wrong? Yep, that’s called foreshadowing.

Our checkout time from one apartment was 11am but the check-in time at the new one was 2pm. The biggest problem was what to do with our luggage. Lizzy sent the owner a text asking if we could leave it in the apartment until we were ready to depart for the next location. They said that would not be possible since the maid would need to come and clean to get ready for the next guests which were checking in at 3pm. He added that they had a storage area in another building on the same block and that we could use that instead.

So we pack up and head down (or it may have been up) the street, luggage in tow. Four females; 8 suitcases. Lizzy enters the lobby area and goes directly to the mailboxes, punches in the code, opens the door, and fishes out a key. We are on our way to the unit on the third floor when we are stopped by a security guard who says that we can not go and that we must pay to store our stuff there. Lizzy shows him the key and tries to explain the situation. We cannot contact the owner because the wifi in this building is password protected and we do not have access. The security guard calls in for backup making a comment about how Americans can’t be trusted. When the two other men showed up, Lizzy went with them to the security office. She was furious when she returned. They didn’t even try and straighten out the situation with the owner, they just gave Lizzy a lecture about how she didn’t have a right to use that unit.

“Comfort Food” we chorused and went off and found a nearby place to have lunch to wait out our time.

When it was time to catch a taxi, we had the good fortune of having two pull over at the same time. With all the luggage there wasn’t going to be any way that we would all fit into one. Lizzy and Mallie took the first one; Kim and I the second.

Lizzy had the foresight to have the next owner send the address in a form that taxi drivers would be able to punch into the GPS and had sent us a screenshot. If you followed my blog last time, you know what a nightmare navigating can be and how easy it is to get lost. When we were sitting eating our patbingsu the other afternoon we watch police, fire, and ambulance all get lost so we were not taking any chances.

Now as fate would have it, Lizzy and Mallie showed this to the driver and had no problems. Kim and I did the same (Yeogi juseyo?) and the driver shook his head. We then asked if he could just follow the cab in front of us and he shook his head again and pulled back out into traffic. Lizzy and Mallie had finished putting their luggage in the trunk and were getting in their taxi when we told them what had happened. They promised to send that taxi back for us.

Five miles. Straight line. Remember? After an hour had passed Kim and I started debating what the best strategy was. It was quite obvious that the taxi driver was not retuning for us. As a former girl scout and scout leader, I knew that you never leave your position. It makes it easier for a search party to find you. It was possible that the previous taxi driver got lost. It was possible that there was a problem at check-in at the next location. It was possible that the girls did not know that the taxi driver didn’t return for us. After two hours we started making contingency plans. We set a deadline time. If we had not been rescued by 4pm, Kim would leave the luggage with me and head over to Paris Baguette where we had had breakfast the first morning and try and contact them via Kakao on wifi. Less than 15 minutes before the deadline we see Lizzy running up the street a look of relief on her face when she sees us.

Let’s do one of those things like they do in the movies. Zoom in on Lizzy. Then rewind and follow her backwards in time and position…

Lizzy and Mallie get out of the taxi and collect their luggage. They do not think they are where they should be. The look up the directions on the Airbnb site. It takes them a few minutes but they finally find the orientation from which they were written and then easily locate the building. They are supposed to go and check-in and the office and get our room assignment. There’s only one problem – there is no office.

Lizzy asks several people in the lobby and gets the same response – mollayo – I don’t know. She finally finds someone who tells her that it’s on the 17th floor. Lizzy and Mallie get into the elevator and press the button but the elevator never stops on the 17th floor. They begin to panic. A kind soul sees their plight and presses the next even number floor and explains to them that they must switch to the other elevator bank for odd number floors. They take the other elevator and get off at the 17th floor and … nothing.

Since the hallway splits off Lizzy leaves Mallie and runs off around the corner to see if the office is there. She makes a complete loop and returns to her starting spot to find it deserted. No Mallie. No luggage. Poof. Lizzy goes into major panic mode.

Mallie is not a seasoned traveler. This is her first international trip and only the second time she has ever travelled solo. Mallie needed our help just in booking the tickets. Lizzy knows that Mallie is just falling apart somewhere lost and alone in a strange city halfway around the world from home and unable to speak the language. Lizzy goes into meltdown mode as she spins in circles looking at all the possibilities – hallways, stairs, elevator.

Freeze frame. Do the ‘turn back time’ thingy again. Stop as Lizzy leaves Mallie. This time zoom in on Mallie.

Mallie waits patiently where Lizzy left her. She is approached by a maid who is just exiting a nearby apartment.

“Airbnb?” she is asked.

“Ne.”

“Elizabeth?”

Mallie has to think for a moment. Is Elizabeth and Lizzy the same person? Often with her accent people think she is saying Lindsey.

“Anyi. Elizabeth nae chingu.” (No. Elizabeth my friend.)

Okay. It’s not grammatically correct but she made herself understood. She also has heard the phrase the maid says from us often enough to know it when she hears it.

“Follow me.” as she takes two of the suitcases and Mallie takes the other two. Mallie gets settled into the air conditioned apartment and sits down to wait for Lizzy.

Freeze frame and fade to black. Shift back to Lizzy exactly where we left her.

Lizzy stops her spinning. She is too fraught to even cry.

Feeling sorry for her yet? Don’t. She’s Irish.

The elevator door opens and a young, good looking, well dressed man steps out. He sees lady in distress and comes to her aide.

“Gwenchanayo?”

And all of Lizzy’s Korean goes right out of her head. She later claims that it was because she was in such a high state of anxiety. It is just as likely it was dramatic effect having stepped out of the real world and straight into her own personal KDrama. She looks at him helpless and unable to respond. He switches to English and time ceases to stand still and moves again. In Korean she explains what she is doing there and that she has lost her friend, her mother, her other friend, and all their luggage.

He explains to her that he is not who she is looking for. He is the owner of the building (remember what I said about her being Irish?) and who she is looking for is his friend and that he will call him for her. Soon thereafter she is reunited with Mallie. Now she just prays that Kim and I haven’t moved. Lizzy dashes back to street level and hails a taxi.

Cut. Return to original scene.

Lizzy breathlessly explains to Kim and I all that has transpired while we twiddled our thumbs at the bus stop. We grab another cab and get straight to the destination without any further problems. Note to self: You absolutely must must must get a tablet that is easier to tote around and use. That is 2+ hours of writing time out the window.

We settle in at the new place and the girls head out for street vendor food. Eomma is tired and sweaty from sitting in the sun and is hitting the shower. We eat and play some cards before turning in for the night. Tomorrow we explore our new surroundings.