After hearing an ad on the radio about them coming to the Seoul Jazz Fest, Cara and I bought tickets right away. One of my friends who I introduced to Incognito (Jeff) is also here on Peninsula , and I told him about it as well. He was super excited. And the best part was, Cara, Jeff and I all had seats right next to each other. How awesome is that??
Well there were two shows that night, a French band called "Nouvelle Vague" (New Wave?). They were definitely different. They sang a song called Human Fly (spelled F-L-Y... buzzz buzzz buzzzz)... And they tried to get the whole audience in on it. But they were really wierd... their whole jazz moving and scatting and such just looked like... well... me trying to do it. Not a good sight. let me tell you. The funnier thing was, one of the ladies had long black hair, and Cara was like "Oh they have a Korean Singer with them!" The woman spoke a few times, and it was obvious that singer wasn't korean. It was definitely a Euro Accent of some sort. Which turned out to be French. I also was a little peeved when kept trying to get the audience to yell a certain word dealing with carnal knowledge. But I suppose they came up with it so, whatever. Thankfully Nouvelle Vague's two encores ended (Yay!) and intermission came and went... and then.. Incognito! Yeahhh!!!!!!!!!! *Ahem*
That was such a totally awesome concert. It was awesome to actually hear Bluey (Jean-Paul Maunick, band leader) talk and explain the meanings behind the songs. It was cool seeing how the brass section worked. They put on a good show, and had the audience out of their seats and jammin' on the ground floor. So many of the song's they played were some of the songs that got me through the Academy (Still a friend of Mine, Pieces of a dream, Who Needs Love, Morning Sun, Always there, a cover of Don't you worry 'bout a Thing, Nights over Egypt) and new songs from their new CD, which I have now :-). Towards the end, Cara mentioned to Jeff and I (die hard lovers of incognito) if we would really want to pay for bottom floor seats for this. This was after we got to watch everyone shake the hands of all the band members. Without hesitation, both of us answered "Yes!" She cracked up. Apparently Jeff and I were quite into the whole concert, excited for all the songs that knew and loved that were played live. Completely awesome experience.
Well, after all was said and done, we left and bought some memoirs from the concert, and then headed back to the Metro station (we took the metro to avoid traffic and having to pay for parking.) As we're walking toward the metro, we realize that we don't have enough cash to get to back to Osan AB. So we pray that there'll be an ATM in the metro station, and there is. Its a good thing too, cause according to the schedule, the last train departs from our station very shortly. And with most metro systems, if you get on the metro, you're guaranteed to make it to your final destination. So we get our cash from the ATM, head to the ticket guy and ask for a ticket to Songtan. He looks at us strange and says something in Korean. My korean is minimal to non-existent so I had no clue what he was saying. A Bi-lingual Korean came by and explained that we can't get to Songtan, because its too late.
Too late?? Wait? What?!?! Oh boy, our evening just got interesting. We decide to see how far south we can go, and then take a taxi the rest of the way. Well, we got nowhere really. The trains don't go out of Seoul that late at night. As we're headed towards Guro, I realized we're gonna have to get a hotel room, cause we're not making it back to Songtan. Cara and I start discussing various Hotel Options. Immediately we think about Yongsan's Lodging. (Dragon Hill Lodge -- 5 star Army Resort. Truly nice).But it is Memorial Day Weekend, so that will probably be full (which it was), and then the other various Hotels off base. We get to Guro, and its almost a Ghost Town. The southbound trains go a little further south than Guro, but not much. So we walk to the northbound side of the platform to see if there is a train coming that will take us back into the city, cause to be honest, our best options are in and around the base. As we walk around the Northbound platform, there aren't too many people and it looks discouraging. So we figure there is no train coming. I glance up at one of the Train signs, and notice its advertising something about Seoul Station. But I figure its nothing. As we're walking back up the stairs semi-defeated, I get to thinking (dangerous I know...).
- There were people there still... If there were no more trains, The train station managers would come through and clear everyone out.
- The train sign mentioned Seoul Station, and those signs always advertise the next train's final location.
- So there's at least 1 more train... isn't there?
On the way there, we determined that if we can get a room for less then a Taxi ride to Songtan, we would get it. We guesstimated the taxi fare to Osan AB would be $150-160. We got there and the price for the room was about $150. Okay, on to the next hotel. When we left, we got the next taxi we saw. It was actually a nice cab. It had a credit card machine, GPS, and everything. Hooked up. We ask him to take us to Itaewon hotel. He goes. well... starts to. Unfortunately, GIs here in Korea have a thing called Curfew. (Yeah, doesn't stop even when you leave the house...) and it being a Saturday night, a lot of people were out drinking and now were walking back or looking for taxis. The people who were walking back, were walking anywhere they wasn't a car. Even if it meant in the middle of the street. Then people were yelling at each other across the street and such. So, all of us being such refined and dignified officers (well... I'm part of the contractor mafia... nevermind...) were taken a back by all the behavior of the lower class enl--- I'm so totally kidding! But it was still ridiculous. The cabbie driver even mutters a few things in Korean under his breath, and I figure he's thinking the same thing he is. We get to an intersection that is pretty crazy and well, the cab driver is a little frustrated we figure cause when he finally gets a chance to go through it, other cabs are trying to cut him off. He had none of that. He just kept going across the street, and squeaked through a small opening. Awesome cab driver.
We get to the Itaewon Hotel, and Cara and Jeff hide out in the car cause technically, they're subject to Curfew as well. I look more like a tourist and such than Jeff (he has a military hair cut) so I do all the leg work. Fine by me, I just wanna get a hotel room. I walk inside the Itaewon hotel and yup, you guessed it. Full. I walk back out, and hear my name being called, so I look to the left and I see our cab driver out of the cab waving his hands. Wow, very awesome driver. We get back in the cab and he asking where to next in Korean. It takes me a second to realize that though. (from Cara: Will says, 'Pyongtaek-shi?', on a whim, to see if the cabbie will take us back to Osan AB. The driver just laughed. Guess not!) I'm not sure what to say so I ask if there is a Hotel down the road somewhere as I point straight ahead. When I asked that I think he took it as "Is there a Hotel on the GPS??" cause he looked up Hotels and Motels on the GPS device. Well, he found an hotel called "Ben Hur Hotel." I go in and ask for room prices. $65 a room! Sweet! Inexpensive! I run out and tell Jeff and Cara that we're good. As I'm walking out, I wonder why its so cheap. We check in and get our room keys, and then the people hand us our back of room goodies I suppose. I take a look, and I see disposable toothbrushes, tissue, something else, and four condoms. ...what?!? Condoms?? What in the world? I hear Jeff say: "Oh goodness Will, Where have you taken us?" Which was the same thing I was thinking. But, we needed to sleep, so sleep we will.
As we're going to our room, we try to unlock it, but the key doesn't work. I look at the Key and it says room 502. the key block says room 403. Go figure. We walk to room 502 go in, and like 30 seconds later, the phone rings. I pick it up, and they start talking to me about a Key. Seeing as how they called right when we walked into the room, I figured they were telling us we're in the wrong room. So we go back down stairs and they take us to our room and show us that the room door wasn't locked. So it didn't matter if the key matched or not. Strange. The guy tries to get the TV working, but at this point I don't care. My ADD medicine is quickly leaving my system, and I need to sleep before I get grumpy. We tell him its okay, and then pass out on the rock hard bed. All we have to do the next day is get to the metro, get home and then go to church. All before 0800. Did I mention that we finally get to bed around 0130? yeah.
At 0515 my phone alarm goes off and we ready to go around 550. We get Jeff and we head out. We try and figure out where the nearest metro station would be, and we're in luck! Its right next to the Hotel. So as we're walking, we realize that we are *again* without any cash for the train (from Cara: we were only W100 short, which is 10 cents!). We used a lot of it for cabbies across town. I pray again for an ATM in the subway, and there is! Oh but wait... it doesn't take foreign cards! Grr... so we leave and start walking down the hill to convenience stores looking for ATMs. We pass another metro station, and the same thing there: No foreign Cards. We're getting a little frazzled and then, we find a 24 hour store, and it has an ATM that accepts foreign cards! I pull out W50000 just to be safe, and Jeff also pulls out like W3-50000 just so we don't get in the same situation again. We go to a bakery, get some food, then we get tickets to Songtan, and head back home. We get home in time to drop off Jeff at his hotel, then grab my Medication from home, and then get to church for Sunday School. Oh man.... what an adventure!
1 comment:
That's quite a story! You are lucky that Cara didn't go into labor!! Now, that would have added to the adventure! So, taxi drivers don't know English? Good that you know some Korean.
Thanks for blogging!
Claire
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