Day Seven: Downsized

Dear lord, I’ve been downgraded… Only last night was I finally able to make the remote do everything it was supposed to. Light goes on, light goes off. Aircon on, aircon off. It was a remarkable system of unnecessary technology. One that both at the same time frustrated me to no end and inspired a certain level of awe toward the digital age. Now, I’m packing up to leave it all behind.

The morning started out alright. A good night’s sleep, followed by a healthy dose sleeping in to a more proper time—7:30am to be exact. I had even started to use the supplied shelving system for some of my things, so that not only could I leave them on display, but have much easier access to them at a moment’s notice. You have no idea what it’s like to have to rummage through your life’s possessions in order to find q-tips. I have really not much idea why the cleanliness of my ears were so important to me when packing at the last minute, but for other reasons still unknown it was important to have one after my shower in the morning.

It was about the time I had finished up with one ear, and was moving to touch up the next, that the phone rang. Surprised, as I was sure my room would definitely be an unlisted number still in this country, I picked up. Jerry was early and had come along with my boss to pick me up. I was instructed to pack up, which meant I no longer was going to have a spot of prominance for my q-tips.It was also in this brief conversation with Jerry that I had my first introduction with the term ‘yogwon’.

Now, I understand that every person familiar with Korea already may know where this is heading and are merely reading along with a sort of morbid curiosity in order to size up the condition of my new Yogwon. Those of you unfamiliar are in for a treat—boy I was, that’s for sure. Although by treat, I may mean something more along the lines of shock, surprise and dread, all mixed up into one tight bundle of stress that began in the pit of my stomach as we pulled up to the place, and readily intensified as we grew nearer to my new room I was going to call home.

Let me first introduce you to my neighbourhood, as my first hotel was situated in a quiet little area on the fringe of new business developments, overlooking the ‘canal’ and rest of Seongnam city. A clean, sleepy area with a nice view and minimal traffic. My new place was situated about a block from the Moran subway stop, which if you are unfamiliar, is a busy, congested and noisy hub for many travelling to Seoul. I was later to find out that my room shared much in common with the backstreets of Moran that we took to get to my new place, which was when my stress began eating at me.

Climbing the stairway to my new abode, I spotted a charming full wall display of Korean and imported porno movies on VHS. The hallway on the third floor was dark and musky smelling, lit by a single naked 40 watt light bulb on the far end. My heavy steel door opened with a clunk to my new room. Handing me my keys, my boss went back downstairs to pay the ‘rent’ to my new landlord. Standing there with this key in my hand, attached with a shoelace to a large chunk of pink plastic, not unlike those clever key chains seedy gas stations give you to use their bathroom, I looked to Jerry for support.

His reply?
“Well, it looks like they’ve started renovating since I was living here. They have new water dispensers and fridges.”
“Are you kidding? You think this room is fit for living in? How long did you stay here?”
“About a month, before I got into an apartment. It’s really not that bad once you’re used to it, it just means you have to eat out a lot instead of cooking. Could be worse.”
Taking this opportunity to try and see the positive side of downgrading to this place, I took my brief tour of the place.

Spanning 8ft by 10ft, my room opened into a tiny recatangle shape with a chipped yellow linoleum floor. The double sized bed sported a faded, frilly pink comforter and pillows that felt like they were padded by styrofoam packing chips inside. Directly next to the bed, along the drab beige wall, stood a full length mirror that extended the length of it, smeared pleasantly with some sort of oily film intermittently along the bottom half. The lighting system had two sources, one white central light bulb and one red bulb that hovered directly above the mirror. On the other side of the room was a small desk with TV, blow drier and array of body lotions and industrial sized hairspray crammed on top of it. A small table with a 70’s style vinyl and steel chair, small water cooler, beer fridge with two odd looking medicine bottle sized drinks inside and a coat stand rounded out the cramped living space…my bag now taking up most of the remaining floor space.

The bathroom consisted of a tub, complete with no shower curtain, a sink, mirror, toilet and drain in the middle of the floor—presumably to make up for lack of the aforementioned lack of shower curtain. That was it. Oh, and a stack of stiff white towels on a rack behind the door.

“Guess I’ll get settled then” is all I could muster out.

The rest of the day I spent exploring my new surroundings. The alleys smelled of charred fish scales, while the main road catered to a large amount of bus traffic and constant car horns, leaving it difficult to hear anything, let alone think. By night time, I had cleaned off the oily smudge from the bedside mirror and elected to just sit on top of my bed spread, watching American military television. Finally, using my bath towels as pillow coverings, so I wouldn’t have to put my face directly on the pillows, I attempted to get some sleep. At least I wasn’t going to have to learn a whole new light on, light off remote system. The switch above my head took care of that just fine.

Day Six: (Part Two) Seoul Blur

I come back downstairs ten minutes later with a wrinkled shirt and jeans on. No time to iron them, since I have neither an iron or the time to let the wrinkles fall out by way of shower steam, I'm forced to plod along beside my newly acquired foreign counterpart, in clothes that clearly indicate once being rolled up into a tiny ball.

Jerry’s convinced me that today is the day we need to get me introduced to Seoul. So far, having stayed only two days in a place known as Seognam City, I find that this city is almost plenty large enough. Having walked through it lost yesterday, I figure it might be more beneficial to learn the ins and outs of this one before we try and upgrade to something much larger. But Jerry has plans for me and it seems that a trip through the subway system should be the first order of the day. Looking at my watch, I mention that maybe breakfast might be a better idea.

Korean breakfast is like nothing else. Having Kim chi and rice at supper seems to be pushing it already, but having the same for breakfast just breaks my heart and makes me yearn for the days when a bacon and egg slam was only a few blocks away. So the fermented shoe cabbage and bleached white sticky rice permeates through my system as we make our way to the maze of underground transit.

Placing all confidence in the man that has been living here for the past four months, I soon pick up reason to worry when Jerry begins to look wild eyed at the scenery around inside the subway terminal. Still, he marches on with confidence to the nearest ticket window and places an order for two tickets to somewhere in the middle of downtown Seoul. The ticket system is easy enough to follow, wherein we feed our tickets into a turnstile on the way to our train, pick it up on the other side and then wait downstairs some more for our train to arrive.

At the following transfer station however, my faith in Jerry’s leadership begins to wane. He continually checks and rechecks our itinerary on the subway map above the subway car doors and listens intently for the names he’s waiting for to come up. When transferring, we run the same routine we did at the start of our journey, buying fresh tickets, feeding our new ones to the turnstiles and waiting for the train—which might have been fine if it wasn’t for me seeing an obvious deficiency in this system. So, now, with a day of Korea life under my belt and zero previous subway experience I take hold of this downtown mission. At our next transfer I mention that we might be able to follow the transfer signs rather than head for the exits to save on ticket purchases. Not convinced but willing to try, I lead the way.

At some point realization hits Jerry like a tonne of bricks, now having discovered he had been overspending on subway ticket transfers for the past four months before my arrival. One day in and I’m already leading this dog and pony show.

Seoul itself was just an extension of what we saw in Seongnam, only with more high rises and traffic congestion. The subway ride seemed stuffy, cramped and eerily quiet, save for the half dozen people chatting away on phones the size of their thumbs. I’ve never been one to eavesdrop, but each conversation you overhear in a language you don’t understand seems so much more important, poignant and purposeful than the bland and bothersome conversation you overhear back home. I know they’re all probably the same, but I’d like to believe each one involves conversations rivalling the most outrageous soap operas.

We stop into a few stationary shops along the way to check out all this cutesy paper that Koreans seem to have a love affair with. Paper that’s plastered with nonsensical English stories and poems that would make any first grade English teacher cringe. Jerry seems to opt for more macho stuff, as he busies himself amongst the mechanical pencils.

On the way back we decide to stop at the supermarket to pick up some cereal and milk for me so I don’t have to endure another early morning ethnic wakeup call that goes by the name of Kim chi. Supper finds us at a Hardees hamburger restaurant, where my arteries get their first major injection of processed meat since my trip began and with a greasy ball of digestion sitting heavily in my bowels, I head back for my hotel to once in for all learn the intricacies of my room’s remote. Jerry and I make plans to see the town tomorrow, which I’m far more interested in, since today was somewhat of a blur of traffic and people, so I’m hoping I can finally start settling in.

Day Six: (Part One) Awakenings

I awake with a start. The clock beside my bed flashes 3:00—I overslept! No. This can’t be. Everything had been going so well in the non-jet lag department before now. Now I’m late, my boss was probably downstairs waiting for me to get up at 10:00 and now I’ve only just woken up. At 3:00! Jumping from my bed, I yank myself into the pair of pants I had left crumpled beside it. My head reeling now and cursing as I stub my toe to make it across my unnaturally dark room. Making sure to shield my eyes, I tear open the heavy curtains to…a pitch black sky. I stare in disbelief at the darkened landscape below me. Cars drift by under glowing streetlights in the distance.

It takes a minute to piece everything back together as I take a seat and rub my throbbing toe and wipe at my dry eyes. Sitting on the edge of my now torn up bed with my pants half on and inside out, I come to a startling realization that it just might be 3:00am instead of 3 in the afternoon. Now feeling utterly stupid, both for managing to get my pants on the wrong way and for jumping to conclusions so quickly, I retreat back under the covers to gain back at least some of my own self-dignity.

By 6:30am, my mental alarm clock tells me it’s time to get up. My body feels absolutely dead groggy and tries pleading with me for another half hour of rest. Unfortunately being mentally awake beats out my physical drain and opt to turn on some TV. This however, since I’m still fooling my room into believing I’m not here by not inserting my key card, incidentally results in no TV electricity. Not even just a trickle to hold me off.

Forced out of bed by my need for the soothing rays of the boobeus toobus (which would have been Latin for television, had they invented it), I insert my key card to an immediate blinding by every light in my hotel being turned on. At this time I elect to manually unplug undesired lights and instead bask in the eye piercing early morning glory of my room’s ceiling lamp. All 120 Watts of it.

So having now been fully awake for the past three and a half hours, my shoes are shined, my suit has been steamed and I feel like a million bucks--that hasn’t been sleeping well lately. So Jerry calls up from the front desk and I bound down the corridor, leather carrying case over my shoulder, ready to size up my new workplace. When the doors to the elevator open, however, I see Jerry, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt that reads “Slippery when wet” and his obligatory cowboy boots. Shocked, I ask him if this is how he dresses when he goes to work.
“No,” he replies “but is this how you dress during your weekends off?”

Samsung Plaza... eye candy.
(photo credit: http://lost-in-korea.blogspot.com/)

Day Five: (Part Two) The Way Home

My feet rhythmically smack the pavement in hurried succession. My mind races faster with each new unfamiliar street. Decidedly I choose to leave the congested city and foreign traffic and follow the aqua duct I remember seeing out of the corner of my eye during my taxi ride out here. The tiny creek itself is miniscule in comparison to the monstrous concrete gouge that is built into the ground around it. I guess if a mountain made of ice was to melt suddenly, this would give it the means to drag the water back to sea instead of flooding the main streets. On the other hand, it seems to be more of a way for pedestrian traffic to walk or run for miles on end, unobstructed from congested traffic flows.  I choose it because I have a gut feeling that it will lead me back to my hotel.

So with a gut feeling and a general idea of the direction I need to go, I make my way along this watery trickle carved into the ground. Dug about 30 feet into the ground and as wide as four traffic lanes, this seems like as good a point of reference as any. At least it will be hard to lose from sight. I walk along it for another half hour. By this time the blistering sun has made me realize that my long sleeved shirt/jeans combination was perhaps, poorly conceived.

Another half hour and I see it. My hotel is within eye sight and my adventure seems at a close. I now worry that since I’ve been absent for the past three or so hours, my boss, my co-worker, or someone must have been sent to pick me up. Now I’m going to have no idea where I’m working, what time I’ll be expected… anything. My stomach even has the nerve to start telling me it might be time for another fill up. No dice my friend. You got me into this mess, and you can wait until my brain gets us out.

It turns out that no one had come for me. Apparently it was assumed that someone who had never travelled before to Korea should easily be able to navigate himself around, away from his isolated hotel and back in time to wait for a dinner pick up. It sounds so logical, I’m immediately convinced. So convinced, that I see the reasoning in not letting me in on this plan ahead of time…

Dinner is in the middle of an amazing neon strip mall complex. It’s incredible. Everything is coated in flashing lights, neon signs and bright light projectors. On the sidewalks around this ‘H’ shaped strip mall are numerous street vendors and promoters, all blaring their own music choices to attract hungry or interested patrons. The place is literally swarming with people, wherein my boss and co-worker edge our way through the crowd and into a small restaurant.

My new boss orders up some traditional food and drinks, while Jerry assures me it’s all quite good—which as it turns out is actually quite accurate. The ‘galbi’, or spicy pork with cabbage/thick noodles is awesome. The soju, which everyone in the restaurant seems to have numerous empty bottles of adorning their tables, tastes like a sweet watered down vodka that Korean drink from shot glasses. A few bottles of these and we’re all having a great old time.

By the time I make it back to my hotel, I’m good and swerving, and the last thing I remember is that tomorrow I’ll be picked up at 10:00am. Giving the thumbs up, I find my way back to my room, skip putting in my ‘lights on’ card and collapse onto the bed.

There seems to be no shortage of unused advertising potential. 

Day Five: (Part One) Lost Lunch

I awake in a beautiful hotel room. When I inserted my key card last night all the lights went on, my hardwood floor was warmed from underneath and my remote controlled every electric device in my room. Lights, air conditioner, heater, television and even brought me breakfast in bed. Well not so much the breakfast, but it was fun to try and figure out what each of the million buttons written in Korean did… that is until I couldn’t turn any lights off in any permanent fashion. Electing instead to just yank my key card out, thereby fooling the room I was not actually in it, I finally got some darkness and much needed sleep.

The room is amazing. Unfortunately, since I’m still an amateur with working the remote, I’m stuck with either an all lights on or all lights out scenario. Once in a while I can get the lights I don’t need off to go out, but that requires me to reset my room again by pulling out, then replacing my key card once again. I decide to waste power instead. It’s 7:00 am local time, which is encouraging, as jet lag seems not to be a factor yet. I decide to have a shower and watch TV and wait until someone comes to get me for some much needed food.

Noon finally rolls around causing my stomach to do flips, kicking my insides and yelling that it indeed is shrivelling up. My brain is doing me no favours, and starts its own strike, leaving me light headed and with less mind power to figure out what should be an easy remote control. I give up on the waiting game and head downstairs to the lobby. I ask the front desk to call me a cab and take a business card from the desk so I can give it to my driver to get me back again. I feel pretty good about my self-sufficient problem solving and head outside to wait.

My cab pulls up a few minutes later. I hop in to the most eye opening experience yet. No english skills whatsoever. I suddenly yearn for my remote control back upstairs, knowing somehow that one of the million or so buttons must be for the subtitle control I so desperately hoped for back on the plane. Instead I decide it’s time to put my expert charades skills to work. So by acting in tandem, my hand rubbing a soft circle on my stomach and licking lips, while spooning air into my mouth, my driver understands and heads off. At last I realize that all those times playing charades with my parents wasn’t just entertainment—they were actually preparing me for this moment. How could they have known?

We pull up to a restaurant some ten or fifteen minutes later. Glad to be finished our rudimentary conversations of saying a word we both understand, followed by thumbs up or thumbs down, I pay up and head into the restaurant. My cabbie has good taste at least. I seem to be in an Italian restaurant full of people eating large pasta dishes with garlic toast and Caesar salads. I’m in heaven. Yet again, not a chicken’s foot to be found.

So after lunch I head outside to call a cab again. So far communicating has been easy. The menu had pictures to point at and my cabbie brought me to a restaurant. Now all that was left was handing my hotel’s business card over to the next driver and my first excursion would be a success. Making my way to the pay phone beside the restaurant, I pick up the yellow pages to choose my lucky cab company.
–Panic—
Every page is written in a language I don’t understand. I try going by pictures, but there are none. My mind starts racing, seeing images of myself wandering aimlessly, my boss arriving back at the hotel only to find my room abandoned and without the rest of my money, clothes and plane ticket I have no idea how I’ll survive.

Thinking quickly I begin to walk toward where I figure more cabs would go. Ten minutes pass as I walk through back streets, wishing I had paid better attention to where we had gone instead of trying to mime my intentions to a linguistically challenged cab driver. It’s half an hour before I see my first taxis parked along a street. Relieved, and glad I was smart enough to snag a business card, I walk up to one and hand it to him. Looking it over, then looking back at me, he hands it back and points in the direction where I need to go and then over at a subway station diving beneath the street’s surface where we’re parked.

Dear lord. I had no idea this fool proof plan of food would backfire so readily on me. No cab will take me where I want to go and all I have to work on is a foreign language business card, the general direction I should be heading and a subway station beneath my feet. Trudging forward, I make my way down the concrete steps into the depths of god knows what. Expecting to find a decrepit aging mass of cement, graffiti and foul smells, instead I’m greeted by a well lit entrance to a grand, polished granite floor. The station is immaculate, with a number of vending machines and tiny stores strewn throughout. Walking around the station, I quickly learn I have no clue how to use this place to get me where I’m going. Even if I did, I have no idea which stop would be mine, which train to get on or even how to buy the appropriate ticket. Swallowing hard, I instead, decide to resurface and follow the vague direction the cab driver pointed out for me. With any luck, I might possibly run into my hotel eventually.

Ahh... Korea at last.  

Day 4: Short due to time zones

I wake up a couple times during the flight. Once for my first experience with turbulence, and the other to watch one of the in-flight movies. The turbulence is a little unnerving, as while I’m quite aware of the engineering marvel a transcontinental jet liner may be, it seems lost on the fact that the only thing that keeps us in flight are a couple of flimsy wings. And by flimsy, I mean in comparison to the rest of the plane’s body tonnage. Besides, I had model planes as a kid. They were great. I broke every last one of them, and the ease of which my 3 or 4 year old arms could weave a path of de-winged destruction makes me stop and think about my own situation.

The movie is lost on me. Korean movies are apparently all just as melodramatic and while this one was supposedly comedy, the humour was a bit off key. Maybe it was just lost in translation, but girls going all wide eyed psycho, while their whipped male counterpart cowers in exaggerated fear just doesn’t make me laugh as much as the rest of the cabin passengers.

I find out landing without using the barf bag is just as exciting as taking off and not using it. It’s kind of an anti-accomplishment if you think about it, really. So I say my goodbyes to my seat mate, not thinking that maybe exchanging e-mail addresses would be a good start to having a good local network… ah it’s not like I won’t bump into her sometime. The odds are only 47 million to one. Better than the lottery, and since I haven’t won that, I figure I should be due for this one.

So, jet lagged, unrested, and wholly disoriented I make my way to baggage claim and through customs. It’s here that I realize that Koreans seem to have a good grasp of heavily accented broken English verbiage. My customs agent puts the gears to me, asking where I will be staying, what visa I’ll be using, working credentials, Korean contact numbers… let me tell you, being tired and running this maze of questions with a man I can hardly make out what he’s driving at half the time is tough. I’m surprised he didn’t just give up, have my bags searched and throw me into interrogation. It was really that brutal.

So now, having run the gauntlet of customs, waited in line with a massive hoard encircling a giant luggage carousel, I’m struck with a realization that I have no clue who’s supposed to pick me up. I was given a description of the other English speaking teacher there, who said he’d come pick me up, but a greying man of forty wearing cowboy boots seems nondescript. Anyone could match that—nope. Just one. Now seemingly accompanied by the only other caucasian in Korea at this time, I make my first few steps into South Korea.

My cowboy boot wearing counterpart goes by the name of Jerry and is thankful there’s finally someone here that can pronounce his name without sounding like “Jelly”. Although I assure him, the name of Jelly is quite a masculine sounding name, he doesn’t seem amused. “Jelly” then introduces me to my boss. This is where I learn that names in Korea are meant to drive foreigners nuts. They’re mental tests, see, to weed out those not tough enough. It’s my theory that before the Korean War, Koreans went by quite average names, but in order to see who was communist, leaders would give themselves ridiculous sounding names just to see who would laugh. If you laughed, you were communist and you were put to death on the spot.

My boss introduces himself as Wookie, then introduces me to Mr. “Jelly” again. I shake both hands, say pleased to meet you and introduce myself with the most solemn face possible. The airport guards see no smile which means I pass the communist test and so am allowed to continue on into country in a not-dead fashion. So I follow my Star Wars character boss and sandwich condiment co-worker into the night of South Korea. Now a full five minutes on Korean soil and I have a smile across my face. This place will do just fine.

Day 3: Flight (Part Two)

Sitting on a 747 for the first time is pretty exciting. Although my leg room seems to have decreased since my trip via greyhound, the cabin smells seem less stale. Everything seems so organized, as though there's no wasted space to be had in this metal capsule. Not knowing enough to request a specific seat, I get the default selection of middle. It's pretty awesome how I'll be traveling in a cramped upright position with a definite lack of leg room, craning my neck to watch the video screen up front for the next eleven and a half hours, but hey... Could be worse. They could come out with a "standing room only" class of the plane. You know, get rid of safety standards and give us a real economy class.

For the most part, my seat mates seem pretty nice though. An attractive 21 year old Korean girl to my left and a 16 year old already sleeping to my right. By the time the plane finally takes off, I've already gone through the quality magazine reads from the selection in front of me. Airline magazines and a travel magazine that hilights how I could be having more fun for cheaper had I booked with Contiki Tours in Aruba... or something like that. All travel magazines seem to be telling me the same thing--it's far warmer in other places in the world and I'm definitely not having as much fun as I could be if I were in (insert name of island here). I want to create a travel magazine devoted to the kind of food I like instead. One that gives me the recipes so I can try out the food fare before I go, so I can make my decision based on how hungry I'll be for the two weeks of my visit. Which brings me to my next issue. I have no clue what Koreans eat. This fact crept up on me more when I looked around and saw maybe one other non-Korean on my flight. In the span of a couple hours, I've become the minority. Let me tell you, it's surreal.

So the plane takes off with me wondering if I'm going to be the kind of flier that needs the ol' chuck bag so helpfully provided next to my riveting magazine collection. Thankfully I'm not. Which is a load off. Nothing like being the middle seat guy that gets an eleven hour trip off the ground spilling his guts into a paper bag. Besides, the flight attendants probably dislike having to deal with that stuff.

Lunch rolls around after some quality Korean television programming with English subtitles. I'm starting to become a little more panicked by the fact that I'm pretty sure Koreans don't walk around with subtitles running beneath them for the benefit of someone who never thought to learn a single word of Korean. Someone like me. I'm hoping that there may be an off chance, but I'm going to have to side with a more probable no.

So my seat partner leans over to see what I'm going to order. I inform her that chicken is probably the safe bet. She tells me that this might be a good opportunity to try my first Korean meal. I accept this advice, but remind her that the chicken still sounds good. She bats her eye lashes and I agree. This is probably the perfect time to try Korean food for the first time. I order it with a smile, while my stomach shakes its bitter fist at me.

So I get this meal that's called 'bibimbap', which seems to mean, 'very spicy sauce drizzled on rice with an egg, some bean sprouts and sea weed on top'. You know, just like mom used to make... In fact, so good is this combo platter, that I also get some spicy pickled cabbage that seems to have been fermenting in someone's shoe for the past year and crunchy white pickled giant radish. My mouth burns, my stomach is still trying to figure out what to do with the stuff I just sent down and while the chicken still seems to be like the right option, I'm happy that the food so far consists of items lacking chickens feet, pig tongue or monkey brains--which means lunch is a success.

I get to know my seat mate a bit. She lets me lean over her to look out the window a bit and she keeps nicely pointing out that maybe learning some key phrases would have been a good idea. I tell her that I thought so too about an hour ago, but lacking of any real library on the plane, we merely agreed I might try to pick one up when I land.

The rest of the trip passes pretty uneventfully. I finally get my chicken--quite a disappointment to the hype my stomach had create earlier on--and I finally catch some sleep on the shoulder of my accommodating seat mate while the darkened cabin whistles through the air at 38,000 feet.

Seoul's Main Gate 

Day Three: (Part One) PreFlight

I wake up to both the desk lamp beside my bed and last night's clothes still on. Now, fully rested, reality starts to wake me up like a cold splash of water on my face--I'm going to Korea. Today.

I check my watch, re-check my itinerary and turn on the TV to check the local time... just in case. Not only will I be flying overseas for the first time, but this will be my first time flying at all. Both my watch and the television are telling me the same things: I only slept for 4 and a half hours and it's earlier than sin right now.

The shower is hot and refreshing, especially now that I seem to be running purely on adrenaline; breathing in the scalding humidity allows me to unwind a little.

The downstairs lobby greets me with jugs of fresh orange juice and stacks of toast, muffins and empty cereal bowls. The clatter of cutlery and dim sound of the news play on throughout my breakfast. I'm not sure if I'm trying to block out how I'm leaving everything behind unresolved, or if my lack of sleep this past week has finally shut off my brain, but the sole thought that occupies my mind happens to be about whether or not bringing my inline skates was a good idea or not. It's left to be resolved. The weight of the bag on my shoulders last night became exruciating, and I'm not yet sure how the roads will be. What if they're like the chinese pictures I've seen, with bicyclists trapping vehicular traffic is a swarm of people, leaving little room to breathe, let alone move freely? Plus, the skates really do take up a fair bit of space.

The Vancouver airport is abuzz. You see a thousand other people that know exactly what they're doing, where they're going and with looks of indifference clearly printed across their faces. It's like there's a contest for who can show that they're the most at ease with air travel. Then there's the family members and significant others that are doing their best to get in their last hugs, to squeeze one final good memory out before the other leaves them behind. I think we all assume that the person boarding a flight is going on to bigger and better things, even if they're just returning home after a quick visit. It's that mysticism of flight and caring for the individual that does it. I'm excited and nervous, which helps me to overlook that I'm alone.

In past the customs officers I finally step through my first metal detector. I seem to have a hop in my step doing it, although quickening just a little before going through doesn't make my belt buckle set it off any less. The empty doorway that beeps makes me feel like a criminal, like I really did plant a bomb in my bag. Images of packing quickly jump through my mind, remembering that no, I'm not a terrorist. The guy who's job it is to check to make sure my buckle is the only metal object in my crotch region, seems incredibly bored throughout the proceedure. I guess if you've seen one belt buckle, you seen them all. Which is to say, that clearly belt buckle manufacturers aren't trying hard enough.

The second area--the one where you actually wait to board your respective flight--is much more my speed. Everyone seems lonely, tired and miserable. It's much more quiet. The Chatter is minimal, as is eye contact.
When my flight finally does come to the terminal, I'm relieved. A year without drama, a year of new experience, and for the first time in my life, no idea what tomorrow will bring.

Day 2: My journey continues

     My journey continues onward towards the west; ironical, when one stops to think that I have travel west in order to go east. I gaze beyond the window. The once vast landscape now vanishes quickly into the thickening darkness surrounding our bus. The sky is dark azure with only tiny streams of starlight appearing briefly from behind the jagged outline of the Rocky Mountains. The air is chilled.
     Traveling by bus for almost 18 hours now, making midnight stops in every hole in the wall town on our way to Vancouver, coupled with a late night transfer in Kamloops, I’m exhausted. My legs are tired, my neck is stiff and I’m finally getting used to the feeling of proper circulation in my arm again. In the transit station’s cracked bathroom mirror, my eyes look puffy and red. I look as tired as I feel.
     Gathering my belongings on my back, I make my way into the rainy drizzle that is Vancouver.
     Lugging a seventy pound bag on my back, my clothes slowly sticking to my body from the rain, I walk the sidewalks looking for a city transit bus that might take me to the airport. It’s then, that I see him approach me in a purposeful way that suggests I’m his target. And it’s also the time I realize I’ve wandered away into a darkened street void of any other human contact, save for this shifty character making his way over to me. My heart picks up a step, now feeling a slight pang for being stupid—a pang for leaving home.
     It turns out the man is a dealer and though I’m not interested in buying, I’m able to get out of him directions to the airport. With my instructions, I make my way through city transit, now more aware of how alone and how vulnerable I really am. A small town boy lost in a big city.
     When I finally make it close, I find my way to a hotel and collapse in my bed. 10 more hours and I’ll be airborne. What have I gotten myself into?