"Basically, you just gotta do whatever you want and not care what the hell anyone thinks”
~ John Johnston (mumbling in an extremely hung-over state from a luxury hotel room in Seoul, Korea)
Friday, 9:03 p.m. – Sitting on the KTX train headed for Seoul. Well those guys should be calling my cell any minute. The flight probably got in late.
10:00 p.m. – Mont told me they were getting in on the 19th. Hope he realizes it’s a day ahead here.
11:30 p.m. – I have a bad feeling… something is clearly not right… still no call.
11:50 p.m. – Arrive at Seoul Station. A shady taxi driver approaches me. Offers to take me to my destination (a standard $8 cab ride at most) for… $20! “Dude, you're crazy… I’m finding a meter cab.”
12:15 a.m. – I’ve walked a few blocks, can’t hail a cab. They pull over… see that I’m white and take off. It’s getting cold out here. No call yet. Where the hell are those guys? This sucks!
12:20 a.m. – It’s now raining. Nice.
12:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. – Find a westerner named Chris. He’s amazingly kind. Attempts to help me get a taxi. No luck. He says he’s never experienced this. Contacts his Korean girlfriend… she tries to call a cab for me. Again, no luck. Hundreds of cabs are passing us… none will stop. Tell Chris thanks and to take off before he misses his bus. Look for the sketchy cabie I first encountered at the station… he’s long gone. Still no word from Mont, Kevin or John. It’s pretty damn cold now.
1:50 a.m. - Wow, that’s by far the longest line for a bus I’ve ever seen. Must be at least a hundred plus deep. No cab, no call.
2:00 a.m. – Ask a few guys in line where the bus is headed. They chuckle and inform me that this isn’t the bus line. All these people are waiting for a… taxi! My heart drops. I consider crying for a few seconds, but decide against it. It’s now officially fucking freezing!!!
2:20 a.m. – Cross the street and wander away from the line. See a taxi stopped… run up to him… he begins to drive away, so I grab hold of his window… he seems a little shocked and puts on the breaks. “Wait, Wait!” I scream. “Hongdea… 20,000 won ($20),” I tell him, my face beyond pissed. I hear his doors unlock. I jump in. Thank God!
2:25 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. – Have no clue where those guys are. Fuming mad that I went to all that trouble and still had to pay $20. Decide these cab drivers all have terrible karma. Meet up with Amanda and some of her Korean friends. We enter a bar and order a bottle of Jack for the table. I have no food in my stomach… this isn’t a good idea. One of the Korean guys passes out in the bathroom… he’s carried out. Four of us hit a Noribong (a Karaoke room). I’m really drunk… I can tell because my lips are moving and I’m somehow singing a Paula Abdul song. I take a cab to Iteawon. Pay $6 to sleep on a lazy boy in a jinjibong (a Korean style spa complete with public baths and “hot rooms” where people sleep on mats… it’s a weird country, I know).
10:30 a.m. - Wake up to the sound of a vacuum. Not happy. Check my phone… no missed calls. Oh man.
11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. – Visit a PC room… have two emails from Kevin. Apparently John made the flight, which left 12 hours prior and Mont and Kevin did not (they were on stand-by using a buddy pass). They hope to meet us in Japan in a few days. In the subway on my way to meet Amanda for breakfast/lunch/dinner. I’m going on about 4 hours of sleep. I’m moving about in a haze. Huh? This girl staring back at me sure looks an awful lot like my friend Bree from the TEFL course in Prague. We both linger for a bit longer. Shit!!! It is Bree!! Whhaaaaatttt! She’s in Seoul for a meeting and is on her way back to the island of Jeju. We snap a pic and talk for a sec. A city of 12 million people… what are the chances? John calls. He made it.
8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. – We decide to stay in a $200 a night hotel room….the place is sick…high quality… plus we get a free, badass breakfast out of the deal… so long as we get up by 10. Amanda and I take John out to eat traditional Korean food. I make him drink two bottles of soju (a cheap Korean liquor that packs a serious punch) with me. Head into a college town to party… John and I are beginning to feel the soju… we grab another bottle. “This is my kind of country,” John announces, with his trademark grin. Here we go.
12:00 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. – John asks Amanda how to say the word “angel” in Korean… she makes the mistake of telling him. He is now referring to soju as “crack juice.” He’s almost there!! We talk about how good breakfast will be tomorrow (I’m going omelet all the way). Oh shit… John just did his “whew” yell. Now I know it’s on for sure. Johnston hammered in Seoul… this should be interesting.
3:00 a.m. – We’re inside a tent eating street food… three Korean girls are to our left. John smiles, shouts out the Korean word for angel. I’m laughing incredibly hard. One of the Korean girls next to us takes offense to this for some reason. “Okay, Okay… fuck you U.S.A.,” she quips. We laugh harder… she repeats herself… we laugh even harder. She’s getting really pissed.
3:15 a.m. to 4:40 a.m. – We enter a different bar. Amanda is not drunk… John is in rare form… I’m loving it, can’t stop cracking up… she’s becoming increasingly annoyed, as are most Koreans around us. We grab a taxi. “Hey, we have to wake up in time for that breakfast, okay… we’ll need it,” I say. He nods his head… tells our taxi driver that Korea is awesome, calls him an angel face in Korean… passes out.
11:55 a.m. – Wake up… look at the clock… look at John. “Dude… we missed breakfast.”
