OY!

I'll go into the cultural details later, but for now just the cliffs notes - 'cause I'm in a cliffs notesy kind of mood.

Since I am only in Korea 4 days and after today all I'll see is the office and the hotel, I decided to explore a bit. I went walking this afternoon around the hotel guided by a map the front desk gave me (most of which was in Korean for street names and location names). In search of the Buddha temple in the middle of the city, I got lost and made my way up to a University. Ambling through the buildings I came across a field where 3 baseball games were going on - it was funny, the people on the bench were smoking while the others were up at bat.

Finally I wound down the hill I had somehow hiked and made my way to the temple. When I went to pick up an English version of the brochure about the temple, the guard said, "You're from America?! What are you doing here?..."

After I was thoroughly cultured, I taxied over to an area called Dosan Park that the concierge had recommended. Dosan is a very ritzy square filled with coffee shops, wine bars, and boutiques. It was perfect. The taxi dropped me in front of Hermes' "flagship store" which I quickly walked by - no use even looking in the window. I enjoyed lunch at a coffee shop filled with hoity toities and was thrilled for the opportunity to people watch. After launch I walked around a bit more but the cold I've been fighting off started sneaking back into my head so I decided it was hotel time.

I was quickly able to hail a cab which was a relief - with a sore head, muscles, and body I didn't feel like roasting in the sun. I told the driver "Park Hyatt" and he took off nodding. All of a sudden we were entering a freeway I had never seen and he was frantically making phone calls. Uh... He stopped on the freeway on-ramp yelling into the phone "Hyatt (bunch of words I didn't understand) airport." "No!" I gasped - dear goodness the airport is about 40miles from here. More phone calls and more yelling and we were still stopped on the freeway. Finally I said, "enough" and opened the door. Then he really started yelling. "This is ridiculous," I said. "(bunch of words I can't understand but I'm pretty sure he was cussing at me)" he said. Finally he motioned to get back in and handed me the phone. "Hello," said a thickly accented voice, "Hello, Park Hyatt?" "Yes," I replied. "Where is Park Hyatt?" Said the voice. Um...not so sure this was the best taxi to have caught.

About 45-stressful minutes later we were rolling again - more phone calls and then cackling. After we got up to 50mph the driver was in fits of laughter. F(insert bad word that I won't write here). As the speed was picking up I started pointing to the meter saying "No way. Don't think it. Uh uh." He reset it. I guess he got some English. Then the phone rang again, "Hello," a new thick accent said - this time a woman, "Hello, you are going to hotel. He know now. You go." 'Let's hope,' I thought. 10min later we were at the hotel. Thank goodness!

What a ride.

I guess this wasn't so much cliffs notes after all.