Why I didn't blog on Sunday!

This past weekend was filled with fun, frustration, and quite a bit of laughter. Like I mentioned in my last posting, uncle Bob visited Friday evening. After he left, Britney, London, and I met three other teachers for a fun night out at a beer garden and a luxury Noreabong (the fun Karaoke rooms)! After singing the night away, we returned at 4am, and I slept until 2pm on Saturday! As I’ve said in the past, it’s the most wonderful feeling not having homework to wake up to anymore. The rest of my evening was spent shopping for apartment goodies and decorating.

On Sunday, Shauna and I tried a new church in Seoul. Just before we left for Korea, Shauna called to tell me that the church she took her group home clients (from Mankato) to has a pastor that was leaving to accept a six year contract in South Korea! This week, I had emailed a wonderful Gustavus professor and successful Lutheran theologian hoping he would be able to help me locate a Lutheran church with an English service in South Korea. Sure enough, he was able to find me one, and it happened to be where the pastor from Mankato would be. It really is a small world! We went to his church and found ourselves welcomed by a small but wonderful Christian community of Koreans and foreigners. Pastor Steve Kosberg looked pleasantly surprised when has asked the visitors to stand up and introduce themselves. We proudly let him know we were his neighbors from Gustavus! I sincerely look forward to returning to both Life Church and International Lutheran Church. After church, we met up with a few of Shauna’s friends who are also teaching in Korea and then headed home.

Here’s where my frustration and laughter comes in. I left Shauna on the bus to get off a few stops early as I wanted to stop at Lotte Mart again to look for a key chain. I was given a single key and was quite sure I would misplace it if I didn’t get something bigger attached to it soon. I looked everywhere and was unsuccessful at finding a key chain, so out of desperation, I bought some colored twine to attach to my key. As I was at the register about to pay, I heard something that sounded like a key drop. I looked around but saw nothing so I finished paying and without panic, as I couldn’t see my key in my wallet where I put it that morning, went sit down at a table in the entry way to dig out my key. After emptying the entire wallet multiple times, I knew my key was probably floating around some busy street in Seoul where I had opened my wallet multiple times that day. My key was gone. At this point I was surprisingly still calm as I called my boss to let her know the situation. She called me back after talking to the guy at school who is in charge of the teacher’s apartments. There were two options: 1) go back to Lotte Mart and have the key shop “found in the front of the store” come with me to the apt and make me a new key or 2) go back to my apt, have my boss call the number on my door, and send a person over to unlock the door. Either way it was going to cost money and I had no idea how long it would take. Lucy (my boss) said the first option was the better one to try first. So I left all my purchases at London’s apartment, borrowed money from her as I was nearly broke, and walked BACK to Lotte to find the key shop.

I didn’t see the key shop Lucy had told me about, so I walked to the service desk in back, only to get ignored by the worker and budged in front of by other Koreans. So, I marched to the front of the store and walked straight up to an employed and asked, “English? Do you speak English?” That was a no. So I tried charades by acting out key and lock. Still, a no go. Helplessly, I walked away and was near tears at this point. I was hitting my first actual frustration with the language barrier.

As I walked away and stood in the entryway ready to call Lucy back for plan two, the worker followed me out and thought he figured out that I had lost the key to my locker (they have in the front for people to put other belongings in). I kept saying, “No, my key, house key, apartment, lost!” He finally understood! He called a manager who took me back to the service desk to unsuccessfully identify the 15 pairs of lost and found keys. So, we went back to the original worker who said, “WAIT!” As I stood there, I called Lucy to explain that they thought I had lost my key in the store and needed help finding it. I asked her to explain to one of them my situation and that I needed them to help me find the key shop! As I tried handing them the phone, neither of them would take it. In my head I was thinking, “PLEASE!” Then I realized, DUH!...I was talking to Lucy in English, so they obviously were thinking, “Why the heck are you handing us the phone when you KNOW we don’t speak English?!” I quickly said, “KOREAN!” and they accepted the phone.

Finally, they understood and took me to the THIRD FLOOR (not the front of the store) to find the key shop. One worker yelled across the counter to another worker who thankfully spoke enough English for us to communicate…AMEN! Back and forth between me and the key worker, we were able to figure out which kind of lock I had. Finally they said, “Ok, we will sell you this one!” I responded with, “Um, I don’t know how to change that lock!” At this point they agreed, “Ok, we will come to your house and change the lock for you.” “THANK YOU!” Except there was one question left, “How much?” I only had 70,000 won between my own and what London borrowed me. The two Koreans spoke for a while with the most pitied look on their face and asked, “45,000?” “DEAL!” At this point they were probably thinking, “Let’s help this poor, desperate, American and get her OUT OF HERE!”
The Korean who didn’t speak English said, “Go now!” and I followed him to his car…awkward moment! He asked for my address to put in his GPS when I said, “Point?” Does my place even have an address!? All our mail is sent to school. As we got about a block from my apartment, his eyes lit up and he pointed saying, “MY HOUSE!” He actually lives in the building right next to mine! For the first time since I arrived, I had seen two cute Koreans (the one who spoke English and the one who didn’t, but changed my lock). I still don’t know if it was because I was spending so much time with them trying to figure my situation out and got a good look, because they were just so relentless in helping me, or I really did think they were cute! Either way, after one broken drill bit and annoyed neighbors questioning the noise, I got my lock changed and have the nicest door handle out of all the apartments! Although there is no such thing as tipping in Korea, I gave the Lotte worker 50,000 won and FORCED him to keep the extra 5,000 when he didn’t have change.

So, that’s why I didn’t blog on Sunday night. I was too busy meeting cute Korean men and trying to get into my apartment. I realize many of you may not take the time to read this outrageously long blog, but at least I’ll have it for my own sake years after I leave Korea. It is by far the most memorable moment I’ve had since I arrived, simply because of the effort and frustration it took, all to end up just fine hours later. Oh, and by the way….I found the key chains. They’re on the third floor at the key shop…right next to all the new locks!