Fate's creative hand

Thursday and Friday night was spent eating out with some Korean aquaintances after watching the belt tests for Gumdo (martial art involving swords). Mild food was constantly pushed in my direction, which I was extremely grateful for, though I ended up with bad stomach upset on Sunday anyway.

Saturday I woke up in fairly good health. Taking advantage of this I decided to take my first trip to the town centre. Believing that the town centre was straight up the main road, I took what I thought was the correct bus into town. I realised 20min later that this was the wrong bus, and not knowing which was the right bus, I decided to stay on it to give myself a guided tour of the city for 40p. The bus took a route out of the city and into the country, which was a nice suprise. The nice surprise turned to nasty shock when the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, thus I was kicked uncerimoniously off the bus. I stood there, surrounded by rice paddy fields and huts, with not a taxi or bus stop in sight. I managed to find a main road and walked along it until I found a bus stop that would have sent me back the way I came. Luckily 15 min later, in the heat and humidity, my ticket to 'civilisation' arrived.

On the way back I noticed a huge lake on the edge of Gusan, surrounded by hills and forest. I got off the bus and started to walk round the lake, soaking in the beauty and tranquility. I found a quiet spot on the bank and lay back for half an hour relaxing and appreciating the view, to be disturbed by a small group of children who came tearing down the bank brandishing a fishing rod. My peace shattered, I ascended the bank, and bumped into a Korean man, who started speaking to me in English. As it turned out, he knows a few westerners, and phoned one of them from his mobile, while I was still stood there. He put me on the phone to a married Canadian old enough to be my father. Trusting my gut instinct I agreed to meet the Canadian (don't normally do this, usually extremely wary, but trusted my instincts) at his flat. There I met his Korean wife, who has kindly offered to help me if I was ever in any trouble, shoving contact details in my direction. She then phoned two Western teachers, who arrived at their flat an hour later (Jen, Canadian and Paula, Irish). As it turns out Paula's birth name is Samantha, the girl that Andi wanted to put me in contact with but lost her number. Again, trusting my instincts, the 3 of us went out for a drink, where I got along with them famously. We swapped numbers and went home.

The next day was unbelievably ill. I spent the next day sleeping, (not the booze, upset stomach) only to be disturbed by 2 phone calls at 9am, the first being the Canadian fella, Joseph, to check that the night went ok and that I was safe, the second being Ryan. At 7pm I could not cope anymore. I had dirtied by bed clothes, and my washing machine would not accept the bed sheet. There was no where I knew of where I could by a replacement. I phoned Paula, who after hearing my predicament, took me to E-Mart outside of the city, which sells practically everything, and even has a MacDonalds. Paula, myself, bedding, mop and bucket, plus other assorted cleaning materials ( the flat is disgusting, but has improved since I have arrived) bundled into a taxi and went straight back to her flat, where we laughed at Korean porn, dicussed boyfriends, and shared our grief over not having a single sausage buttie, bag of chips or salt and vinegar crisps in ages. Swear to god. I stayed the night, to tired and weak to move, and left the next morning contented that I had made a friend