When the Chili Peppers Start to Die

above: Two weeks into 40 degree weather, the chili pepper season at its end

above: Ornamental fireflies in Yeongyang. Soon all mountain and street trees will change colors.

above: some of the leaves have changed colors...here in front of the Yeongyang Elementary school buses. Most of the children live in walking distance to the school, but a few live elsewhere.

Last Thursday morning I was freezing. 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside to be exact. My feet felt ice-like the minute they touched the hardwood floor beneath my bed. After I opened and logged onto my laptop, I checked the weather, and put on some warm clothes before I walked out the door. I was surprised by just how cold it was when I walked outside. Had Winter come early?

The clothes I was wearing weren’t enough to insulate me from the cold. I wore a sweater that day under a small green coat, but the chilly mountain air seemed to go right through my clothes. Today it was cold as well, but less so because the sun was out for most of today. Today, I wore two sweaters and my jacket to school. Some of the teachers wore their jackets to lunch today. I didn’t as I am not particularly cold when I am eating, and my desk sits in the sunlight. Also, it was toasty in the lunchroom today; the heater was propelling thick wafts of warm air.

 All that said, one sweater in Yeongyang’s climate just isn’t enough. Keep in mind this statement is coming from someone who was raised in the Southeastern United States, in a place otherwise known as ‘Hotlanta’.

“Home, home, where I wanted to go,” Chris Martin sings at a Coldplay concert.

When I took the wrong bus the other week, I wanted to go back home, but I wanted even more to go a Homeplus store. I needed to buy more winter clothes and supplies. I described my journey to find and purchase winter supplies in my previous post. So I’ll finish that story.

 I mentioned that I took the wrong bus en route to find winter clothes last time. My bus was headed to Daegu—and the duration of the trip from Andong (where I should have stayed) to Daegu was three and a half hours. It wasn’t a terrible ride. All the buses I’ve been on in Korea have had leather seats, which makes them comfortable and most are fairly quiet, which makes them easy to sleep on (as it is considered rude to talk too loud in public transportation, or public places period).

 I didn’t mind sitting on the bus for a while. My stomach was bearing the many questions of what I would do in Daegu, which churned more and more the closer we came to the Daegu bus terminal. I hardly cared about the three and a half hour ride because I was able to digest my problem and recover from it. To recover from my problem, I had to get back to Andong. Of course, that would take another three hours, at best. There was no way for me to know if the next bus departing to Andong would be waiting at the Daegu bus terminal for me. On top of that, I still needed buy winter clothes. So I pulled up Homeplus (a 4-level Costco type shopping center) on my smartphone and looked for the one closest to the bus terminal in Daegu.

Our bus shortly thereafter rode on a long, wide pale concrete bridge that connected Daegu to another part of the county over a river. I saw high rise condonimums, office buildings and busy streets as we approached Daegu. The thought of finding a Homeplus in Daegu was daunting; the city looked comparable to Atlanta-or of a similar size.

When I got off the bus, the Korean bus driver just shook his head and laughed a little. He pointed in one direction. “Andong, Andong,” he said. I didn’t see any buses where he pointed, so I kept walking. A man who looked middle-aged stopped by my side and tried to see if he could tell me where to go. He looked at the map on my phone and the address of Homeplus. The Korean bus driver stood behind us the entire time. Finally, the middle-aged man told me to take a taxi. “Andong, Andong,” the bus driver kept saying, pointing in another direction, but I said Kamsa hamnida (thank you) to both men and walked toward a line of taxis.

The man who appeared middle aged said the taxi would not be expensive to Homeplus—and it wasn’t. The cost was about ten thousand won, equivalent to about ten bucks. The trip took about fifteen minutes. I pulled my winter supplies list out of my backpack when I got to Homeplus. I knew I would be getting back late to Andong. Why not take a later bus back? I walked into Homeplus and found about half of what I needed. I stuffed a few cookies, some nutella, a bottle of merlot, and some medicine in my backpack, too. I knew some things I wouldn’t be able to find back in Yeongyang, like nutella, peanut butter and other Western pleasures.

When I walked outside Homeplus, almost immediately, I stepped into a taxi. There was a line of them right outside the front doors. “Daegu bus terminal. I go to Andong,” I said to the taxi driver. “Daegu bus terminal.” “Yes,” “Daegu to Andong.”  I realize now in my haste and tiredness, it would have been very easy to misunderstand me, especially as a non-English speaker. Every day I learn to speak a little simpler. It’s a work in progress.

About fifteen minutes into the trip, before we even made it to the Daegu bus terminal, the taxi driver said, “There is no bus.” Uh, what? I thought. First I took the wrong bus and now I missed the bus?!

“Why?” I said. “Too late, too late.” I just remember shaking my head. I felt very disoriented. Daegu felt about the size of Atlanta and now that it was dark out, it looked much more intimidating. I didn't know any of the streets. Or any markets, exept the bus terminal and Homeplus. I just kept wondering how I would get home. “Will you take me home?” I said.

“Yes. . .”

So I gave the taxi driver my address. He charged me a flat rate of one hundred and sixty thousand won, about one hundred and sixty dollars. I was so tired, exhausted and disoriented from the earlier mishap that all I wanted to do was go home. I hadn’t thought about the price of the taxi cab fare. I knew it would be expensive, but I had bought much of what I needed at Homeplus that day and I was well within my budget—until I paid the taxicab fare. So a little splurge was okay. The driver pulled off on the side of the road when we got on the highway and asked me to pay before he went any further.

Half an hour into the ride, after I Ovooed (a program similar to Skype) with my Mom Karla on my smartphone and started to doze off, I received a text from my coteacher, Heejung. She wanted to know if I had paid a taxicab driver one hundred and sixty dollars. Oh, no, she knows!

Of course I was going to tell both my coteachers, but I was so embarrassed and tired I didn’t think it would do any good telling them now. I also didn’t think anything could be done at this point, which I now know was one terribly foolish assumption to make that evening.

Heejung called me after I told her I had paid the cab fare in question. She said she felt bad for me because she was in Daegu and she would have helped me. She also asked why I did not take the bus back to Andong. The buses were still running, she said. So when I told her the driver said the buses were not still running, she wanted to speak with him.

She spoke with the driver, and told me not to worry shortly thereafter. She arranged for the driver to take me only to Andong, where he would give me sixty thousand won about sixty dollars back in cash. She said the driver had not understood me or there had been some sort of miscommunication. I felt even worse after not calling my coteacher Heejung that evening, since she had been in the area. She had been so helpful, once again. I was relieved that she had called, even if I was on my way home.

After these series of events, I finally returned to my apartment around midnight. I had purchased a bunch of new sweaters, day socks and sleeping socks at Homeplus. Before I went to bed I unpacked my purchases and I was actually proud of myself for finding a way to do what I needed to do that day—which was buy winter clothes—despite hours spent going in the wrong direction, so far from Yeongyang.

above: a view from a Yeongyang Elementary school window. I took this outside one of my classes.

And...if any of you haven't heard of Coldplay or their song Clocks, below is a video of Coldplay performing Clocks in Scotland. 

Yours truly,

   Evan