Monday, March 21, 2011

Adventures in train travel

So on Sunday, we were planning on going to a Korean cultural village, but when we woke up it was cold and raining and we didn't feel like walking around in the rain all day. So Jeff made breakfast and we watched some basketball. Then we played Catan...a lot. We learned how to play the card version (rivals) as well as playing some old standbys (Cities & knights etc.) We attempted to plug my laptop into Jeff's TV so we could watch a movie, but somehow blew his speakers and the circuits, so that was fun. I hope Jeff's TV works now! We also watched season 1 of the Office while playing. We cleaned up Jeff's apartment a little bit, then played more Catan. Jeff made dinner (spagetti with cut up sausages). Ann skyped us around 11:30 and we talked for an hour then watched some more Office and went to bed. It wasn't in the plans, but sometimes it's nice to spend a day in pjs doing nothing.

This morning I got up (thanks to Jeff's alarm) around 6:30. I got ready, packed etc. and Jeff dropped me off at the train station on his way to work. I got the train to Daejeon with no problems and got a seat this time (its was an extra $2). When I got out of the station to find the bus back to Jinju I ran into some problems. First, there were 2 exits out of the building and I didn't know which one to try. I didn't go in this same way and nothing looked familiar. So I found the "tourist information" booth and was pointed to one exit and told to find the express bus terminal. I'm pretty sure he told me the wrong directions, but whatever. I got into a taxi, told the guy where I wanted to go (express bus terminal) and he called someone, then handed me the phone so I could tell that guy instead. We got to the terminal without a problem though.

Once in the terminal there were 2 ways to go - express bus and inter city bus. I wasn't sure which one to take, so I went with express bus. I walked up the counter and said Jinju and the lady gave me a ticket and pointed me to a bus. The bus said "Jeonju" on the front, but sometimes the translations get messed up so I was hoping it was correct. I had a bad feeling though and asked the driver "Jinju?" and showed him the Korean spelling for jinju in my guidebook. He said yes so I sat down. Then we left and went a different direction than I had remembered. Luckily, we stopped about 10 minutes later and I walked up front again and showed him not only the city name, but the province. Turns out my gut feeling was correct - this bus was going somewhere else. So I got off, he handed me the ticket back and said "terminal, give ticket". I said thanks, found another cab, and $6 and a bit of stomach lining later, I was back at the terminal. I went to the counter where I bought my first ticket, gave it to the lady, said "Not Jeonju, Jinju" and she gave me cash and pointed to the inter city side. So I got a ticket on the other side to Jinju (correct spelling) and made it home. So, everything worked out fine and now I know to double, ney triple check my bus. See if you can spot the difference in spelling (hint - the Korean bus driver didn't until the 3rd reading of my guide book).

Jinju  진주         Jeonju     전주

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