Wednesday, April 30, 2008

SoKo: A Prelude.

After spending four hours over two days hunting frantically for either a telephone number (I found eight; many didn't work or were answered by people who spoke no English), an office (I walked miles trying to find one address that I later realized was mis-written by someone), or a travel agent (who directed me in all sorts of odd directions) that would lead me to ferry tickets to Seoul, South Korea to visit Dear Cyndi, I finally decided to go to the source.

The Tianjin Port is a 45-minute train ride outside of Tianjin, in a town called Tanggu. I woke up early this morning to take a cab ($1) to the station, from which I took a light rail train (that made announcements using the AIM "you have an IM!" sound; $.70) to Tanggu, from which I took another taxi ($1.50) to the port authority, from which I learned several new phone numbers, which eventualyl led me down a rabbit hole at the end of which sat a round trip ferry ticket to Incheon ($200 round trip). So!

As I wrote to someone via Gchat, I'm excited/excited; I originally was going to type "nervous" after the backslash but then realized I'm not particularly nervous. Just happy to take on another new adventure, happy to have conquered many obstacles, hapy to see Cyndi, happy to see a new country, happy to be alive.

And then on my walk home from school/CenturyMart, my pen exploded all over my bag, reminding me that there are no perfect days in China.

Zaijian.

1 comment:

Lauren said...

I could never move to a different country and could definitely not do so alone. I'm in awe of you.

P.S. How does a pen just explode?