Saturday, June 4, 2016

What Do You Do?

What do you do?

What do you do when you are sitting with a group of people at the hostel in Seoul, Korea, just having a good time talking in the common area where everybody is hanging out, and they all want to go clubbing, but you had been, up to that moment, thinking about turning in early.  But they all insist and plead. But you don't even have any nice clothes, just travel bum gear. They all keep cajoling until you and everybody else who is a little reticent finally want to go. Even Claire is going. Besides, it's Jack's birthday. So everybody is going out at eleven to celebrate, and everybody takes off to shower and change.

What do you do?

And then, everybody gets together in front of the hostel to go out. Is everybody there? Not yet. So everybody trickles out, and finally everybody is there.  You all wind down the streets. Some are screaming and howling on the street. Most have alcoholic beverages in their grip, downing them as the horde spins it's way down the street. You take the subway to some place where somebody knows there are some cool clubs, following their lead, but not really paying attention to where you are going. Some are still drinking on the subway. A conversation gets started on the train about black cock; Jenny tells them to shush because people are listening on the subway and many understand English. You get off the train and wind your way through some really shiny and busy alleyways, filled with flashing distractions and packed with people, and you take a while bunch of pictures.  The first couple of clubs don't pan out. The first club offers to let all the women in for free, and give them all free drinks, but screw the men. The second place has too long a line; it snaked around the block, and you can't even tell where exactly the place is.  But then you find a place, and you make your way in through the throbbing, pulsing masses of humanity. You hang out there until the wee hours of the morning, almost 4 am, dancing with everybody who is dancing with you because it is such a novelty to have an old dude there who is really vigorously dancing, and a bunch of people are taking your picture with them, and high-fiving you, and hugging you, and slapping you on the back, introducing themselves, having the kinds of conversations with you that people have that are yelled into each other's ears over the throbbing din, etc.

What do you do?

And then, what happens is what you knew was going to happen. Many of the twentysomethings who were wanting to go clubbing end up hooking up with someone because they are young and similar to everyone else there, while you end up, of course, alone, because you aren't really similar enough to anyone in there, despite the fact that you had great social interactions with everybody in there all night. But it's just not really your thing. It's not your natural habitat and you are an alien looking in, an anthropological observer turned participant in a ritual of passing that you have passed.

What do you do?

Then, the night churns on, and it is very late. You start thinking about leaving,  but you can't find anyone you came with, except for a few who have hooked up with someone in the bar, and they are now busy making out with their paramours, and everybody else is nowhere to be found. So you decide to leave, at around four in the morning. You wind your way out of the crowded bar to the elevator that serves as the entrance, and head to the street level, back out to the neighborhood with the flashing lights everywhere.

What do you do?

You go out into this shiny, flashing, confusing neighborhood that is still packed with people even at four in the morning.  And you realize that you have no idea how to get out of these winding, narrow, flashing streets. So you wander around, mostly aimlessly, until you think you recognize some stuff and you might know the way back to the subway station. But it's not a big deal. You don't have to be anywhere,  and it's not a requirement that you know particularly where you are. So you wander.

What do you do?

And as you are wandering around, one of the most beautiful women you have ever seen in your life calls out to you on the sidewalk, in halting English, "Hello, you are very handsome. "

What do you do?

You know this is not going to be what you might want it to be, but you stare at her for about a minute, and then you say, "You are very beautiful." She looks at you, not breaking her gaze, and says again, "You are very handsome." Maybe she doesn't know how to say much more than this in English. And you say again,  "And you are very beautiful." You look at each other for what seems like an eternity, but is only a few moments.

What do you do?

Experience tells you to move along, though part of you really doesn't want to. Experience. Its a bitch. You walk away, slowly, still looking at her and with her still looking at you. Then you finally avert your eyes and move on. But you know you will think about this moment later. Even if it was not what it seemed.

What do you do?

You finally find your way to the subway station, and go down the stairs to take the subway back to the hostel, but find the corridor to the train platform is shuttered and it is closed, because it doesn't run that late.

What do you do?

You start trying to figure out how to get back to the hostel. Google Maps doesn't work in South Korea, and you downloaded two other alternatives yesterday that do supposedly work in South Korea, but after you downloaded them, you found that they are solely in Korean, and so they are useless to you because you not only can't read Korean, but you can't even remotely figure out how to type Korean words, or even what order the characters are in. Then you turn to the offline maps app you have, which works like a charm, and maps out the path of several kilometers for you to walk back to the hostel. And you take a while bunch of pictures on the way. Then you finally stumble back into the hostel around six in the morning and crawl into bed. And you wake up the next day about four hours later, ready for the challenges and wonders of another day on the road.

I don't know if any of that is what you would do, but that's what I did.

2 comments:

  1. Postscript from the next morning: Jack the birthday boy ended up stumbling in about ten in the morning. He woke up on the sidewalk somewhere, missing his bank card, and had blacked out, having no memory of what happened the night before.

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