To most people having an adventure means going on an unusual trip that will test your physical and mental abilities. For instance last evening I was watching an adventure cyclist, Rob Lilwall ride his bike across Tibet into India. One doesn't usually think that doing mundane daily activities can be an adventure…they haven't lived in S. Korea!
In S. Korea, venturing off a U.S. military base is definitely an adventure. Where I live, in Uijongbu, most people do not speak English…any English, except customary phrases like yes or Happy New Year, which doesn't mean they comprehend, sort of like my Korean. In necessity I have gotten very good at Charades. The problem comes when you are dealing with a machine.
My husband and I just wanted to go to the movies. I had gotten very good at traversing the traffic and parking structure in the Shinsegae Mall, it's the only place I've found that replicates shopping at home; so I go there often. After being directed to our parking space, we took the escalator to the top floor where the movie theater was. We didn't care what we saw, we just wanted to go to a movie in a theater.
In S. Korea, venturing off a U.S. military base is definitely an adventure. Where I live, in Uijongbu, most people do not speak English…any English, except customary phrases like yes or Happy New Year, which doesn't mean they comprehend, sort of like my Korean. In necessity I have gotten very good at Charades. The problem comes when you are dealing with a machine.
My husband and I just wanted to go to the movies. I had gotten very good at traversing the traffic and parking structure in the Shinsegae Mall, it's the only place I've found that replicates shopping at home; so I go there often. After being directed to our parking space, we took the escalator to the top floor where the movie theater was. We didn't care what we saw, we just wanted to go to a movie in a theater.
From first look the theater looks just like a regular theater. These people are all standing in line for snacks and tickets. We stood in the line for the tickets waiting with hopeful hearts there would be something we wanted to see at a somewhat convenient time as we were all ready there.
Then we came to this. It took us a while to find the English button. We pressed, but it wasn't as helpful as we could have wanted. Finally, after staring at the screen for 5 minutes we ascertained that there were two movies we could watch that were in English. One was an animated children's movie which we nixed and the other was in English, but not sure what it was about. We chose the latter, or tried to. After selecting two tickets several times we finally realized the seats are designated and there was only one seat remaining in the theater!
We went home, ordered another movie from Amazon, made hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps and relaxed, promising ourself we will try again, maybe.
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