A Troubled Track

I saw my first Korean schizophrenic today!  Even though it was one of those days where I wake up at 4am and just BARELY start to drift off to sleep in time for my alarm to ring at 8, I decided to accompany Jonathan, the only male teacher at my school, on his excursion to the Apple store.  He wanted to look at MacBooks and I wanted to look at iPhones.  At 6pm, we left school and headed in a new direction from where I usually walk.  In usual form, I marveled at the slightly different sights than I'm used to seeing.  We passed a really big elementary school and a shop with a tank out front--this one with squid swimming in it.  They looked like Super Mario Bros. squid, with the eyes and all!  "Wow!" I said, "Look at the squid!"

"You're so new!" he chuckled, enjoying my perspective.  He's been here a couple years and has seen it all.  At the subway stop (this was one I'd not been to before) he showed me the different food they sell in various stands.  "Those are chicken pieces on skewers, those are sausages..." he explained.

By the time we arrived at Myeong-dong it was totally dark and totally vibrant with colors and alive with people.  It looked like a Saturday at Toys R Us during Christmas season.  I've been to Myeong-dong three times now, but not at night.  The colors were gorgeous!

Having had worked all day, we were both really hungry.  We stopped at a food stand that was selling little pancake things...I forget what they were called...but they tasted like a pancake mixed with donut mixed with cinnamon roll.  Like they literally tasted JUST like that.  I haven't had something that sugary in a good long while and it seriously seemed like the most delicious thing I had ever eaten.  

Back on the ever-so-crowded subway, I (and everybody else) heard a woman scream at someone.  Being the tallest on the train, I looked above all the heads to trace the source of the commotion...and saw a weathered, but not old, looking girl with hair bleached to a faded shade of orange with black roots.  Turns out she was screaming at an imaginary someone, because she was looking directly at the wall.  It was quite a heated argument.  I always feel bad for people like that...and at the same time comforted that Koreans have crazy people, too.  

As the uneven tracks swayed the train and all its contents back and forth, I looked at my reflection in the black window.  "I'm glad you and I are friends," I thought to myself.