Do you know the way to .... Andong?
Sonja and I were off to Andong today to some traditional village where they make paper and wooden masks. Jin, a really sweet guy in the office made the arrangements for us yesterday. He told us where we had to go - Dong Daegu Station. He said there were stairs when we get to the station (I thought they were inside, Sonja thought they were outside) and we would go down the stairs (Sonja didn't think we had to go down them) and there would be a bus. It would be the only bus and they would recognize us because we would be the only foreigners. I thought it would be simple. Sonja was a bit worried. We had a drawing of the station with a square for the stairs and a circle for the bus. He also wrote Dong Daegu Station in Korean and Andong, the place we were going to.
We hopped in a cab at about 8:00 this morning. We were supposed to be there at 8:50. Jang, the other guy who works in the office who has some communication problems (not only in English, but apparently in Korean too) came to my room yesterday to tell me 8:50. I didn't think to ask him if that was the time the bus left or the time they wanted us there. We were planning on being there early, just in case. So we arrived at 8:30. It seemed like everything was going smoothly.
When we entered the station there was a sign pointing to the right that said Express Bus Terminal. I thought that was where we wanted to go. Every time Sonja saw a flight of stairs, she said, "Do you think those are the stairs?" I answered no every time. I thought the stairs would be right inside the station.
They weren't.
We stopped at the information counter and showed the woman our drawing from Jin. She told us to go to the Express Bus Terminal. We followed the signs.
We got to the express bus terminal and there were many busses. None of them were going to Andong. As we were frantically looking around a guy who was waiting for a bus called us over and asked to look at our paper. We showed it to him, he asked the bus driver and directed us to a bus terminal across the street.
We could see that we were in front of the exit to Dong Daegu subway station and we thought maybe Jin thought we were going to take the subway, and when we came out of the subway, there were stairs to the right which might have gone to the bus terminal across the street.
And so we crossed.
No bus to Andong.
We asked several people, showing them our map and finally we found the bus to Andong, but it was not a tour bus, it was a regular bus.
Sonja was kind of freaking out at this point. I was amazingly calm, because to be honest, I wasn't really that thrilled about going to Andong. I didn't think it was that interesting from what I read.
We found a nice young man who spoke English and we explained that we were looking for a tour bus. He asked us the name of the tour company. We didn't know. He said he didn't know where we should go, but the bus we were in front of just went to Andong and for us to go to the traditional village we had to transfer. We didn't want to do that.
So we crossed the street again and saw that to the right of the exit to the subway station was a set of stairs and next to the stairs was a little bus.
I was convinced it was our bus especially when Sonja said Jin told her we didn't have to go down the stairs but that the bus would be right next to it.
So we waited. Sonja wasn't convinced but I was really tired of running around.
Finally at about 9:15 when no one appeared, I told her I thought we were in the wrong place.
We went back up to Dong Daegu station to see if we could find the City Tours that were advertised on our map. We entered the station, walked all the way through and came out the front and to our right, a set of stairs. It seemed that Jin or whoever gave him the directions was imagining that we would be exiting the station rather than entering it. From where the taxi let us off, the stairs were to the left in front of the station. It was important information that would have kept us from going on a wild bus chase.
We went down the stairs and saw some busses for city tours. We asked a guy in a little bus if he went to Andong. He told us no, he was going to Gyongju. Sonja and I had been there before. I would have been happy to go again, but Sonja didn't want to. He pointed to the bus in front of us and told us to talk to that driver (at least that is what I imagined he said). We went to that driver and he pointed to the bus in front of him and told us to talk to that driver. We went to that driver and showed him our little picture and he sent us back to the first bus.
It was really becoming hysterical, but we weren't laughing. Sonja was really upset at this point.
A man and his wife who were waiting for one of the other busses came to see if they could help. The man spoke decent English. He told us he was going to Palgongsan - a nearby mountain - by public bus. We thanked him for offering to help us.
The driver of the first bus called someone and found out that the bus to Andong had left. We were indeed in the right spot but too late. He passed the phone to me. She told me that they waited for me but we were late. I told her we were lost.
So we asked him about City Tours. They were advertised on the sign in front of his bus. He called the number on the sign and told us to wait 5 minutes.
In 5 minutes a young woman came and told us that we had missed the bus to Andong. I told her we had been walking around for 45 minutes trying to find the place. She apologized and told us there was a City Tour going to Palgongsan leaving in 15 minutes at 10:00. We told her that was what we wanted.
So she led us up the stairs and right in front of the station was the tourist information center which we hadn't seen because we were in such a panic when we first arrived.
She sold us two tickets to a City Tour to Palgongsan. She told us it was normally 5,000 won but because we missed the other bus she would only charge us 3,000 won each! Amazing!!! The bus to Andong was 26,000 won, so we were getting off very cheaply.
The bus was really nice. It was air-conditioned and comfortable. It made several stops and we could get off wherever we wanted and just hop on the next bus to continue to wherever we wanted to go.
It was an amazing trip, but this blog entry is too long already, so I will continue in another entry.
The moral of the story? All's well that ends well.
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