Today was an interesting day, to say the least. The day started out with us talking to Josh's family via Skype at 9 o'clock this morning. We had fun talking to everybody and catching up on what was going on. We ended the conversation at 10AM so that we could head into Seoul and have a fun day. After ended the conversation we immediately head down to the gate so that they could call us a taxi. The gate keeper told us that the train for Seoul was supposed to leave at 10:27... crap, it was already 10:15 and we didn't even know where the train station was. We went for it anyway, the cab driver took us to the station, which by the way looked nothing like a train station at the point he dropped us off at, and we searched around for the booth to buy tickets. We made it to the platform just in time to hop on the train and go. Yay we made it! Well we didn't know that we had gotten in the wrong car until after the train started moving so we had to make our way from car to car and find our seats while getting bumped around from the moving train.
We finally made it to Seoul and got our first taste of an Asian city train station. It was PACKED! Every seat was filled, people were sitting on the floor and thousands of people walking every which way. We finally found the exit and got a taxi, oh and I got my first taste of Asian squatty potty's. I told the driver to take us to Insadong, I had read about it before we left and it was supposed to be this cool place that you could go to if you ever wanted to "escape" Korea, really just a very touristy place. Unfortunately I had not written down the name before we left so I was just going off of memory, but the cab driver seemed to know what we meant and off we went. It took us 30 minutes in the cab to get there, amazingly costing us under $10 for the entire drive.
We get there and we are extremely hungry. We thought that the Insadong was supposed to have a lot of places to eat, but we had a very hard time finding one. Finally we decided on a random Korean restaurant that had some of their menu in English. It was pretty good food actually, we haven't had a very good experience with Korean food thus far so we did not have high hopes. They had a little grill at the table where we got to cook our own meat and then had about 6 different mini dishes. We only ate half of the mini dishes because we learned soon after we got to Korea that if there is a red sauce on something it is going to be flamin' hot and you won't have any taste buds left after eating it.
After we finished eating we went to explore Insadong. Insadong was nothing like what I read on the internet. Yes it was a touristy place, there were quite a few white faces there, but there was no cafes, no English places to eat, no English anything, everything was really arty and they had a lot of cheap souvenirs. Oh well, sometimes things are not what they seem. We had fun looking around anyway, I got these really cute place mats with chop sticks and Josh got a really cool lighter. Now the sad part, I found this amazing purse that I wanted really bad, cutest thing ever, but $75,000 won! I loved it but couldn't see spending that much money on something that I didn't need at this point in time so I passed it up=(
We then go to find a taxi to take us to Costco. Who would have thought that finding a taxi could take soooooo LONG! We ended up stopping at Baskin Robins (we did find one American place!) and having delicious ice cream for an outrageous price, but it was GOOD! Oh and we found The Body Shop here in Korea and stopped to get some beauty products for Josh (aka dandruff shampoo). After walking for, seriously, an hour we found a booth where taxi's line up and you can hop in one and go. Thank God because my feet hurt, it was 85 degrees out and I was hot and tired! Oh yes, and I was irritated at Josh because he wouldn't step out into the road a little to flag down a taxi, hence the hour+ walk!
So, we get into the taxi and tell the cab driver to take us to Costco, he didn't understand us at first but after naming other things in the area he finally got where we were talking about. Thankful for a chance to sit down I started to feed Gabe because he was rather hungry at that point. We didn't know how far Costco was from Insadong, we were surprised to find out it was over a half hour away. In the process of getting there I had passed Gabriel off to Josh and fished out my wallet to get out some money.
While I was fishing out my wallet I thought "hey, lets just put all the money in Josh's wallet because his is way easier to access then mine and we still have a little bit of shopping to do," so I asked Josh for his wallets and put all of the money I had, except change, into Josh's wallet. Josh did not immediately take his wallet back, he said that he was holding Gabriel and it was too much work to lift up his bootie and put it in his pocket (I might have added a few words, but that is what he meant), so I held on to it. When we got close to Costco I took Gabriel so Josh's hands would be free to pay the driver and take out the stroller. In the process of taking Gabriel I swear I gave Josh his wallet back... well when we got out of the car and the cab driver had driven away... you can imagine what is coming next... yep, you probably guessed it... no wallet to be found! Crap CRap CRAP!!!!
Josh's wallet had everything in it. It had all of our money except about 6,000 won, it had our one and only Korean bank card, and it had all of his American cards too, like credit cards and debit cards... yeah, big huge CRAP! Josh went off running down the road to see if he could see the cab driver but no cab driver to be found. I was about to cry... wait... I was crying and Josh was not a happy camper, we had no idea how to get back to our home over an hour away. We walked over to Costco and sat down for a bit, hoping and praying the cab driver would come back but he never did. I took my wallet and pulled out our credit card to try and get money out of an ATM, but I had no idea what the pin was so after taking a few guesses at what I thought it was and of course being wrong about all of them, my credit card company put a lock on my card because after so many incorrect guesses they think it could be fraud. Crap again!
We were close to the bus station so we walked over, rather dragging our feet like somebody just sucked the life out of us. I was crying and Josh was just depressed. I try the ATM there again just to be sure the other one wasn't playing a joke on me, but no, still no money. I walk up to the booth hoping and praying to God that they will accept a Visa card for a ticket back home but didn't have high hopes as a lot of places here don't accept American credit cards, but low and behold they actually accepted it! Yay we had a way to get home! We find our bus and have an hour and a half in the hot stinky monster to dwell on our misfortune. We were in deep poo!
We get home after spending our last 6,000 won on a taxi back to English Village from Yongmun and start to call people to have them put a hold on our cards until we could figure out what to do. Unfortunately we could not call our Korean bank or our bank in America as they are not opened and the Korean card was the one we were most worried about as it had all of our money in it. Crap crap crap! Josh went and talked to some of the people here at the school about what we should do and they said there is really nothing we can do, it is probably lost for good. Can I say crap again? I can? Good. CRAP! We sit on our couch in utter defeat. We had no money left, no way to withdrawal money without our bank card, our banks were not open, we don't speak Korean so calling the cab company turned out to be useless (believe me, we tried) and there was nothing else left to do, how depressing. Oh, and Josh kept mentioning that I should have gotten the purse I really wanted because then I would have at least had a really amazingly cute purse and only around 100,000 won would be lost instead of 175,000 won! Anyway...
THEN... (Praise God for the "Then" moment) we get a knock on our door. What was waiting for us behind the door may you ask? A man from the school telling us that they had just gotten a phone call and the cab driver, amazing man that he is, turned Josh's wallet into the police station and Josh could come pick it up! PRAISE GOD!!! How did they know where to contact us? No idea! We had no info in the wallet saying where we live here in Korea or who to call, must have been a God thing. Problem then was that we had no money to make it into Seoul to actually go pick up the wallet. So we get another knock on our door from one of the teachers offering to stop by the police station tomorrow and pick up the wallet on the way back from his class, all we had to do was call the police station and let them know. So Josh called and told them (actually got someone that spoke English), so tomorrow night Josh should have his wallet back and hopefully everything is still in it and all will be good. So now we just have to wait and see!
Oh yes, and after Josh finds out he gets his wallet back one of the first things he says is "Good, I want my guitar pics back(that he always has in his wallet". No sir, don't worry about the credit cards or bank cards or firearms permit, don't worry about the cash or the drivers license, nope don't worry about any of those things, worry about the guitar pics.... only my husband!
On a more funny note... so you know how I said that Insadong was nothing like what I read on the internet? Yeah, so I told the cab driver to go to completely the wrong place and really I meant to go to Itaewon and not Insadong.... Josh was rather mad when I realized this fact... I thought it was kind of funny... he didn't... he thought it was pretty awful actually... he was very mad... didn't help that I was uncontrollably laughing at this point because of our bad day... but hey, it makes life adventurous! Josh says that we can't go anywhere else anymore or at least I can't give the directions and I can't touch his wallet... we'll see about that =D
P.S. Lets not forget one last unfortunate detail to add to the day. I also broke the zipper on my favorite pair of pants and I also have no idea when I broke the zipper so for all I know I could have walked around Seoul all day with my fly open and my bright blue undies visible for all to see!
after buying one for myself I thought "what a great gift this would make". Though these place mats make a great gift I could not decide who to give them to! Sooo.... I thought how fun would it be to have a mini contest! 
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