Korean Adventures Part 2

Today was the last day of the conference. After lunch we could sign up for cultural activities. Erin and I signed up to go to a market and fort in a nearby suburb. We walked through and open market, and tried some traditional Korean snacks. Then, we went to the fort and rode a "train" around. When the trip was finished, we weren't ready to head back, so decided to find our own way home! We asked the tour guide what bus we could take to the train station, but soon realized that by the time we were finished shopping we would no longer be near those bus stops. We checked the sign, and realized that the stations were marked in English, so we decided we would be fine on our own. We did some shopping and walking through the town and then decided it was time to find our way back to the hotel. Erin voiced her opinion that we should take a taxi, but I was determined to use public transportation. I had just about given up, when we came to a bus stop. However, there was no English! I asked the other people waiting if they spoke English, and everyone shook their heads no. I continued asking anyway, if anyone knew how to get to Suwon Station. One lady pointed on the sign to all the buses we could take, and we were trying to figure out how many stops we would need to count, when she pointed at one, and made it known that we should get on. I decided it was so nice of her to help us that we had to follow her advice. We got on, and started looking, trying to figure out where we were, and when we needed to get off. We found the station, which was very large, and thought we were home free. (After all, we did the trains on Wednesday, and it had turned out fine.) I bought our tickets, and we started following the signs to the tracks. When we got there, there were two sets of tracks. All of the people were waiting on one side, so we waited there too. Then when a train came, it was on the other side. All of the people just moved to that side, so we followed. We knew that the town we needed was 3 stops away, so we started counting. When the train stopped, all the people started getting off...they told us we had to switch trains. So, we followed them. Just as the doors closed, I asked the man next to me where we were. He pointed to the stop we wanted and said there. I thought, oh well, we'll just get off at the next stop, but the man, who luckily spoke some English, told us it was an express train, and we would not be stopping for 3 more towns! I was feeling really bad by this point, because Erin had wanted to take a taxi from the start! We got off at Osan, three towns later, and got on the train heading back where we had come from. We managed to find our town, and get off! We walked to the bus stop that we had taken on Wednesday, and thought we needed a 20 something or 40 something bus. However, there weren't any listed! We decided we could go for a taxi, but taxi driver wouldn't take us to our hotel. So, we were standing there trying to figure out what to do when a 27 bus pulled up. We decided that sounded good and got on! We knew that assuming it was the right bus, it would be 15 stops to our hotel. I started counting, and got to 2, and decided if Erin was counting, I didn't need to. The only problem was, Erin wasn't counting either! We had to pay close attention, but eventually found our way back to our neighborhood. After all that adventuring, we decided we were not going to have an adventure for dinner, and ate at Annie's burgers. Overall, it was a fun day!