The Unthinkable Happens

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

We're moving for one night to a traditional Korean guesthouse just on the other side of this hill in the Buchon neighborhood. The Hilton is storing our bags-we've packed a small bag for the two of us.

We take the subway, then a taxi to the guesthouse. However, we don't get all the way to the guesthouse, since it's on a narrow street behind the main street.

We don't find the guesthouse, so Bernie asks a man and woman who are refurbishing a building. We're fortunate-they have a plat of the neighborhood and actually walk us to the guesthouse because directions are too confusing to relate.

As soon as we arrive, we're served tea. I put my things down, go to the bathroom, decide I need to put on hand lotion and that is when I discover I don't have my purse.

The sinking feeling that sweeps over me combined with nightmare images of what happens to people who lose their passport makes me dizzy and weak in the knees.

Bernie summons the housekeeper who calls the owner. Do I remember the cab's number? No. Do I remember my passport number. No. I scramble through my file folder and find it on copy of my visa application, though. She suggests I call the American Embassy. Already thought of that, but hoping I can conjure up a miracle in the next few minutes and get my purse.

I insist we get out to the street and see if we can find the cab. This, of course, is harebrained. Seoul is a city of ten million people and thousands of cabs. We're not even sure of the cab company's name.

Even if the cab driver found my purse, he let us off not in front of the guesthouse, but on the main street in front of this not-easily-found oasis. I don't believe he'd know how to get back to us.

We walk the short distance to the subway stop where he picked us up and I hope that the subway station is one of his regular spots to pick up fares. No sign of him. We are now at a busy intersection and I am giving every "S" cab (that's the one we think we rode in) some pretty strange looks.

A young man in a business suit offers me help (because I look like a lunatic). After hearing my tale of woe, he points across the street about half a block down where the police station is located. We proceed there.

Bernie keeps telling me the most likely scenario is that the cab picked up another fare and never even saw my purse in the back seat. I agree, but as I tell him, I firmly believe that most people are honest and that someone may turn it in.

Again we need a translator, and I repeat my story. Eventually we get a police report filed, and the female police officer at the desk has called the cab company (I took the number down off one of the passing cabs). No one has reported finding a purse in their cab.

The translator and the police officer advise me to wait a while. OK, but I'm leaving (I hope) in less than 48 hours and I'm going to have to contact the embassy before the end of business hours today if I expect to get any help.

Leaving the police station we decide it would be good to get something to eat since my I've had only a serving of fruit to eat today and food should make me a little less shaky.

Over our snack, we decide we'll go back to the guesthouse, get on the computer, find the number of the U.S. Embassy and call them.

At the guesthouse we are greeted by the housekeeper who draws a rectangle in the air, smiles and says, "here." It's here? My purse is here?

I can't accept this idea until I actually see it. She hands it to me and motions that it has never even been opened.

Did I say I was weak in the knees earlier? I practically collapse now from sheer relief. I thank her profusely for five minutes in English.

The cab driver brought it back. It's that simple.

You're probably wondering how I could be so dopey as to leave my purse in a cab. I had been beating myself up for two hours wondering the same thing.

It was a small series of events that threw me off. When we got into the cab, I had my purse over my arm under my coat. When the cab driver didn't seem to understand where we wanted to go, I offered to get out of the cab and point to it on a map posted nearby where it was clearly shown, complete with the name of the house, Rekkojae, and a little drawing. As I did this, I took my arm out of the sleeve of my coat and slipped my purse strap off my arm.

Just as I did this, a light dawned and the driver understood where we wanted to go, so I settled back in my seat.

When we arrived at the point where he dropped us off, we could not see our guesthouse, of course, and we were unsure if we were in the right place.

All of this was just unsettling enough to focus my mind not on whether I had everything getting out of the cab, but what we might do next. Just a small quandary, only a couple of tiny glitches, really.

But enough to diffuse the hyper-alert state that is required of travelers in unfamiliar places.

I put the purse next to the refrigerator and vow not to take it out again until we return to the Hilton tomorrow afternoon. That's a factor, too. I don't carry my purse with me all the time because it's just too tempting for pickpockets and thieves, so I've lost that my-purse-is-part-of-my-body feeling that women almost always have.

I'm mellow now. All the adrenaline in my body was used up, and I'm now the most agreeable person in the world.

Now we take a very pleasant walk around this old neighborhood with traditional houses and many small shops and galleries. Still not yet too-artsified, the surrounding area is undergoing extensive gentrification.

Our guesthouse is perfectly Oriental. A typical boardwalk runs along the outside. We remove our shoes in the entry and walk on the warm floors, heated underneath by an andul. It's furnished with traditional pieces, with a variety of objects that were used in Korean homes in the past.

We're served dinner a traditional dinner on the low coffee table. They've added backrests to the mats we sit on. The menu includes Korean white bait (looks like minnows and is crisply delicious) Korean eel (it tastes like very good whitefish to us), seaweed (I love this stuff), mushrooms and kimchi. As usual, there is far too much food to eat.

After dinner we are directed to the sauna, where we lay on straw mats in the special short-sleeve tops and shorts we've been given. Soon we're sweating, with rivulets running down our arms. Half an hour later we head for the shower and don the robes provided for us.

We're sleeping on quilted floor mats. A very large window, almost covering the entire wall, faces the courtyard in our bedroom. After we've turned the lights out we raise the shades a little to see the lighted courtyard and other guesthouses around us. It looks just like a movie set.