Where the heck are we Gohyeon?

So you know how when you travel, you sort of WANT to be the victim of something bizarre and unplanned?  Maybe not want it, but really hope you don't have such a comfortable time, that you come home spewing lame, uneventful stories of, well, nothing...

Well, oh well...I had one of those.

I had Thanksgiving weekend plans to go down south for an elaborate 1920s murder mystery party with about 40 people.  Sounded fabulously funny... lots of costumes.. my friend had to dress as a man... I was to be "Serina Siren".. a smart, sexy woman who knew how to use her "assets" to get what she wanted.  The whole nine yards.  We were extremely excited.  My friends were going to see old coworkers, and I was going to be meeting many of them for the first time.

Normally when I travel, I'm a BIG control freak.  Not in a terrible way, but I always function as though I could be completely abandoned by all my travel companions at a moment's notice, and consequently have all the documents, tickets, receipts, and confirmations on-hand.  I also oversee all ticket-purchases...or at least eavesdrop to stay in the loop.  I also like to be early, so as not to miss flights, buses, whatever.  I'm a nerd. I'm Natalie, 'The Natigator'.

Well this time I thought I'd sit back and enjoy the journey without all of that.  Afterall, I was traveling with 4 other friends who know these people very well; I even assumed they had been to visit maybe once already.  We were all together, so I didn't worry about being late, either.  We got to Nambu Bus Terminal in Seoul to buy tickets, and I casually passed along my money to the girl with the printout of the city name, and then stepped aside to wait.  We got our (unusually expensive) tickets, and they were for a bus departing 6 minutes later, so we all made a mad-dash to the bus, and off we went!

Two and a half hours later... we were all wondering why we never hit the rest stop.  About 20 minutes after that, we stopped at one.  Mind you, the blinds on the bus were all closed the entire ride, and we sat in the backseats. 

The red flags that were raised through our 5 hour journey were numerous:
1) The tickets cost twice as much as they should have. 
2) The girl who sold us the tickets barely glanced at our printout with the city name. 
3) The city name was printed in charcoal grey letters on a light grey background.  It was also font size 8. 
4) There were very few people on our bus, respectively.  For a city in the middle of Korea, it probably should've been nearly full.  
5) It took AGES to get to our first rest stop.  
6) Seeing the ocean may have been a solid red flag...

What, this tiny stream? Anybody know the name of this river? 

Yes, I think it's called "Ocean".

When I drew back the blinds, I couldn't believe my eyes.  There it was, the ocean.  At first, I think ALL of us thought it was an enormous river, seeing as none of us are expert in Korean geography.  Someone said, "it looks like the coast..."  Someone murmured, "she doesn't live on the coast.....".  

(On a side note: Earlier in the ride, I had said, 'Where is this rest stop already? Wouldn't that be hilarious if we were on the wrong bus....?' Light giggling from friends. Ya.)

I immediately scrambled to pull out the tickets, and to my absolute horror, they said "GOHYEON". Not "Geochang".  Oh yes. 

When we arrived to our 'destination', we got out the ipod touch to pull up a map.  It seemed to not be a map of Korea at all, but rather ... Taiwan? We weren't sure, but it was surrounded by water, which made no sense (aaand zoom out.. out... out......) OMG. WE'RE ON AN ISLAND BELOW KOREA. Yes, below Korea... like as far as we could humanly reach without actually taking a boat to Japan by accident.

After realizing that we were now approximately 4 or 5 hours away from our original destination and stuck on Geoje-do, we quickly bought our bus tickets home, and then agreed to rock out in "Gohyeon" to the best of our abilities.

Exciting Gohyeon at night!

We secured a love motel, tried to find something to wear (with all the costumes and formal wear, it was a bit.. difficult to look normal), and then set out for one of the most hilarious evenings EVER:  a beach town with 2 normal bars, a pizza hut, gentleman's clubs, and noribangs....a pasta place with sweet salads covered in fruit cocktail and drenched in hot pink dressing (plus an extra casserole of it in case we were interested in using it to double as a beverage)....  ridiculous outfits, and a crazy Korean broad named "Kelly" who smacked me a bunch of times for being 30 years old.

 Our love motel

 The ajuma at the motel gave us her number and the motel's address in case we got lost.

 Honestly, it was nicer than my apartment! It had a tub, afterall...

Soooooooo..... what are we gonna do?

Mmm.  Strawberry dressing and fruit cocktail over iceberg lettuce.  Now that's a house salad.

 Cleveland represent vintage Chief Wahoo style...

Ohhh Kelly. Crazy, crazy, batshit crazy Kelly.

Most importantly, however, was our visit to "Okpo".

Okpo was a short ten minute drive from Gohyeon, and we found it on our ipod touch.  The city boasted international and Korean visitors alike, traveling far and wide to visit this amazing mecca in the midst of beautiful Geoje-do, flaunting 88 bars and clubs in their entertainment district.  We couldn't believe it! It was so close! We were on the hunt for a place to dance, and Okpo sounded better than drowning our sorrows in an over-lit restaurant/bar with a bunch of married couples.  In fact we couldn't BELIEVE the residents we'd asked didn't mention this wonderful place! They must want to keep all our money for themselves, those stingy bastards...

So we got in a cab.  When I say it suddenly got dark--I mean, it was black.  I've never seen dark like this, save out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.  The GPS screen in a taxi in Seoul looks something like this:

We saw something more like ... this: 

No joke--a completely black screen with one road through it... we nervously laughed for the entirety of the ten minute ride over the idea that we may be headed somewhere worse than even Gohyeon...

Moments later: we arrive in Okpo, a Norwegian old drilling and ship building town of, yes count them, eighty-eight "world renowned" hooker bars and clubs.  French and Lithuanian workers were also pretty abundant.  There were  a handful of engineers, too.  These guys rotate here to work every 4-7 weeks.  I guess the companies think this is a dream come true for them.. and it is, to a point, but it looked like it got a bit tiresome after awhile (or just plain tiring... har har har...).

We were dropped off right in front of the Shamrock. My friend thought she saw a cute guy inside, so we stumbled through the doors--to the sight of 60 or 70 European men, who looked REALLY happy to see us.  There was not a woman in the whole place.  It was simply a pub to escape the abundant hooker bars and nightclubs.

We didn't actually need the discount, as I don't think we paid for a single drink. I did appreciate the 

"I ♥ ENGLISH TEACHER" quite a bit, though.

We got a beer each, and then took our glittery, overdressed, three-piece-suit-wearing butts to a table in the back.  About 5 minutes in, all the lights abruptly went out.  Like, pitch black--we thought they were suddenly closed, or had a power-outtage. Then, BLAM! The most blinding set of disco laser-lights flashed on, and so did a bunch of techno music, transforming the place from a sleepy pub full of Europeans, to a "world-renowned" foreigner's fantasy. Ha.  I think they did it for us....Needless to say, we weren't short of conversation for the evening:

 Harold, Mike's buddy.

 Santa Claus... Freddy? 

Magmar the Norwegian.

 Julien and another Frenchman.

 Note the stripper pole. Classy stuff going on here...

 This about sums up poor Mike's sentiment through the whole night.  That guy in the green shirt pretty much sums up what Okpo is like most of the time as well...

So we were literally in this town from 5pm to 11am, paid double what we should've to get there and back, and saw more hilarious things in that short 18 hours than I can count on all my fingers and toes.  It was...... unbelievable.  Naturally the pictures only continue about 20 minutes into our visit in Okpo. In some ways, I think we enjoyed it more than we probably should have... upon arrival, I never imagined having such a good time.  But alas, anything is possible.

!Viva Okpo!


...and a commemorative video just to top it all off:

New Visa Requirements

"Strap one on, this might hurt."

So, from what i can gather from a bunch of confused Korean bosses, confused American public offices, and confused peers, resigning is not too complicated, so long as you start WAAAAYYYY in advance.  The new American visa requirements stipulate that we start from scratch again, and repeat the original visa process, even though we're already here living abroad.

My boss had the smart idea of using me as a guinea pig for the criminal background check, so mine started long ago in August, long before I would've considered staying.  Thank goodness, eh?  She used me to time the process, because we were all learning (and also this would get it out of the way in case I decided to stay).  Turns out, it's a long process.  Easy on my end, but the 3+ months of waiting is interminable.  Basically this is what I had to do:


-My boss gave me a checklist that was provided by our school's headquarters.


-I had to go to a major police station in Seoul and have my fingerprinting done on a card provided by the FBI in the form of a printed-out PDF. I even got to take a half day of work to complete it!  That was fun.


-I put together all my documents and overnighted them to the FBI's office in the States.


-Then, I waited.....


-3 months later, I received a letter saying my credit card didn't work.


-Now, I'm to follow their instructions to fill out a new credit card form, and then scan that, a cover-letter, and the original letter, and email the documents to my parents.


-My parents will now print them out and fax them from the U.S. during business hours, because apparently the FBI doesn't leave on their fax machine overnight (14 hour time difference is a b***ch).


-They will simply add this new form to my existing request, and (hopefully) voila, FBI Background Check complete and en route.


After all that, I have to get my original diploma and my background check together, send them to a helpful family member again, have them notarized, and then walked around to all the government buildings in Cleveland to be apostilled to make them legitimate.  After they are "legitimate", I'll need my original diploma, my notarized/apostilled diploma, and my notarized/apostilled background check mailed back to me in Korea.  Once I receive them, I'll submit them to my school, who will submit them to immigration and the Korean Department of Education.   







THEN...


Then, I hope all will be fine, my visa will fall into my lap like an angelic piece of heavenly paper from the Lord above, and I won't have to screw around with this crap anymore.


I pity a person with no family in their home state, or no one who likes them enough to experience a bureaucratic nightmare for him or her.  There ain't nothin fun about traipsing around to all those government buildings, arguing with people that yes you need an apostille... no, you're sure... yes, there's a checklist... it's not FOR the American government, it's for the Korean government... yes, i'm sure... just stamp it, please and thanks...


But, lucky for me, I have an excellent mother who is happy* to help me out and take care of this shenanigan.


Things that made me laugh:


1. They spent $2.00 to mail me a letter that told me my credit card didn't work, instead of using the provided email and phone number that they requested for such an instance.  Wonder who's $2.00 I spent.....


2. I haven't actually BEEN to America for the past year, so the likelihood that I've returned, committed a federal crime, and need another background check to REVEAL said crime is ....slim.


3. I have already had my diploma apostilled and legitimized for the Korean government.  How on earth would my diploma transform into a fake, and why would I need anything legitimized twice for the same people?  It's like demanding a paternity test from your own mother.


4. The FBI turns off their fax machines when the offices are closed. 


Once this is over, I can sign this dandy little contract and go about my business... yippee.  Wish me luck that our friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigations go easy on me... I don't know if I can take much more.  Maybe this blog will save someone from the light amount of aggravation I've experienced, but then again, maybe not.  Good luck to all of you out there, and 수고하세요.










*probably a poor choice of words... consenting?