II : The Airport

It's now after 5:30. I grab my bag, thank the bus driver, and set off to find immigration. After a cursory view of the 3rd floor I locate the immigration office. There are 2 people in line, so I take a number and wait. Even though there are 4 people working only one seems to be doing any work at the counter and actually helping us with our immigration woes. It's 5:45, I'm mentally going over my story about why I overstayed my visa by 27 days. Hopefully I won't have to pay a fine. Or hopefully it won't be as steep as the maximum fine which could be 100,ooo Won a day. (100US) It would be kinda cool to get thrown in jail over this though. . . not now. don't think about that now. think positive thoughts. some other time you can extrapolate on the immigration jails of Seoul, right now work on getting out of the country safely and legally. A white guy, middle aged, short and round wearing a dizzingly colorful shirt arrives in line behind me. Tells me how he lost his ID card, had been teaching for a year, and various inoccuous details.

Another girl approaches the counter. Evidently she's decided to give her coworker a hand and take some customers. Here I go. I explain to her how Seoul Immigration told me one thing, then another. How I was led to believe I could extend my visa one last time as long as I purchased a ticket out of the country. As I was at immigration on the last day of my visa I asked her if I could get a stamp for a week or 2 so I could purchase the ticket. The lady working at Seoul Immigration told me that wasn't necessary.
I asked her,
-What should I do? My visa expires tomorrow.
She told me everything was OK as long as I purchased a ticket with a flight out of Korea before the next 30 days.
-So all I need to do is buy a ticket with a departure before Nov. 3rd?
-Yes. Then I'll give you a final extension from Oct. 4th to Nov. 3rd but you have to come back here with the ticket.
I left immigration without another extension, but with the peace of mind that when I returned with a plane ticket departing Korea before Nov. 3rd I would obtain my extension and be able to leave legally. Of course, when I returned to immigration the lady working that morning told me, plane ticket or no, that my visa was expired and there was nothing she could do. After going back and forth about this, how I was told something different last time I was there, she was still adamant about not stamping my passport. She did tell me, however to go to the immigration office in the airport before I left.
-Maybe they can help you.

The girl at the airport nodded, took my passport and asked me to fill out a departure card. She then took the card, stamped it, put it in my passport and handed it back to me. No questions. No fine. I'm able to leave Korea a free man and, more importantly I won't encounter any resistance upon my return.

I : Leaving Seoul

There was a moment in Seoul (Gangnam-gu) while I was waiting for the Airport Bus during which my anticipation was slightly crushed by anxiety and all was filtered through the gauze of stress. I then exhaled: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and said to myself, "If you miss your flight you've got no-one to blame but yourself.". Of course the situation wasn't that dire; yet. Of course I was to blame for demanding one last drunken rally of beer-soju-beer-soju. . . which inevitably led to the noreabang: the eventuality that was simultaneously inevitable and the only one I wished for. That said, it's never the brightest idea to stay out drinking till 5am when you have an international flight the next day. Although that isn't so bad in and of itself rather, it's the waking up, the coming back to life, the resurrection later that day coupled with the realization that you, ". . . have to go. . .now.", then you also remember you haven't packed. And you've overstayed your visa by 30 days. So. Wake. U.p.:UP . . it's time to go.

_________________________

The shower. . . someone must be taking a shower. . . this isn't Jay's, must've passed out at Dan's. . .is someone still in the shower?. . . awake now, for real, stay awake, there's Dan with a towel around his waist.
-Did you just take a shower?
-Yeah, but the water had been running for awhile. Do you know if Jay took a shower before he left?
-I've no idea. I just woke up myself. Seems like the water's been running for awhile though.
-I know. That's what I can't figure out. I woke up naked and the shower was on. I also threw up all over the place upstairs.
-Nice.
-Yeah, I know.
ST, having been aroused from his slumber by our conversation added the following detail, "I awoke in the middle of the night to find you asleep, using my leg as a pillow. I moved around hoping to shake you off, but you just rolled with it. You were naked too."
-All I know is I woke up naked, upstairs and had puked everywhere, Dan said.
-You probably puked, went to take a shower, hence the nakedness, then in your drunken stupor, passed out on my leg. . .
-Yeah. . . I was fucked up.
-Well I broke the film last night. I remember singing at the noreabang, having a great time, then i woke up here, said Hoops.
Dan-You don't remember carrying a pitcher home with me? We each had one.
Hoops-Now that you mention it I do seem to remember walking with a pitcher of Hite.
ST-Alright, well I need five more minutes of sleep.
Hoops-Fuck that. Just get up now.
ST-Five minutes!

_________________________

Bedell gets his five minutes and the three of us roll out. Dan wants to get some Korean soup that people eat to get rid of a hangover, but ST has to go to work and as it's already after one in the afternoon ( my flight leaves at seven) I need to get going as well. So ST and I descend the endless flights of stairs to the subway. After about 45mins. on the subway ST wishes me luck in dealing with immigration and good travels. I arrive at the Hasujep around 2:45. Where does the time go? It takes me approximately 30mins. to throw some shit in my bag and leave a bunch of other shit behind.

Heading out to Gangnam road I notice the sign for the Airport Bus on the side of the road. Which is strange because most of the busses here run through the bus lane in the middle of the road. The sign, however, is here. So I wait. Around 4 I begin to get antsy as my flight leaves at 7 and I have to go to the immigration office beforehand so I can make it through customs and be assured of a legal re-entry to Korea. I call ST from a pay phone in a last ditch attempt to see if I should hit up the subway as the traffic in Gangnam is fucked. No dice. He informs me that the subway doesn't go to the airport. I head back up the road to the bus stop, checking the middle of the road. An Airport Bus pulls up. In the middle of the road, not on the side where the sign is. I don't have the light to cross the street but traffic fairly congested so I hustle to the bus stop only to have the bus drive past me as I set foot on the island for the north-bound bus.

Well, at least I now know for sure I can catch the next bus here. So I wait. The next bus arrives at 4:30 and I climb aboard, pay 8,000 won and hope that it truly is an express bus. I leave my bag at the front of the bus in the luggage holder and grab a seat. As I relax into my chair, reclining a bit, Gangnam seems to flash by in spite of the traffic. Maybe it just seems faster than it actually is because I feel like I'm seeing it for the last time. I know I'll return in a month but mentally I'm leaving for good. Leaving Gangnam, the southern shopping mecca of Seoul. Leaving ST and other good friends. Leaving Korea. Leaving the cold. In my mind as the greater metropolis of Seoul passes by I replace the cold temperatures with stiflingly hot ones, warm showers where you welcome the rain instead of icy ones. . . smiling friendly people who love your halting, broken attempts at speaking their language appear and indifferent Koreans who would rather speak to you in English fade. . .

The bus rolls on and I recall, not just last night's wonderful send off, but all the fantastic nights I've had in Korea. Many other Noreabangs have been sung in, randomly made out in, joyously drunk in. All night sessions in the PC bangs of Seoul with ST: chatting, emailing, smoking, drinking, eating, killing random people and each other over first-person shooter internet games. The good times I've had in Korea surface and subside, lilting, gently rising and falling as my recollection continues. This goes on for about an hour and ceases only upon arrival at the airport.