I was heading to my friend's apartment to watch a rugby game, but he lives out of town and so I needed to catch a bus. I'd never been there before, but I knew it wasn't too far away.
I hopped on a bus and called my friend to let him know I would be there shortly so he could wait for me at the bus stop.
He told me about the various landmarks that I would see along the way so that I would know where to get off the bus. He also said either himself or one of our other friends would be there waiting for me at the bus stop so I would know for sure when to get off.
I kept seeing various landmarks that could possibly be the ones he was talking about, but I wasn't sure so I kept waiting to see a familiar face. That familiar face was nowhere to be found. I kept searching for it at every stop. It just never came.
My friends kept calling me questioning me about my whereabouts. I had absolutely no idea where I was. Eventually, after about a half hour, my friend called and told me to get off the bus and just wait for the next bus heading back in the direction I had just come.
I did get off the bus at the next stop and landed in a random rice paddie. Absolutely nothing looked familiar and there was a random convenience store open, but no clerk. There was also a couple of small cages full of dogs that were barely being kept alive. They will be someone's meal soon.
I met some junior-high aged boys on the road and asked them if they knew where and when a bus would be coming along. In single-word sentences they informed me that the bus stop was just down the road and there would be a bus coming in about 30 minutes.
I stood at the bus stop, which was no more than a telephone pole, and waited for the bus to come. I was somewhat near some sort of factory that had smoke billowing from the stacks.
Big dumptrucks kept driving by me, too. There was one driver in particular who continuously drove on the road in front of me. He would head one direction and then 10 minutes later he would drive back. Each time he passed me he would slow to gawk at me. On the third drive-by he made a complete stop, whipped out a huge, very expensive looking SLR camera and began taking my picture. I was stunned and immediately turned my back to the freak and did my best to hide behind the telephone pole.
He eventually continued driving and I guffawed at his brazen dickishness.
But it didn't end there. He kept driving back and forth past me, every 15 minutes or so and each time he pulled out his camera and tried to take pictures of me. WTF? I was convinced he was going to grab me, throw me in his dump truck, chop me up into little pieces, take pictures of the pieces and then feed me to the poor malnourished dogs that were stuck in the cages that were way too small for them.
He drove by another time, stopped in front of me again and motioned for me to get in his truck. Are you friggin' kiddin' me, smalls? On what planet do you think I would actually willingly get into your vehicle with you and ALLOW you to murder me and take pictures while doing it? Psycho.
By this point it's raining. I called my friend, Reese, and explained the situation to her and said I just wanted her to know what happened to me in case nobody ever heard from me again. She said, "OH MY GOD!! Where are you??! I'll come get you!!!"
I ever so calmly exclaimed, "I don't even know where I am!!! Somewhere between rice paddies and my eternal grave!!! He's going to feed me to the poor dogs!!!"
That's when my cell phone battery began to beep as, of course, my battery was now dying. I can't actually make this shit up. By this point it had been about a half-hour and no bus was in sight.
Butcher-boy kept driving by and I was absolutely convinced I was going to become some sort of bloody montage of digital pictures for this freak. I considered walking to one of the little farm houses to see if I could borrow someone's phone to call somebody who could speak Korean to call me a cab. I thought better of it when I realized the only living quarters I could find was one that housed emaciated dogs in teeny-tiny cages.
I would wait for the bus.
I began standing behind an ancient decrepit pop machine that was near the telephone pole to cover myself enough from the prying eyes of Butcher-boy. Eventually, after about 20 more minutes, a bus came charging up the road and I nearly shrieked in glee and through my hands up in victory. I was not going to be dog food today! I've never been so happy to see a bus in my life.
After going all the way back into Dangjin, I called my friend who's house I was supposed to be at an hour prior and told him, screw it I'm getting a cab. Turns out, his apartment was literally 5 minutes from the center of Dangjin. I practically could have walked there.
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