Classic Myths To Read Aloud

Is it weird that not being in the midst of a possible natural disaster has left me slightly disappointed? Bare with me a moment while I regale you with a tale of a non-event. For the past two weeks or so it has rained heavily almost everyday. I, and probably every other soul in Seoul, are frankly sick of the rain. So you can imagine how we felt when it was announced that a typhoon known as Kompasu was bearing down upon us.

This morning I awoke to howling winds and my wife proclaiming something about forgetting to close the windows out on the veranda. We headed out there to batten down the hatches just in time to see some kind of electricity unit a few houses over explode. Both our cats were huddled in some housing unit that we had, so we liberated them and headed back to our bedroom to check the television.

The guy in a fancy suit told us the typhoon would hit at 8:00 which was awesome because that is exactly when I have to leave for work. I decided it would be in my best interest to leave early so I showered, had a cup of coffee and updated my ipod. As I was doing so my wife alerted me from the other room that many subway lines were unable to move. Fear of the oncoming typhoon had rendered them useless. I was not going to be deterred. I chugged the rest of my coffee, kissed my wife goodbye and told her, "I'll see ya in another life, brotha."

The walk from my house to the subway station was one filled with wind and getting hit in the face with leaves, but it was otherwise uneventful. Taking line two I made my way from Hapjeong to Sindorim. This too was completely uneventful in spite of the fancy suited newsman telling me that that very stretch of line two was experiencing technical difficulties. So uneventful was the trip that I actually was able to read Classic Myths to Read Aloud (though I did not actually do so aloud).

In Sindorim I had to transfer to line one. It was here that I ran into some trouble. Line one is a heaping heap of shit on the best of days. Today? (Insert sound of me snarkily scoffing). There were soldiers and police cops all over the station shouting that line one was royally fucked up and to go out exit number one to snag a bus. I and about 9 gazillion other people did just that.

The line at the bus stop was insanely long and the prospects of catching a taxi were slim to none. I had deliberately dressed for this possibility. Sneakers, no necktie, action slacks. I decided I'd walk until another option presented itself, or I arrived at my office, which ever came first.

I spotted a sign pointing me in the direction of the next station on line one and headed off in that direction. By this time there was some rain, but the wind was so insane, that it rendered umbrellas useless. So with only my rocking jams and my wits I traversed a stretch of unfamiliar urban terrain until I came to the next station. Since I had run out of street signs pointing me to a subway station I knew of, I ducked into Guro Station to ask someone there to point me in the direction of the next stop on my pilgrimage.

I asked some lady in a uniform about it, and was informed that they had recently brought a train online that was traveling in that direction. She then let me go through some gate without me paying a second time which I thought was decent. I headed down to the platform and waited...and waited...and waited.

I tried to call my office, to give them a, "Yo dudes, I might be a little late today...apocalyptic conditions and all," but my phone had also been rendered useless by the approaching typhoon. I waited a little longer and the train finally arrived. Now on a good day line one is crowded with far too many unsavory characters. I cannot count the number of times I have been groped on that subway line due to overcrowding, so as the train approached a sense of nervousness overcame me and I thought to myself, "I really should have just gotten directions and continued my hike."

But my fears were completely unwarranted. The train was almost completely empty, as if the train had magically materialized on the tracks between the two stations. So I hopped on and enjoyed a comfortable ride the rest of the way to my office. Fate had been on my side and I was able to time in prior to 9:00. By 10:30 or so the sky had cleared completely and the winds had died down, but for that hour and a half during which I commuted to work I really felt like I was in some bad end of the world action movie, which is always a good thing when you look back in hindsight and realize you were never really in any danger.