Poor Time Management and Culinary Coincidence

Mindy and I celebrated our one year dating anniversary in style on Saturday the 30th (actual day was the 28th). It was going to be a day of relaxation, strolling, chatting, and soaking up the time together. The plan wa to go the horse race track, have a nice Indian buffet dinner, then head to Cats the musical. All of this had to be done via subway.

After taking 2.5 hours to get to the track we were ready to start our day. Upon getting to the race track we realized that our scheduling was a wee bit off for this day - we (meaning I) failed to take into account the exorbitant amount of time spent merely getting to the places we wanted to go that night. Seoul is a BIG city. Since every event for the night was time sensitive this was a bit of a problem. After walking around for 20 minutes we were lucky enough to find the foreigner's lounge where we met some fellow Americans that taught us how to bet. Betting in horse racing has the distinct ability to fool you into believing you are going to win some money and that winning it will be very easy. Unfortunately, we fell for that lie. You would think that with two people putting their heads together this would yield positive results, but you would be wrong in thinking this. We ended up losing $20 a piece on our first race. No time to lament our loss. We leave a few betting stubs on the blue theatre style seats and leave the cheering and gamblers behind. We are on a schedule.

After our single horse race we ran to our subway so that we would not be late for our dinner reservations at an Indian buffet. If we were late for that it would have to be a fast dinner so that we weren't late for the musical Cats, which is on a tour through Asia. It was a 30 minute ride back to our dinner reservations. We ran into the Indian place, grabbed our plates, and swiftly filled our plates full of Indian food; a viscous soup of melding ingredients pooling in the middle. Soping it up with Nan bread we both decided we had time for one more plate and dessert. We topped out at 45 minutes for this event, including a glass of wine for Mindy and a gin and tonic for myself. The food was delicious. We had to run out the door to catch the next subway to the musical that started at 8:00. According to the subway map on our phone our next stop is exactly 42min long, after a transfer to another line. I look at my watch and the time is 7:10. We have 50 min. I could slowly see the night turning into a twisted version of the movie Speed.

As we bolted out the door I realized I left my cell phone in our hotel room, which was necessary as our reservation number was sent, via text, to me from the ticket company. Luckily, our dinner reservations were in the same building as our hotel, so I didn't have to go far. Unluckily, our room was nine floors up and we had to take a notoriously slow elevator to get there. Mindy had a plan to speed up this process: we would take the elevator up, when the elevator got to our floor I would bolt through the door, run to our room down to the far end of the hall, grab the phone, run back and she would hold the door. Brilliant! Up we go: 3rd Floor..4th..5th.....7th.....9th....*Ding*. "Go!" I bolt out the door in full stride, take the corner at full speed and run down the hall, Mindy is frantically pressing the "Door Open" button back in the elevator. I have already broken a sweat by the time I reach our door. I run inside and grab the cell phone in pitch dark as turning on the light would, apparently, take too much time. Locating the phone I grab it and run out the door. I am halfway down the hall as I hear the door close behind me. Mindy is still there with the elevator being held. Back down the elevator. 8th Floor.....6th....4th........

We run through the lobby of our hotel, Mindy's high heels clicking on the tile, and through the revolving door, which by the way are way to slow when you are in a hurry. The subway stop is right next to our hotel so we hit the stairs and Mindy gingerly navigates them in her heels. Realizing that I'm not exactly sure how to get to the theatre once we get off the subway I call information - the theatre is very near to the subway. Fully informed, we head for the turnstile, but my card won't read through my new wallet because it is picking up on my other cards. Finally, the reader works and I push the the turnstile and run for the subway. It is a slow 6 stops until the transfer station to the next line. When we get to the transfer station we run. Unfortunately, the distance between our subway and the line to the next subway is the longest distance any human has ever travelled. Ever. Considering the circumstances it is very unfair. We run up stairs, up escalators, across vast expanses of cement wasteland, down stairs, down escalators, and finally we are at the platform, sweating and huffing. The subway pulls up and we jump on. The air conditioning cools us off.

The time is 7:32 and we have about 11 subway stops to go. We sit and talk trying to ignore the fact that we are probably going to have to walk into a Broadway caliber theatre somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 minutes late, find our seats, walk in front of people, sweat on them from all our running, step on their feet in the dark and disrupt them before we finally sit down. The subway rolls up to the stop at Jamsil station at 7:51. Eight minutes to go and we still have to find the theatre. We step out of the subway and our collective epidermi prepares to endure another session of sweating. We run up escalators, stairs, and across more vast expanses of cement before finding our way to Exit 3, as directed by Information. Amazingly, Cats is advertised on the door. It can't be far. We open the door out of Exit 3. Crap, more stairs! We run up a bunch of stairs and out into Jamsil nightlife: cars racing by, people yelling, lights flashing, the smell of Soju on passing businessmen.

We run to the Lotte World (an indoor "Disney World") as I have a hunch the theatre is connected. I ask the Korean woman where the theatre is by saying, "Cats?! Meow?" and make the meowing noise along with a meek pawing motion to only further humiliate myself as the clueless foreigner. She smiles, laughs at me, and points. 7:57. We follow what directions she gave us only to find out her turn right motion was the was referencing the next right and not this one. This one was a hotel entrance as the person at the front desk informs us. We run back through the extremely slow revolving door and down the side walk to the next right. Mindy's heels clicking. Me, sweating profusely. Romantically, no lie, we both burp up spicy Indian food into our mouths simultaneously. The jarring to our stomachs has managed to slowly summon the remains of aloo gobi and chicken masala onto both of our palettes. This culinary coincidence makes us each shed a tear onto our sweaty red faces. We continue to run. This is true love.

We run inside with our tickets, hand them to the lady and she directs us to our balcony seats. It is 8:02. I frantically, claw for the camera to get a shot of the stage. I snap one and like a stealthy well dressed Ninja a host rushes to our seats and waves his hands in our faces - twice none the less - to inform us wordlessly, as he can tell we are ignorant foreigners, that pictures are strictly prohibited. I flash my now perfected "What? I have no idea what you are talking about" face even though I had a hunch this action would be frowned upon. The lights dim. Over the speakers is heard, "Photographs are strictly prohibited in..." The lights start to flash. Cats begins and it is amazing.

Time tally for the night:

Travelling time: 4.5 hours

Time at Actual Events: 4 hours

One year in the books. It has been an incredible ride. An experience. Challenging. Enriching. Fast. Furious. Full of surprise endings and twists, Wonderfully unpredictable. All the stuff of a real good story that continues to be jointly written.

-Scott