This week has not been a victory for my traveling ability in parts foreign. Not only did I manage to get on the wrong train to Seoul, but today I got lost in my own town. I went to the home store during my dinner hour and got a taxi back to the hagwon - or, well, I planned to.

I got the taxi, and figured I could give "City Hall" as the destination. There are businesses around it named phonetically "City Hall," so I figured I could get away with it. Yeah, so that didn't go too well. The driver was perfectly amenable to me making strange English noises and pointing as we approached intersections, which was lovely on his part, but a mistake in practice. The iterative nature of businesses in this town got the better of me, as I saw what I thought was my corner, but it turned out to be someone else's. Eventually, we ended up at the other iteration of the store I'd just left! It was a little like being trapped in a game world where you walk off one side and end up on the other. I figured out where we were, at last, but had no way of communicating it to the driver (I learned my lesson, I'm printing out the school's address, and will have it in my wallet from now on, as I do with my home address). Luckily, I was able to call J, the bilingual foreign teacher from Colorado, and he totally saved my bacon. He spoke to the driver - who was still totally cool with it all! - and between them, I ended up back at Avalon, not as totally late as I could have been. Dear readers, be better prepared when you go abroad. And now I will drown my humiliation in teaching beginners about the Caribbean. Nothing like pictures of Johnny Depp to knit the raveled sleeve of my wounded pride.