I couldn't concentrate in class today because I was:
1) excited about going to Seoul, and
2) worried about being able to make it in time for my KTX train and regretting not having booked a later train.
When I finally stopped thinking about other stuff and looked at my teacher, I saw white stuff floating outside the window. Straight away, I shouted “눈” without thinking and a few of my classmates and I raced to the window and looked out. It really was snow...in Busan where it rarely snows, especially not in early winter. So Naver's weather forecast for today is accurate after all. Watching the weather forecast news is something I've been doing everyday for the past few months. For today’s news, it was predicted that Busan would receive 1-5cm of snow but I didn't believe it and thought that I could have misheard rain as snow.
My teacher, being a guy, wasn't that excited about the snow and made us endure the agonising wait of 20-30mins before letting us off for our next break at 11.50am. For a few of my friends, it was their first time seeing snow and we helped one of them leave class earlier by lying that she had to use the toilet urgently. The thing is that it doesn't normally snow in Busan and the snow was quite light then so we were so afraid that it would stop snowing by the time it was our break. The moment it hit 11.50am, I sprinted out of the classroom to take photos downstairs where the rest of my friends and other students were also busy taking photos. It’s SO rare to be able to see falling snow during the day! When I was in KU on exchange in 2010, it only snowed twice and both times were at night when everyone was sleeping (I happened to be awake on one of the occasions).
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| With my Korean teacher 이 선생님 |
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| With another Korean teacher of mine |
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| My classmates and I with 고 선생님 |
It started snowing more heavily by the minute and by the time class ended, Silla was like a winter wonderland. Such an unbelievable sight! Snow in Busan is such a rare phenomenon that the admin office in my dorm printed out a photo of the dorm covered in snow in 2010 and framed it up on the wall. Apparently it snowed once last year but it was just light snow. Heavy snow in early Dec…unbelievable!
Someone was really sweet to be waiting for me in my school building to shelter me back to dorm because I didn’t bring my umbrella along but I didn't check my message till I was in front of my dorm because I was too busy taking in my surroundings and taking photos. I got quite scared as I made my way back to dorm gingerly though because it got quite slippery and I was terribly fearful of failing down.
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| View from my room…so pretty! |
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| Security guard trying to clear the snow while 2 Korean girls busied themselves with making a snowman |
Today, I found the occasion to use a new word that I learnt this week: 하필. Alright, it isn’t exactly a new word for me just that I didn’t know the exact meaning of the word previously and today’s turn of events can be summed up with that one word- 하필. Of all times to snow, it snowed on the day I was to leave for Seoul. Snow is nice when you’re indoors and not going out, or when you don’t have to leave your neighbourhood or something. Snow is nice to look at and admire but it is AWFUL when you have to travel on the road. We were already running late and only managed to leave the dorm at 1.50pm with our train scheduled to depart at 3pm. It would take us about 40 minutes to get to Busan Station so we could still make it for the train in time BUT thanks to the snow, we couldn’t take the shuttle bus or any other form of vehicle out of school because the road leading in and out of the school got too slippery. !!??!!??!! So we had to walk down to the bus stop at the bottom of the campus and I pitied all the Korean girls in their pretty high-heeled boots. One of the girls’ eyes almost popped out when the bus driver told her that she had to walk down to the bus stop and she said she couldn’t walk down in her shoes. But later on, I saw her at the bus stop below so she actually managed to make it down quite fast. I really marvelled at how she managed to do so considering how slippery it got. Traffic really came to a standstill down the road out of the campus and it was just utter chaos. Drivers got out of their vehicles in frustration while passengers waited forlornly in the buses. One of the school shuttle buses was left diagonally across the road and it almost hit a street lamp. It’s no joke when the campus is somewhat on a mountain and you have very steep slopes. When the snow melts, it becomes water and when water freezes, you get ice.
So yeah, thanks to the snow, we were late and only reached Busan Station at 3.05pm -.-
My worst nightmare became reality. It was the first time in my life that I missed a train. Thanks to my pass (unlimited rides for 5 days), I could get another ticket at no additional cost but he had to buy another ticket. Luckily, we managed to get a refund less 8,700원. Oh yes, and this time round, I went to the tourist counter because the normal counter’s queues were way too long and I just spoke in English all the time when seeking help from the counter staff there, pretending I didn’t know any Korean so that she could assist me instead of sending me to the normal counter. At first, she said that there were no more available seats on any trains for the rest of the day and I was SO dejected. I kept asking her to check again and she managed to get us seats on the 9.10pm train. Initially, I contemplated going back to dorm and then taking the earliest train out of Busan tomorrow morning but it’s too much of a hassle and I didn’t want our efforts for getting out of school today to go to naught so we decided to take the last train and spent the rest of the time in Lotteria studying.
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| See how much a Hyundai Avante costs in Korea!!! |
We were having our dinner in a restaurant on the 2nd floor of the station when suddenly, someone shouted “안철수 An Chul Soo” and everyone looked out of the glass windows. We couldn’t see a thing so we just ran out of the restaurant (leaving everything behind) and saw this huge crowd gathered around the departure entrance. I couldn’t see An Chul Soo but all I could hear was applause and cheering and it was very heartwarming. I almost cried. You could feel how loved An Chul Soo is by the Koreans and how everyone’s still supporting him even though he has pulled out of the presidency elections. There’s always the next elections that he can run for.
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| Didn’t know that Moon Jae In was also at the station just now |
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| So happy that I can understand this poem and all the words. |
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| DragonHill Spa |
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