Day 63: Gwangju



Below you can read a fragment of e-mail I sent to one of my friend. First impression of Gwangju? More than great - have a wonderful view of the city just in front of my glasses! Huge window 2x2 m.. Thank you Joel and Azure for putting me up for the night!

"Hi,
what can I say...
That was pretty awesome hitchhike day. I dunno how does it work but adventures simply stick to me every time I travel somewhere. So today I got to the bus station, asked for a "normal" bus to Gwangju and first available one was in a 3 hrs. Went to toilet, decided to take it and as it turned out in 5 minutes all tickets were sold out what meant next bus in over 4 hrs. So I took a subway to toll gates and what I saw first? Two police cars, oh crap... Left that place, sat on the bench and thought "emi, if you get back to the bus station, tickets for 14.30 will be sold out"... And in the same moment the two police cars flashed up right in front of my glasses (no eyes, just glasses). Thus, I went back to toll gates, hitched like for 20 mins and .... spent next 5 hrs in the car.
Enormous traffic jam for over 200 km. At least the driver spoke some English:)(and emi lay she is Catholic, bad girl, but sometimes it's a must, isn't it?).

Then there was a driver who tried to hitch for me a car riding next to us, next one was crazy mother that convinced worker from a gas station to ask customers if they could drop me to Gwangju (and gave my a lollipop)and.. the best part. Emi thought it's pointless to wait until sympathetic worker will catch a ride for her, so she went to two parked buses she had seen before. And it was like (about 15 people were gathered in front of the buses):

"Excuse me, are you going to Gwangju maybe? Becasue I need little help... I was hitchhiking here from Busan and as you can see it's dark, so could you do me a favor and drop me to Gwangju?".

No English at all, of course, so they called one boy who spoke minimal English and they took me:) Offered corn, juice, drunk Korean man started a conversation about Busan like what is worth sightseeing..

All in all, I made distance of about 270 km in 9 hrs, traffic jams were insane, however I wouldn't exchange time spent in the cars to any other activity. This is exactly what I expected from my holiday and this particular trip."

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