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Sometimes I get cocky. Sometimes I impress myself with how good I've gotten at living in Korea. Two years ago I could never have imagined doing what I can do now. I can operate in society without incident. I can communicate what's necessary, when necessary. I can even manage hospital visits and doctor's appointments, and receive treatment for some disease I've gotten. All on my own.

I'm not perfect yet, though. Take, for instance, today.

Since I can't and don't want to spend my weekends in a drunken stupor anymore, I need to find things to do that aren't sleeping. Sometimes I'll just get on a bus and ride it around for a while, maybe until the end of the line, maybe until I see a place that looks interesting enough to walk around. Today though, I had a destination.

There's a market I've heard of which apparently has a large selection of second hand clothes. Anyone who knows me well knows that roughly 90% of my wardrobe comes from such places. It's a place I should familiarize myself with.

Taking a taxi would be easy enough, but I've already mentioned my predilection for the bus. I find out which bus goes there and where I'll have to transfer. I take the first bus to the transfer spot, and find the bus stop for the bus I need, the 180. I check the stop listings for the 180 and sure enough there it is, my market, my destination. Although I had to wait for this bus for about 20 minutes, in time it did arrive and I boarded it without incident. That was the last successful part of this journey.

Almost immediately, it seemed like, I'm outside Gwangju. I also begin to notice that the only other people on the bus are pretty old, and look like country folk. By that I mean they all have bags of stuff with them, as though they just finished making their weekly trek into the city to resupply on essentials.

With the city in the rear view, I start to reason that the bus must make a big semi-circle around the area west of Gwangju, and pop back into the city several miles south. We venture further and further out, and soon I'm seeing mountains and farmland I didn't know was there. Gradually all the country folk get off at their stops, and soon it's just the bus driver and me. After 20 minutes I first start to doubt if this bus will ever make its way back to Gwangju. At about that time the bus driver takes a left onto a long dead end road, turns the bus around, and promptly shuts off the engine. Somehow I'm at the end of the line.

The bus driver clearly knows that I don't belong out in the middle of nowhere, so he asks me where I'm trying to go. I tell him Gwangju and he points in a general direction, from whence we came. I tell him thanks, he tells me I owe him 500won. I clang another coin into machine and exit.

I stand outside the bus. It's cold, but sunny. I don't know where I am except that I'm roughly 5 miles outside the city. I see no people, just empty, frigid, and desolate farmland. I head back where the bus came from, and after about a mile I arrive at an intersection which shows signs of civilization. There's a cafe, a restaurant, even a few people looking at me and clearly (and justifiably) wondering what the hell I'm doing out there. I even find a bus stop, but after spending a few minutes deciphering the posted schedule, I realize none of the buses head back to Gwangju.

After a few minutes of poking around this little town, I see, written in Korean, a sign that says "taxi". I stand by the sign and in a few minutes a taxi shows up. I have him take me back where I came from. In time I'm back standing on a street corner in Gwangju. I ponder giving it another go and trying to find another bus to the market, but I was hungry and tired and just felt like going home. I take a bus back to my neighborhood, have a hot bowl of kimchi stew and go home. All told, the experience cost me 3 hours and 20,000won.

I'll try again next weekend.