The Land of the Super-Helpful People

(A length entry, posted by Andrew)

The highlight of Day Two was the people more than the sights: we are in the Land of the Super-Helpful People.

We started the day at Namdaemun Market shopping for trinkets for family back home. After that, the plan had been to take a tour bus around the city but we discovered it doesn't run on Mondays. Instead we decided to catch a train south to Suwon so we set off to Seoul Station where we encountered...

Super-Helpful Person #1, who was more of a warm-up act, or amuse-bouche, as she spotted us trying to puzzle our way through the Seoul Metro map and took us to the right platform. The appetizer was when we arrived in Suwon and were on the street outside the station trying to get our bearings when we were accosted by...

Super-Helpful Person #2, who was clearly trained in foreign relations by watching episodes of The Amazing Race. Once she found out where we wanted to go she guided us to the line for taxis and then decided to wait with us. We tried to let her off the hook after she inquired about how long the wait would be and found it would be twenty minutes (which made little sense since there were about three dozen taxis parked in front of the line up - I guess this is just one of the mysteries of the far east) but she insisted on staying to make sure our cabbie had the right directions. I was worried that she was holding out for a payment but it turned out she just wanted to be helpful and apparently wasn't in much of a rush to get wherever she was going. The joke was on us though because the cab ended up taking us to the back entrance of Hwaseong Fortress meaning we had to explore it in reverse, but more importantly meant we were not in a tourist zone though desperately in need of lunch. We ended up finding a Chinese restaurant where we enjoyed the main course of...

Super-Helpful Person 3a & Super-Helpful Person 3b, non-English-speaking proprietors of the restaurant. During the meal we discovered that the zipper on Jessica's bag had jammed shut, trapping her purse, our guidebook, and umbrellas inside it. After fighting it for ten minutes, I approached Super-Helpful Person 3a, showed her the bag and motioned that I wanted a knife to cut it open. Instead, she grabbed it and, along with Super-Helpful Person 3b, refused to give it back until it was not only open but also completely fixed. Out came scissors and needle & thread and the next twenty minutes was spent in intense focus on repairing the bag:

After lunch we explored Hwaseong Haenggung Palace (which was completely void of people) and then a hike to the top of the mountain in Hwaseong Fortress where dessert came in the form of Super-Helpful Person 4. She was a fellow tourist who offered to take our photo and then insisted on giving us a ten minute lesson on proper framing and getting natural poses for tourism photos. You be the judge:

"Walk away from the camera and then turn around suddenly for a more natural pose":

"Face half-away from the camera and look back like you're being interrupted by the photographer":

She also had a secret tip for ladies that she would only share with Jessica:

Noticing her accent, I asked her where she was from and it turned out she was from Belfast. When I told her I was born there she said she had thought I had the face of an Ulsterman. Jessica remembered it as me having the skin of an Ulsterman but I'd have read that as an insult - wouldn't that just be code for "you look pasty"?

Boneheaded move of the day: At the Suwon train station on the way home we found the sign that said "Trains in the direction of Souel" so we paid our fares and entered that section of the train station. After ten minutes of confusion we exited again and bothered to read the second half of the sign: "...are located on the other side of the train station." There's 3500 won we'll never get back. (About $3.50.)