My Trip to the Bank

Ok, let's get some things straight before I go into this. First of all, today was the best day for me to do this and I was concious of what I was wearing before I set out.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me begin. So, I decided to go to the bank today. This may seem like an odd decision seeing that it was raining fairly consistantly and hard all day long, but I had to be at a certain place at a certain time for approximately 1 hour today, so today was the day.

Now, going to the bank might not seem like that big of a deal to many people... remember, I'm in Korea and I don't speak the language. I also did not, at this point, have any Korean money with which to hire a taxi or take a bus to the bank, so I walked. One more thing... I didn't exactly know where the bank was... I had a very vague idea and some suggestions... that was it.

So, I set off. It's not really raining when I went, but I did carry with me an umbrella. Thank you, Mother for packing me one. I also carried a back pack with my cash to exchange my passport and some other forms of I.D. a map of Seoul a travel book and some toilet paper. I felt rather prepared if I found myself in an emergency.

I walked rather confidently and well for about 15 minutes and then I came to a place where I had not been before. By this time, it had started to rain so I was trying to watch my step and trying not to get the dumb umbrella caught in my hair (it broke at the first breath of wind) so much that I thought I might have already passed the bank and decided to try and ask someone if they knew where this bank might be ( I had a little piece of paper with the bank name on it written in English and Korean). So, I went into a little computer shop that had English on it and asked these two nice fellows. They spoke some English and gave good directions with their arms and hands. Even though they mixed up their words for left and right I understood what they were saying.

I go a little further and there was the bank. By this time I had been walking for about 45 minutes and I was rather wet. Not a drown rat yet, but pretty wet. So, I go into the bank. I have no idea what to do. There are a lot of people and there seems to be some sort of line, but I can't really tell where it begins or ends so I just stand around like an idiot for a while and try to decide what to do. Fortunately, a man who works at the bank came up to me and asked me something in Korean. I asked if he spoke English, he didn't but after a few minutes a woman who did seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She directed me to the upstairs and there I was able to exchange dollars into Won.

It's funny how spoiled I am as an English speaker. I know that if a Korean were to be in my position in America, they would not be so fortunate to have someone at any random bank speak English. I felt so dumb standing there saying "Dollars to Won?? Exchange??" And sweating profusely because I was so nervous. Just underneath the surface I could feel my ignorant self beginning to panic as all of these people gave me blank stares and gabbered at me in Korean. Before long I might have just as well been standing there shouting "I NEED MONEY! MONEY?? DOLLARS, WON, MONEY??" So spoiled.

Anyway, the lady who helped me was probably just as nervous about dealing with me as I was with her. She was trying to get me to understand some things at first and I just stared at her and shook my head. My hands were sweating and I was shaking a bit, but finally I took out my money and she typed on her computer and somehow the whole thing went down without any problems. I remembered at the end how to say thank you in Korean and she was very pleasant and said something back. It was a nice exchange.

Walking back I began thinking about how dumb I felt and must look. I was in flip-flops...dumb because it was raining and when flip-flops get wet, they're not easy to walk in, I had a dumb umbrella that kept snagging my hair and flopping around, I was wet all over except for a spot on my head right under the umbrella and I had just blundered into a bank and started jabbering about "Dollars Won Dollars Won!" It's a wonder I made it at all.

The walk back took less time than the walk there, but when I got to the hill (more like the HUGE MOUNTAIN to us flatlanders) that the Hyundai Center is on, I honestly didn't know if I was going to make it. Finally, I got up the "hill" and into the Center and just stood around for a while on the stairs. Eventually this guy came down and was like "Are you ok?" I said "Yeah, I'm fine!" But I was honestly just standing on a step looking like an idiot. The guy said, "Oh, cause you look a little confused." I was. The whole experience was great, but for some reason, I was confused. I guess I'm just confused that I felt I could just waltz into this random Korean bank without knowing any Korean and be able to walk out with exactly what I wanted... no questions asked. Am I arrogant? Am I foolish? I feel like I'm both. I felt confused.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. I had an umbrella which helped a lot, even though it broke on me. 2 men who didn't know me at all helped me, I was able to do exactly what I needed and wanted to do at the bank and I never got lost or hurt along the way. This experience just confirmed for me that God really is holding me in His hands and is taking care of me every step of the way. It's only my stupid, foolish, humanness that causes problems.

Well.... that was a super long post! Until the next adventure!

Hil