Seoul, Korea: The Subway

The subway is a truely magical place. You can do most of your shopping there. You can buy a phone. You can eat. You can also share a small place with zillions of other people during rush hour. I was able to buy a pair of stolen shoes for 10,000won, which is about US$9.00. I delighted in a wonderful fruit salad and I saw a man in a state I have never witnessed before.

I had to wait against the wall while my friend went to use the bathroom (btw the bathrooms in the subways are actually clean!). I was squatting down because my feet hurt from the $9 heels I bought at a different stop-go figure. I had a few bags scattered around my feet and was staring aimlessly at all the people walking by.

Then I saw him. A man so striking that I could not take my eyes off of him. I was afraid he might catch my gaze, but soon realized he was in a world of his own. Creeping slowly down the stairs, and I mean slowly, holding the railing for dear life, an older gentlemen in a disheveled suit was trying to use the subway. I would say here, "just like everybody else", but he wasn't like everybody else. At first, I thought he was homeless, but the suit was not dirty, just disheveled. Then I thought he was mentally retarded, but I had to strike that because someone would have been helping him. Lastly, I came to the conclusion that this man was completely smashed, bombed, drunk off his ass, ... (insert any other word for drunk).

I couldn't stop laughing. You have to see the irony in this situation. This man was moving so slowly, while everyone quickly passed by. When he got to the bottom of the steps he had one hand on the rail and the other was grappling the wall. You have to image a V. The stairs were one side and the wall with no railing was the other. Because there was nothing to hold on to, the man was at a loss. He couldn't move from his spot. Have you ever watched a caterpillar walk on a stick? What happens when it gets to the end? It moves a quarter of it's body over the edge of the stick and starts flailing around to try to stick to something. The man was like that caterpillar!

My friend and I watched this man for, no lie, 7 minutes. He could not get to the turn style. It was as if he was stuck in a wind tunnel, but only him because everyone else was zooming by.