The subway's closed. It passed midnight.
Sure..I was dumb enough not to think of it before. I should've known that it only operates just minutes before midnight. Had I run faster...had I skipped waiting for the end credit to roll on....had I ....
But it did not do any good to what I'd been through. Not that something 'grandiose' or 'magical' happened or anything..it's just that..last night's walking-alone-at-midnight-through-the streets-in-one-part-of-Seoul did give me an intriguing experience of what to do and what not to do.
I guess I was walking for about 10 km at night. Yup..I was maniacally crazy. Others would just hail a cab and go straight home. But not for me. I once had to pay more than what I had to pay if it passed midnight and sometimes some drivers charged me more. I thought that it only happened in Indonesia, but it also did happen (at least to me) here.^^ But, that's another concern.
The thing was that...walking for about 10 km from one point to where I live was a what-the-heck-had-I-been-thinking afterthought. Only the problem is...I realized it when it's all over.:-)
Some flickering lights were there. Apartments were there, calm and breezy night accompanied my solo walk. The night was a bit cool or cold I could not make out, for the only thing that mattered most was whether I would be able to find my way back home. (Sure I did, otherwise I would not be able to tell all about it now ;-))
The taxis were there for me to grab, but my stout
ignorance or rather my persistent pride-turned selfishness gave me something to pay the price for.
Thank God...the subway line was just on the straight line from where I walked. And from what I learned (or so I thought), my home would be just at the same direction as the subway line was. That's where I made the first 'well, call it big'
mistake. I did not know that at times map even the online one could still 'blur' the exact location. Or was it I who was so obliviously not-smart enough to read the guide as written on my app? Oh, well...
Okay, let me get it straight...being a male/boy/man or whatever I call myself...did not guarantee that I would be brave enough to walk alone at night, let alone in the middle of nowhere....
So here it came...
I stumbled upon an intersection where not a single person was visible. But as I learned more...it was not the intersection that I was worrying about...but..rather how I could cross this seemingly impenetrable streets because there was this huge construction projects underway that sort-of obstructed my view as where to look and go...and that was the time when I noticed that all pedestrians should go underneath the
tunnel ( a long one) to cross the intersection....
....my hands trembled. I was shivering since as soon as I went down the hole (tunnel)..I saw two CCTV that shows what the
tunnel would look like. Through it we could tell as to whether other people were also inside the tunnel. I felt like a chicken who turned into a pale-looking lad who seemed lost.
What I did next? I was running through the tunnel........without one single pause...until I reached the end.
And..as I looked up into the sky that embraced me as I came out of the tunnel, a bright street full of
noraebang or karaoke salons with all of their
glimmering lights with here and there... girls on their mini skirts being escorted. The 24/7 convenient stores full of people....which looked like aquariums to me simply because of their glaring white neon that brightened their shops. All the too familiar scene for me.
And..that's when I realized ....I did not have to worry about anything after all.^-^
People still went around and did their chores even at hours after midnight.
Yes...Seoul, even in its suburbs, is a city that seemingly refrains itself from sleeping.
And...interestingly..that's where I gained my
courage again....
the journey still took me another 30 minutes before I reached my home...with a small twist again.
Just when I thought that by following the subway line would bring me home...I was wrong. Not all subway lines are constructed beneath streets, at times..some of them steered a way a bit to cross-cut the distance...and that's where I lost it again.
I got to struggle again to find my way back home...
but like what many of my friends told me " Seoul is safe city to wander around, even at midnight"
And....if now I am writing this blog..it definitely means that I did make it.^^
(and that's another story)
