Drift Reality > South Korea > Arrival in Seoul 1

The first thought that entered my mind as I walked through the gates that lead into the main waiting area of Bangpo airport in Seoul was that the Koreans were taller than I had thought they would be. After all, one of my favorite answers to the question, "Why are you going to Korea," had been, "Because I want to know what it is like to be tall." I had said this half-jokingly, but on some deeper level, I think that I had genuinely been looking forward to being tall. Now, glancing around the sea of Koreans in the airport, I realized that my vision might never come to fruition.

The second thought that entered my mind was that I had no idea who was going to meet me at the airport. This idea contained a disturbing gravity that was a stark contrast to my first idea. The question that entered my mind at that point was: What if nobody came to claim me?

I looked desperately at all of the name placards that were being held up by tall Koreans and realized that my grand quest into the unknown might get off to a bad start. It was then that I remembered that I had written down the phone number of the woman who had recruited me to come to Korea, so I grabbed my fifty-pound duffel bag tightly to my side and darted towards the phones.

After growing increasingly panicked with every unanswered ring of the phone, finally a woman answered the phone.

"Yoboseyo?"

"…uh, Hello?" I answered hesitantly.

"Yes? Oh, is this Jiyan?" Relief flooded over me as I heard the tone of recognition in her voice.

"Yes, I'm here Soo-Yeon." Soo-Yeon was the name of the woman who had recruited me, a self-proclaimed "black bowling-ball." Over the course of the past month, I had been in constant correspondence with her, working out all the details of my trip. At one point I had mentioned to her that she had a very cute voice, to which she responded by telling me that she was fat and always wore black clothing. Hence, she explained, she was a "black bowling-ball."

"Well, the supervisor should be there," she said with a questioning tone in her voice, as if she was wondering why I would be calling her at 11:00 at night.

"Hmm. . .What does she look like?" I asked.

"She is shorter, and she has dark short hair," Soo-yeon explained. Looking around the crowded airport, I realized that Soo-Yeon might as well have told me that "she has feet and hands."

"Okay. I'll look around for her," I said.

"Okay. Well, call me if you can not find her," Soo-Yeon responded.

"Okay, bye."

With that, I hung up the phone and turned around to look for the Korean woman who was "shorter" and had "dark short hair." Out of the blur of people who had dark hair and were shorter, one figure stopped and looked at me for a moment. I looked back at her and she started to walk towards me.

Augustus had short dark hair and couldn't have been taller than 5'2". She had a neat organized little face with eyes that seemed to say "What? So what?"

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