Drift Reality > South Korea > Arrival in Seoul 2

She stopped about five feet in front of me and asked, "Are you Jiyan?"

To which my answer, "Yes, nice to meet you," was met with a sliver of a smile. She examined my extended hand gingerly before deciding to limply drop her hand into it and squirm it around a bit.
She looked back at me with her "so what?" eyes and explained, "You look different in person than in your pictures."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I responded with a smile.
She looked at me for a moment, as if wondering what to make of this strange creature in front of her, and then proceeded to simply shrug her shoulders as if it did not make the slightest bit of difference to her.

"My cah is pahked outside," she said.

I smiled at her as I followed her out the airport doors that opened into Seoul.

Augustus had a white compact-sized car with a small herd of fluorescent stuffed animals resting on the dash. As we headed out of the airport and into the Seoul night, I was immediately struck by the massive size of the apartment complexes that loomed over us. I found my eyes glued to the window as a blur of lights and shapes passed before my eyes - there was a palpable vibrancy that resonated through the air despite the late hour.

I soon noticed myself straining to make out the bizarre characters that were etched onto the looming monolith like apartment buildings on either side of us.

"How was your flight?" Augustus asked.

"Not too bad," I answered. "I'm excited to be here," and unlike so many other times I had made that statement, I actually meant it.
"Mr. Kim told me to take you out for dinner," Augustus said.

"That sounds great," I told her as I fought hard to control the excited electricity that had begun to arc through my stomach as I gazed in wonder at the Seoul landscape.

"Do you know the Outback Steak House?" Augustus asked, and I couldn't help but be surprised that I had traveled halfway across the globe to eat at the Outback Steak House. Disillusionment at the banality of chain restaurants was quickly swept aside by a vision of hot wings and beer, further beautified by the fact that I had spent nearly one whole day eating rationed airplane food and peanuts.

"Yeah, that sounds great actually," I told her and a slight glint of a smile slid over her lips.

"Do you like Korean food?" she asked.

"Yes, actually," I responded. "My father always used to buy Kim-Chi."

Actually, Kim-Chi was the only Korean food I really knew, but I didn't want to sound uneducated about Korean culture so early in the game.

Augustus's eyes widened in surprise as she nodded her head and emitted a strange, nasally-sounding "Uhhnnngh." "So," she continued, "you like spicy food?"

"Yeah, I put Tabasco on everything actually."

She repeated her head nodding and her beast-like nasally sound, which I found strangely amusing. In the hopes that I could elicit this reaction from her further, I continued, "My dad always used to put Tabasco sauce on everything, so I gradually just picked up the habit."

Bingo. She continued her head bobbing and nose moaning.

"So, your Father is Korean?" she asked.

"Yeah. He was born in Pyongyang actually."

She kept nodding her head, but to my dismay, the "uhhng" sound had ceased.

I turned back to the window and let myself become hypnotized by the scenery.

"So," she began, disrupting my reverie. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
I was a bit surprised by this question seeing as how the two of us had just met, but not being a particularly bashful person, I took her answer in stride and answered, "Yes, she lives in New York."

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