a white woman, a blue plunger, and cafe bene

So..here I am in Seoul, many miles away from Atlanta. Almost nobody here speaks English and I speak no Korean. You would think that's awkward enough by itself but somehow the quirkiness of everyday living follows you over here and occasionally you will have one of "those days." I went out drinking last night for the first time since I've been here. It was me and the four other American teachers at the academy. We had such a good time at dinner that we continued the party back at our apartment. Alcohol over here is the same as alcohol over there, or anywhere for that matter. The raspberry wine (bokbunjajoo) raised my blood sugar a bit but that wasn't the main problem. I got pretty drunk.

Needless to say, I had an award-winning hangover when I woke up this morning. I started feeling sick to my stomach after I got in the shower. I leaned over the toilet (Korean bathrooms are just one room with no separate toilet/shower) and puked up what was left of the galbi (Korean pork dinner) I ate last night. I went to flush the toilet but something went wrong..I had somehow managed to clog our toilet with my pork vomit! What makes this story even better is the fact that we had no plunger. Here I am hungover, running late, and desperately trying to remedy the clogged toilet situation. I ended up leaving a note for my roommates and going to work.

The school day was uneventful except for having a low BG and realizing that I left my glucose tablets at home this morning. There's a bakery next to the school so everything turned out ok. I asked one of the Korean teachers where the store was so that I could stop and buy a plunger on my way home from work. Luckily, there is a store not far from the school so I went in there. They only had one plunger left and it was bright blue. I paid for my plunger and walked back outside. I got a little lost trying to walk home from the store because it wasn't directly on the path between school and my apartment. I stood near an intersection looking around with a puzzled expression on my face. All I know is that Cafe Bene (coffee shop kinda like Starbucks) is probably the best known landmark near my apartment so when some teenagers came up to the intersection I said to them "Cafe Bene?" while shrugging my shoulders. They pointed down the street and I was on my way.

Overall it was a somewhat good ending to a somewhat bad day. I just keep thinking about what those kids must have been wondering..

Who is this white woman and why is she taking a plunger to Cafe Bene?