Five minutes later we were standing at the bus stop across the street from our apartment. We were standing and waiting for a few minutes when I looked at the electronic schedule posted and the bus number we wanted wasn't listed. Well, crap. Instead, we walked down to the main bus terminal area where all the buses pass through, grabbed coffee, and tried to Google the right bus, again. This time, it told us to get on a different bus and it was arriving in four minutes. We pack up our stuff and walk across the street to the bus stop. It was all hustle and bustle with people young and old climbing on and off crowded buses.
After four minutes, the bus was nowhere to be seen. Google failed us again. But this time, we wait for the bus. It was only ten minutes later when our bus (#52) arrived! We climbed aboard and sat down. The bus pulled off and immediately, I sensed something was wrong. Not only did we get a seat to sit in, a very rare occurrence on a city bus, but every single person on the bus was over the age of 65. These people were not headed to Lotte Cinema. We got on the bus heading the wrong direction!
Forty five minutes into our bus ride, we were sitting and laughing at ourselves. We ended up getting a nice scenic tour of Wonju countryside! Weaving and winding through long narrow country roads, and passing through the occasional country town with little huts and kimchi pots, it wasn't as horrible as I was thinking in the moment.
We started heading back toward Wonju, phew! Two minutes later we were in a parking lot turning around and heading further into the countryside. Great! This time, we went even further out, passing through the same towns as before. Eventually we started heading back to the city (again). Finally we were passing through one town I recognized, I was hopeful that we would make it back home! Just as that thought passed through my mind, the bus stopped in the middle of the road and started backing into a parking lot. The bus driver proceeded to park, turn the bus off, climb out of the bus and walk past our windows, when he looked up and laughed at us, saying something in Korean that we obviously didn't understand.
We only waited in this town for 10 minutes then we continued on to the city! We were just coming up on the same parking lot that we turned around at earlier, when I started praying that we would just pass it and continue to go home. Alas, we turned around yet again! This trip was UNREAL at this point in time. At least the bus was heated and uncrowded.
Once again, like a broken record, we were heading back into the countryside. This time, we ended up going north instead of west and looping around a town that met back up with the main road to Wonju. We were finally going home.
Our decision on the long ride back was, do we continue on this bus to get to Lotte Cinema or do we get off at the bus terminal and find another bus or take a taxi? We decided to stay on the bus to see if it would in fact take us to where were trying to go.
I had the bus route pulled up on my phone and was watching very carefully that the bus stayed on the route. The bus started turning off of the route and we got off at the first chance. Well, we were at least closer to Lotte Cinema... we walked 15 blocks in the freezing cold and we finally saw Outback Steakhouse! I knew we had to be close because of all the western food around (Outback, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds).
The Outback was in a massive building and of course it was all written in Korean so we continued to walk. After a couple blocks all the buildings started getting smaller and turned into apartment buildings and small shops! No! We turned around and headed back to the Outback Steakhouse. I stopped one boy who looked like the right age to be learning English in school and asked where Lotte Cinema was. Turns out I was right! The guy spoke great English and walked us right into the building that the Outback Steakhouse was in. Great, we walked back and forth right in front of the place we were trying to get to!
We explored the building and found no bulgogi restaurants. Disappointed and extremely hungry, I hopped back on FB and opened the map on the Wonju FB group to see where other restaurants were located. Right next to the Lotte Cinema building was a restaurant called Chaesundong, a shabu shabu place! Yay! We went in and had the best shabu shabu so far this trip!
After dinner we opted to take another bus home. No problems the second time around. We hopped on and it took us straight to the bus terminal, a warm and welcoming sight! We finished our evening at a nice dessert cafe across the street from the bus terminals. I think it's safe to say that Navigator Nikki is going to retire her conductor hat.
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| Frozen waterfall! |
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| This is only a partial route of the bus we were on. |
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