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My first-ever solo trip experience!

Writer's picture: Reenita PatraReenita Patra

Like most people, I too had a lot of expectations and aspirations of how and what and where my first-ever solo trip experience would be. But, it was nothing as I had expected or planned 🤷🏻‍♀️

My first-ever solo trip experience was more or less a scene straight out of #kdrama. Yes, right. Kdrama category. #aigooo


First, google an image of the city Suwon in South Korea (to get your imagination running). Second, imagine a dark evening, it’s getting late and drizzling too. ☔

All set in your head? Cool.


Now here comes a young lady, with all her luggage and bags, standing right outside the airport-to-city bus station, waiting for her taxi. 🚕


And oh, just FYI, she is already a bit stressed because she realised in Taiwan (her layover during this 20-odd-hour journey) that she has left her laptops, yes plural, at her home country airport, India, maybe some 6000 km away. Well, that’s a story for another day!


🫰Snap, snap! Back to Suwon.


She gets in her taxi, gives the driver the hotel address and just sinks into the car seat. Gosh, it was a tiring flight after all. The driver calls her as soon as they reach the hotel and she gets off, pays them, and takes her luggage. And then, where did the hotel go?


It was just a street, with maybe two streetlights and a lot of apartments, and cars, and rain. But nowhere was the hotel she was looking for.


I think even you’re smart enough to have guessed it by now that she was at the wrong address. Yes, she did too, and she panicked as well. New city, a whole new country, first time travelling solo, no prior experience, late at night, random street, all alone, no local contact yet established to give a #MayDay alert. The End. At least for her survival skills at that moment. And then…

‘Can I help you?’ he asked. She looked at the total stranger. Tall, fair, cute, with an umbrella. Didn’t seem like the typical k-drama bad guy. Ok, safe to continue. ‘I think I’m lost, and I may have landed at a wrong address, but I don’t understand how this could have happened. I got the address from my office admin, ' she replied. ‘May I check the address please?’ he asked. ‘Yeah, sure. Here it is’, she replied. 'Oh, you work for Samsung?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I do and I’m here travelling for work actually. This is supposed to be my official residence’, she said. ‘That’s wonderful, I also work for Samsung, but in a different department. That’s how I know about this address you’re looking for’, he said. ‘Oh really?! That’s a pleasant coincidence’, she said a little hesitantly. ‘This is not the address you were supposed to go to. This is basically adjacent to the location, so taxi drivers usually get confused if not instructed before. You just need to take another taxi and go to the other side of the street and you shall be at your destination’, he explained.

As a normal human being, she should have been relieved after this explanation, but no, she of course had to be melodramatic and get more worried about how to get a cab, how to explain to the driver (in Korean of course), and the rain wasn’t helping at all. At this point, she was feeling pretty helpless. I can’t blame her, after all she did have a tiring journey, almost ‘hangry’, and the stress of ‘lost’ laptops, remember?

🫰Snap, snap! Back to the scene.

‘Hey, can you please wait here for a minute? I will just go and change my shoes into slippers and be right back’ he said.
‘Hmm, okay, sure!’ was all she could reply while he bounced off with his umbrella.
While she waited a minute in the rain wondering how and where she could hail another taxi, she heard a ‘Hi, again!’
It was the same guy, who changed footwear because of the rain obviously, carrying his umbrella in one hand, and another one in his other hand. Wait, what? 🥺
‘Here, I had an extra umbrella and I thought you could use it,’ he said while offering her the umbrella.
I think she just felt like a character right out of all those K-dramas she had watched all her teenage life. The umbrella was sheer, with black polka dots. If one could fall in love with an umbrella, then that was her moment right there.
'Come, I will help you with your luggage and let’s get a taxi for you,’ he continued.
At this point, I think she was on autopilot because she was too mesmerised by this adorable stranger to even speak. 🥰
He politely took her luggage and guided her the way to the main road, hailed a taxi, explained to the driver the exact address and then opened the door for her. #IAmNotCryingYouAreCrying
'I hope to see you around the office, maybe we can catch up again. Welcome to South Korea by the way,’ he smiled.
‘Thank you so much for the help tonight. We should definitely meet again. Have a good night!’ she replied while her taxi left into the right direction of her hotel.
Did they meet again? What happened next? Maybe I will tell you on some other fine day. ☺️
a cat seating under an open umbrella

A letter to the adorable stranger…

💌

From,

Renee


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Hi, thanks for stopping by!

I started this blog as a hobby but then things got serious. I am as normal a person like you, eat-sleep-repeat. But what makes me different is my love for changes and challenges; they help me grow! 

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