Ultimate in Korea

I took a trip to play an ultimate tournament a few weekends ago. It was a lot of fun. Nice fields, good quality games that left me walking stiffly early the next week. It was great to get the chance to play, and also nice to meet some more young native English speakers. It is a drawback to living in a remote smaller town that I cannot do either more often, but I knew what I getting into, and don't consider that something to regret .. yet.
After the games on Saturday there was a party at a bar downtown. Being the day after Halloween it was a costume party. I should have taken more pictures because there were a lot of really good costumes. Perhaps the best was a couple who came as Obama and Palin. The costumes were very realistic; this girl makes as good as Palin as Tina Fey ever could, and never have I seen a more tastefully done blackface. Anyway, what put them over the top was a little skit where Palin offered Obama a little "Alaskan hospitality." So she blindfolded him and then stripped off his pants. With a flourish she tore off his shirt and an Arab gown unfurled as the blindfold turned into a turban and the outer layer of his "Yes we can!" campaign sign was stripped away to reveal the socialist truth behind this secret muslim. Good luck America, I'll be over here until we get Sarah to pull us out of this mess in four years.
However the weekend was not all fun and games. I had some struggles getting home. The games were done, and I was ready to head back from Deajeon to Hadong, at about 5:00. It is a two hour bus ride to Jinju, and another hour home for me, so I assumed I should get home at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately most everyone who came to the tournament traveled by train, so I could not split a taxi. Well, they are not too expensive, so it is no big deal. What was a big deal was my lack of knowledge of the city. It turns out there are two bus stations on opposite sides of town, and one of them only travels to Seoul (which is in the wrong direction for me). So even though I thought I explained to the taxi driver that I wanted to go to the bus station to go to Jinju, maybe he only heard "bus station" and couldn't understand the rest of my feeble Korean. At least the cashier at that station spoke English and could explain to me the problem, and what, exactly to tell the next cabbie.
Unfortunately, by now it is almost 6 o'clock, and I have to get across town during Sunday rush hour, yes such a thing apparently exists. After interminable idling, I told the taxi driver I had to get there by 7. He took an illegal u-turn, sped down some streets closed for construction, then weaved at high speed through some lighter traffic, and eventually I made it to the station just in time to catch the 7 o'clock bus.
But this was not enough. It arrived at Jinju at 9:03, just minutes after the last bus to Hadong has pulled away. Not sure what to do now I decide to check the train station; I thought the last train was also 9:00, but maybe it is 9:30. But two or three taxis outside the bus station play dumb and refuse me service. So I decide to use a public phone to call some co-workers to see what they suggest, maybe they even have a coach or guest room I can crash on. But I can't get the phones to work! they seem to be the same as one's I have successfully used in the past, maybe just broken. I'm starting to think I'm stuck here when I see a Westerner, a girl with blond hair, come out of the phone booth I tried using a short while ago. I explain to her my troubles, but she just looks at me with a blank face and says "Russian .. no talk English." My fate sealed, I find a cheap motel.