When you are in a foreign environment it is normal to gravitate to the familiar. We experienced this in France when we used to drive 2 hours into Germany and pay too much money to eat at a Pizza Hut. I’ve eaten Taco Bell twice in the last two weeks. I’m pretty sure I didn’t eat twice there in the last two years in Franklin. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I had been here less than a week when I insisted that we go to Costco. The grocery stores are a bit intimidating to me right now, so I was counting on finding the familiar at Costco, right?!
Since Dave is getting used to driving, he was more concerned about getting there and not getting lost; but thanks to his killer GPS, we got there in the allotted 30 min. Things were looking up, this was going to be easy.
Like everything in this enormous city, Costco is located in a high rise and the parking is in the attached deck with the only entrance being around the block. It turns out that we weren’t the only ones maneuvering to get around the block and into the deck. As we sat in the “right” lane to enter, cars started to go around us so they could “cheat” and cut in line further ahead. Now, if you know my husband, you realize that he would never stand for such an injustice; so he had no choice but to leave no room for any car to get between us and the car in front of us. Suddenly we felt and heard the “bump”. I guess we got a little too close -oops! Thankfully, the man in front of us didn’t find any damage to his car when he got out to look at his back bumper. Wow, that could have been messy. The only down side was that the time it took to make the assessment allowed several cars to cut in line ahead of us. Some things just don’t pay off!
By the time we parked the car, another 30 min. had gone by. In order to get into the store, we had to wait for someone to leave! An hour to Costco; not bad, now comes the east part, right?! We grab a cart and head down the escalator to the store. I had experienced these “cart escalators” in Europe, so I wasn’t too freaked out by the experience. We must have gone down about 3 or 4 floors (parking deck took us up a few levels) to the entrance of the store. It was noon by this time and Emily suggested that we grab some Costco pizza before we got started on the shopping, so we went down another level to the grocery section of the store and went past the registers to the food stand (just like our Costco at home).
Since the store was at capacity in terms of shoppers, we shouldn’t have been surprised by the hoards of people that had finished shopping and were also hungry for pizza and hotdogs. The familiar plastic picnic tables were filled as well, and many people were scouting out a place to sit and eat, or were forced to eat at their cart (parked in a neat line off to the side of the dining area). We parked our empty cart in line and resorted to eating by the cart when Emily got lucky and out waited someone else to land half a table. She and I sat in one seat and Dave sat across from us as we wolfed down our lunch. It wasn’t long before we noticed people staring us down in hopes of landing our seats; which prompted us to quickly finish and start shopping.
When we made our way back to the long line of carts, however, our empty cart was missing. Dave decided to volunteer to make the trek up two levels to get another one when we finally cut a break and found an empty cart by the restrooms (someone else’s??, you tell me). It should have been smooth sailing from there, but when we tried to get past the cash registers, an employee gave us the “not allowed” sign by crossing his arms in front of his body to form an X. We politely informed him that we just finished eating and now wanted to shop, but he kept making the X sign and shaking his head back and forth, so we were forced to get back on the “cart escalator” and go up the two levels to the entrance.
As we waved our membership card to the employee for the second time that day, we were surprised that she stopped us from entering. This time she pointed to Emily, who was drinking a newly filled cup of Fanta, “No drinks allowed,” we were told in perfect English. When was the madness going to end??All we wanted to do was shop for a few groceries. We had to admit that, out of ignorance, we did things backwards. It never occurred to me that the food court was set up to be visited after shopping. How many times had I purchased a drink or ice cream before shopping and enjoyed it as I wheeled my cart through the store? Too numerous to count. Just one catch- not in Korea!
The next two hours are a blur. All I remember is that maneuvering the cart through the crowd felt like combat duty to me. About half-way through I decided to get enough “stuff” so that I didn’t have to come back for a looooooong time. We managed to buy weird things like a 10 lb. bag of baking soda; because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere else. Some things were strictly American products and others were Korean, but everything was 2-3x more expensive than in the U.S. Dave had prepared me for this and we came armed with plenty of cash; over 500,000 won (about 1100 won to the dollar)! Did I mention that Costco (Korea) takes only cash? The only exception is a Samsung credit card (nope, don’t have one). So you can understand how we felt when our bill came to 670,000won!! How could this happen? What more could go wrong? Just as I was deciding which products to put back, the kind cashier told us that there was a money machine located “straight ahead and turn left.” Em and stood there in humiliation as Dave ran to the machine and got more cash.
Here’s a photo of Dave and I with some of our stash, including the Arm and Hammer baking soda! I’m all set in case a neighbor comes to our door wanting to borrow a cup of baking soda!! I thought I was past the ordeal until last night when Dave said, “Why don’t we wake up early and go to Costco Sat. morning!!!”
