Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

I would like to start by stating that the parking spaces and streets in this country are ridiculously tiny. Everyone has to back into parking spaces because it's easier to back in than back out due to the lack of space to maneuver. 

One hot and smoldering afternoon I was tired of being stuck inside so the kids and I decided to go to a movie. We have discounted tickets to the Sacheon theater (the local theater), but the movie was dubbed in Korean. I found a theater in Jinju (the larger town about 20 minutes away). At this point I did not have a Korean phone; my US phone would work on wifi and that was all I was using. There is a lot of public wifi around so I thought we would be OK. Therefore we looked up the directions before we left and we made it there!

We took pictures of the snack we wanted. Of course Daisy had to pee because she drank soda during the movie. She couldn't get out of the theater. I went back to the doors with her, because duh, how can  you not get out. By golly, they were all locked! Daisy was about to wet her pants but I didn't know how to get out. She found a fire exit at the front and took it. Thank goodness an alarm did not go off.

 In the theater lobby they sell flowers from a vending machine. For date night, I guess?

Daisy needed some dressy black shoes for school in a couple weeks, so much to the boys' dismay I decided to shop on the way home. I tried to drive to Lotte Mall but couldn't find it because, as I stated before, no phone so I couldn't get directions. However, we stumbled upon TopMart. Upon entering, I drove up the ramp of the parking garage and somehow misread the signs (probably had nothing to do with the fact that they were in a language I could not read) and promptly was spit out at the bottom of the garage. I had to circle around outside and re-enter. The sad part was that I did that twice. The third time up I quoted, "Look kids. There's Big Ben, Parliament." The movie reference was wasted on them. Finally I figured things out and found a teeny tiny spot. I have zero spatial awareness in a car, mind you. I started backing into a spot, and, much like every single time I try backing in, I was making a twenty-point turn (not much exaggeration here). Another car was waiting patiently to get by me, so I pulled into a spot that wasn't a spot to let him by. Then I drove away to a different place and was able to park and do my shopping.

TopMart is a grocery/department store sort of like Walmart. It's weird because individual owners have little sections within the store. Not like a mall because there are no walls between the owners. They may have a few clothes and a few shoes, for example. Even though you are in the same building, you have to pay each owner at their shop before you continue shopping. It makes it difficult when looking for something specific because there are a few shoes here and a few shoes there, but you just have to stumble upon them because there is not a large section just for shoes. Anyway, we had no luck finding the sought after black dress shoes.

Upon leaving, we had a heck of a time finding the right escalator to spit us out at the right spot.

Finally we made it back to the van. I was turning a tight corner and being careful not to hit the car in front of me and it was then that we heard a terrible crunkling sound at the end of the van.

I HAD SIDESWIPED A PARKED CAR.

So here I was, in a foreign country, without a working phone, and I had hit a car and caused damage.

What the heck does one do?? My first thought was to cry, but knew that would do no good. So I parked the car surveyed the damage. Unfortunately the other car was going to need to be fixed.

 I walked closer to the store doors where I could access their wifi. I then contacted Soo, the lady who helped us get settled. She got me in contact with ST, who is the man that we rent the car from. ST was super nice and got one of his men there pretty quickly to take care of business for me. ST's man contacted the insurance company and the other person that I hit. Thank goodness we only had to pay ST's deductible, which wasn't too awful much. When he fixed our car it only took a day and a half.

I was scared to drive the car for a few weeks. I hardly went out until I got a Korean phone so if (ha! when) I have another accident I can at least contact ST if there is not wifi available.

[August 13]