Patience is a Virtual (Day 259)

Patience is a Virtual. We are never too old to notice our own patterns of behaviour that can be improved. Take today for instance.

While we were at Kim’s café this morning, I was doing my writing and Tim was working out our route to the next accommodation in Seoul. We arrive at the station using the ticket machine, as there was no ticket office. Tim gets two tickets for Wangsimni. How weird. My gut instinctively doubted that this was right. Why did I not say anything? We couldn’t work out what platform we needed to get to and station map was too high for us to read which is a bit ridiculous as, compared to local Koreans, we’re not short! Luckily an office door opened and we managed to ask a staff member where we needed to go. She was taking so long looking the information up online, my patience was being tested. I felt like saying “Ppalli, Ppalli” to her. I noticed a metro map on her desk and within a few seconds of checking this, we had the answer. Damn, the train was in 1 minute. There is no way we would get it, so will have to wait for the next one. I felt frustrated but flicked that away. It really didn’t matter, we have plenty of time. But if only she’d hurry up! The hot and stuffy train journey took nearly 2 hours and we arrived at Sangbong station. Where to go next? We must have looked lost as an elderly gentleman asked if we needed help, then a young man joined him. They sent us in the direction of Platform 7. After a lot of faffing, I eventually established that we didn’t need to go to Wangsimni at all. The final destination was Jongno-3. I still am not sure why Tim thought we needed to go to Wangsimni. We almost got into a spat, but after our wonderful chat last week, I think both of us held our tongues and let our frustrations drift off….well, mine if I am honest, was hovering around me. We finally worked out the correct route and got to Jongno-3 station. Again a bit more faffing as to which way to go to the Airbnb. The more direct way which was only 7-minutes’ walk, but outside in the 39 degrees heat, or the longer way underground? We went the latter way but, oh dear, we had to climb numerous stairs, lugging our bags with us, ended up just as hot had we have gone the other way. Hey ho! We finally arrived at a very nice Airbnb including cooling a/c (we just had a fan at the last place) and cold bottles of water in the fridge. And relax. A couple of hours later, after taking a coaching session, where the internet kept stopping (Patience Lindsey), we went out for a Bibimbap and a stroll around the area. And what a great area it is. Lots of choice of restaurants, and even found a Portuguese café selling custard tarts! Oh, sod the no sugar diet, we’ll definitely be visiting this place. We also found that Tapgol Park is within spitting distance. Once a site of a 15th Century Buddhist Temple, what I find interesting is that the idea of this first modern-style park was from an Irishman called John McLeary Brown, the Inspector General of Customs here in the 1890s. And just down the road is the 10.9km Cheonggyecheon stream! How wonderful. We can continue our constitutional walk along the stream as we did with Min-ji and her parents. We had a lovely short walk along the stream, looking at the delightful murals on the walls and a large heron at the top of a tree. And our learnings? We have chatted about this since, a great way to learn from one another. Tim realises that he relies on technology to do the work, however here in Korea, that doesn’t work so well. It’s about seeing the bigger picture so that he takes responsibility and works out for himself which way to go. And for me, well, fairly obvious. "Patience is a virtual". And getting impatient has nothing to do with the other person. It’s me getting caught up in my thinking – my impatience only can make things worse. When I reflect on what I am impatient about, it all seems nonsense. We have plenty of time, and I am not respecting the other person with this behaviour. Humble pie. We are never too old to learn.