Unexpectedly Regular | Kim Namjoon

1.

Nara had expectations about her trip to Korea, but none of them were greater than the unexpected.

How could everything in Seoul feel a lot more unrealistic now that she was not seeing things through a computer or a TV screen? As soon as Nara stepped down from the plane, her brain started focusing on seeing and feeling that new world around her. The conscience of being surrounded by people who did not speak her language was surreal and she also paid close attention to the way people wore their clothes and the manners they used to walk and act. It was the first time she left the country and no matter how much she had seen and read about South Kore on the TV, on websites and magazines, being there didn't feel real. It was quite unbelievable that the daughter of a Brazilian housemaid would travel from a small town across the world to study. But there she was, appreciating every minute of it, ever since her first step in the city in which she would spend just about an hour.

Although she had passed easily through the emigration and luggage reclaim speaking English, only after she stepped out of the airport she finally apprehended the language around her. Now there were more hangul characters and a little less English translations for whatever she tried to read. There was a bus to Suncheon she would have to take in less than fifteen minutes. Nara checked with a woman in business clothes and small handbags whether that was the place in which she could get the bus she needed to leave Seoul. As she showed the woman a leaflet with the information about the town she was heading to, she found herself lucky enough to have talked to someone who spoke English and had already been to that small town. The woman kindly pointed the right place to get the bus and she also explained that after dropping off the bus, the best was to get a taxi instead of another bus because buses to university took a longer route from the bus station. Nara thanked the woman in English and then in Korean, using some sentences she had learned from a handbook. She knew her pronunciation might not be perfect, but she was still thankful for that unexpected and gentle coincidence. More unexpectedly sweet things were about to happen during her Korean experience.

Due to tiredness and fascination, Nara didn't realize she was still carrying her handbag, a purse, her neck pillow and a book she read during the long flight. Her bags were also next to her. She had a lot to pay attention to and only two hands to handle all that. The bus she needed showed up and the woman who helped her, from the other side of the platform where she waited for a taxi at the same time she used her phone, signalized that was the right bus. Nara thanked with a gesture, smiled and waved her kind help goodbye. It was both a good surprise and a frustration that she couldn't use many of the basic Korean sentences she had practiced back in Brazil and during her many hours of flight. Her handbook turned out to be a little less useless than expected, but that would end up in other unexpected outcomes. Nara was still glad to have a first friendly interaction there and she would have more of them soon.

Nara took some time trying to organize everything on her hands but there were too many things for her to carry. As soon as she bent her knees to get her luggage on the floor, Nara heard the sound of her glasses, which she had hanged carelessly on her collar, falling down and one second later, cracking under someone else's foot. She watched the completely blurred scene feeling so helpless that she didn't even let a sound escape from her mouth. She could see blurred silhouettes bowing to her, saying something she couldn't understand at first and that later she figured out as a sequence of "sorries" with a strong Korean accent. "No problem", she said, as she received the broken parts of her glasses from a stranger. Nara barely had time to tuck the pieces inside her purse, because there were people behind her and she couldn't let everyone get late because of glasses she could easily repair when she got to her dorm. She handed her luggage to a blurred person who was helping the passengers and entered the bus. She used her neck pillow to get more comfortable on her chair. She looked outside but could feel no frustration that her quick glance of Seoul was blurred and she smiled. Just being there was beautiful enough, but she knew she would soon have other chances of seeing how beautiful it really was.