Costco experience

Did you know that there is a Costco in Seoul? Actually there are 4, but only one is pretty close to us in our part of town. There are many good things about Costco here, but the one I find dearest to my heart is that the labels are in Korean AND English. It really takes the guess work out of what it might taste like when you open it!

Someone told us to get to Costco all we have to do is hop on the Green line bus 4424, and get off right in front of Costco. Sweet deal! So Maria and I headed to the bus stop and hopped on a very crowded bus 4422 eagerly anticipating Costco's sweet smell of cement floor. But do you know what? Bus 4422 doesn't go to Costco. We began to realize that about an hour later when the bus was empty and we are looking out the window at the outskirts of Seoul. All of the sudden the bus stops, the doors open, and then stay open. The driver looked to us and said something in Korean, which we took to mean by his tone that we needed to get off now.

I suppose everyone needs a "got on the wrong bus" story when they visit a new place, but it sure isn't so fun when you don't know where you are or how to get back. Luckily, we ended up finding another green bus line that stopped close to where we started, so two and a half hours later we ended up where we left off, and still no Costco.

As our dreams for the day began to melt away in the smoggy afternoon sun, we checked our directions again, and realized we got on the wrong bus. Oops. At least, we figured, we got a cheap tour of Seoul! So we decided to get on the right bus, and a sure enough, it went right to Costco. So now Maria and I are proud owners Costco cards! This is the big time. Unfortunately, we found out the hard way Costco doesn't take credit cards, so we could only use the cash we had left. I suppose some people would be discouraged if they were gone for 5 hours and only came back with rice, some muffins, and a rotisserie chicken. But not us, we took good pictures on our membership cards.