On Sunday we went down to Busan to do a little shopping. We could have driven all the way, but instead decided to save some gas and take the subway from the northern end of the line down to the coast. We didn’t save any time or money, but we got some entertainment along the way.

Along with all the billboard ads in the stations and on the trains themselves, there were several roving sales people hawking their wares. They’d stop in a car, bark their sales pitches for a few minutes and then move to the next car. At least I can turn away from the billboards if I’m not interested but some of these guys were obnoxiously loud. I guess you’d have to be to be heard over the din of everyone’s conversations and the noise of the train. Several of them were annoying, making it difficult to even have a conversation with MyeongHee right beside me. At least one, though, put a smile on my face. He was selling veggie slicers. Not for the kitchen, but to place cucumber slices on your face. Nothing like demonstrations to make one understand.  Sliced very thinly, he could slap them right on his face. And he did.

We giggled, but didn’t buy. Neither did anyone else in our car.

One the way back home, a nearly toothless old man walked up and down the car screeching about something. MyeongHee couldn’t even understand him. He looked right at several people, including me, and rambled on and on. Some smiled at this obviously senile old dude (not to his face, of course) but no one told him to sit, no one told him to shut up. Annoying but harmless. Old people are held in respect in Asia, even crazy ones. I can’t help but think that in the west he might not have fared so well; someone would have forced him to move on, shut up or both.

Nothing like public transportation to bring out the fun ones.