Fishnets In The Far East

---

Book excerpt

On Saturday 8th April, three hours after my motorbike adventure, we were startled awake when the phone rang at 6:30 am. Sharon answered it.

“Yes, Mr Lee. No, Mr Lee…”

“Ooh! I wonder who it is!” I joked.

“At a rough guess, I’d say it could be Mr Lee,” Louise replied sarcastically. Turning to Sharon, she whispered: “Tell him we need some money!”

Sharon raised her hand in Louise’s direction, silently gesturing her to wait. “Yes, Mr Lee. Oh and Mr Lee….” Sharon turned to face us. “He’s hung up!”

“Great!” Louise replied.

“Well, what’s he ringing at this ungodly hour for? What did he want?” I asked.

“Er, he said that we have to get up, er…now, pack everything, go to the bus station and… catch the first bus to Seoul.”

“What?”

“Why?”

“Er…because, apparently the hotel is going to be raided,” Sharon replied with a nonchalant flick of her wrist.

She explained that, according to our agent, the Hotel manager did not have the required documents to allow foreign workers. We needed to leave as soon as possible because if we were discovered, the hotel would face a huge fine. (Mr Lee had omitted to tell her what would happen to us if we were caught!) Therefore, three hours after going to sleep, we found ourselves frantically packing our belongings in virtual silence, our ears alert for any sound of police activity outside the hotel.

Louise and I finished packing our personal belongings around the same time but Sharon still had a long way to go. Every so often, she seemed to stop mid proceedings and just stare off into space with a vacant expression on her face. Leaving her to it, we headed off down to the nightclub to get the costumes.

“Sharon’s in a dream,” I said as we ran down the stairs. “I thought she would have been ready before us and sorting everything out. I mean, she’s the head girl. She should be taking charge of the situation, but it looks like everything has been left for us to do.”

“She couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery!” Louise replied. “She should have asked him for money or, better still, rung him back and told him that unless the manager of the hotel gave us our wages, we weren’t leaving.”

“You’re right,” I said. “We are going to have to travel up to Seoul with virtually no money at all.”

Gaining access to the costumes became the most difficult part of the fleeing proceedings, as the Nightclub was locked. Eventually, a sleepy member of staff appeared with the keys, and we managed to get inside. As soon as we had finished packing and were doing a final check to make sure that all the costumes were accounted for, Sharon appeared in the doorway and with a casual swoop, she picked up two headdresses.

“Oh, have you finished?” She asked, staring around the dressing-room with an absent expression on her face.

We didn’t bother to reply – (talk about state the bleeding obvious!)

A few minutes later, we were bustled inside a Bongo van with all our belongings and whisked away under cover of (relative) darkness to Kyongju bus terminal where we were unceremoniously dumped.

“So, what now, Sharon?” Louise asked, barely hiding her frustration. “How are we supposed to get to Seoul? Who’s buying the tickets? I mean, what’s the plan?”

“Er…”

“That’s just great!” Louise slumped down on the costume case in a huff.

“I’ll go and see….” Sharon replied vacantly and wandered off. She returned a few minutes later, just as an unknown Korean was pushing three tickets into Louise’s hands and ushering us towards an awaiting bus.

I was sad to be leaving the hotel under such circumstances. It meant we would never have a chance to say goodbye to anyone. Although the nightclub had been a nightmare to work in, we had met some really friendly people. I would particularly miss Mr Sol, who had gone out of his way to make sure we had had a good time. Even if some of his ideas of diversion differed from ours, we had certainly had some unforgettable experiences!