Part 1 of “My First Period Abroad”
Setting the Stage
Once in Korea, I got to spend a week with other ex-pats from all over the globe. We were put up in a hotel for orientation. Jet-lagged, we spent our sleepless evenings and nights exploring a certain aspect of Korea; theme bars, karaoke rooms, cheap alcohol and 3L pitchers of beer. The alcohol of choice was Soju. At just over a dollar in CAD per bottle, the Saki like substance became a preference for liberating one’s inhibitions and letting loose. I made many friends this week and it set the stage for the year to come.
An Amusement Park
About a week and a half into our Korean journey, my friend had asked me to come with her to meet up with a guy she knew back in college. While we lived in Incheon, a city adjoining Seoul, he lived in the capital. When we arrived at his apartment, he wasn’t alone, but was with two other girls. This was a disappointment for my friend as she had the hots for this guy and wanted to see what his invitation meant. Our destination for the evening, an amusement park.
To side -step the story just a bit, in Canada, when you have stuff with you and are at an amusement park, it’s often left vulnerable when you ride the rides. To limit this vulnerability, and because I was in a new country and wouldn’t know how to get my stuff back if it were to go missing, I left my bag at this guy’s apartment. I took some cash and my phone and stashed it in a zipper pocket.
The amusement park was fun. We rode all the rides and did all of the things. Thinking back, now as a 35-year-old who tried to amusement park this summer, I wonder how my stomach allowed for such events. I paid for an unlimited pass, yet only rode 4 rides this past summer and that had me spinning and downing Gravol like they were sour patch kids. Back then, no problem.
Change of Venue
Not wanting to end the high of the amusement park, we took a cab directly to Hongdae. Hongdae is a party district near the University. It a neighbourhood full of night fun for the university students and foreigners to come together. It is a magical alcohol infused place that offers endless entertainment until the light of the next day.
It was here we managed to find other ex-pats from our first week’s hotel stay. We ventured to a bar called “S-Club.” A late 90’s themed bar centered around the British band/ television show by the same name. More and more of our initial friends joined us, and soon enough we were all dancing and having the most amazing time. The 90’s music thumped and we moved in sync, singling along to each other, feeling the belonging while all the cares in the world slipped away.
Breaking the Seal
When drinking, it is imperative that one tries to contain the urge to urinate, as when one does give into that urge, it becomes a frequent event. Frequent urination often leads one to miss out on fun, or funny moments, hot gossip or inside jokes in the making. It is not ideal to thus “break the seal.”
However, when I finally gave in, I was shocked to find that my underwear, and inner thighs were covered in blood. This was not ideal, nor expected. I had just had a period maybe 2-3 weeks prior. I felt a sense of relief knowing my night was not over, as I had packed tampons in case of this happening. Then dread set in as I remembered that my bag was in that guy’s apartment, and I was screwed.
In Search of the Coveted
I asked everyone in that bar, with a vagina that I knew or sort of knew if they had a tampon. All told me “no”. To this day, I secretly suspect that they had all read Korean options were less than desirable for us Western folk. They knew what was available in this country and no one was willing to part with the valuable stash they had brought for themselves. How could everyone not have a tampon? Lies, I say. (See the post: A Years’ Worth of Tampons, Please for more details on the tampon becomes so precious.)
I was running low on cash and knew that dancing was officially out of the question. I wasn’t ready to try my luck with a Korean product, so I did the next best thing I knew I could. I resolved to go home. Some others, including a guy I had met at the Orientation Week were headed back to Incheon early, and I decided to go with them. We were in the cab for about 5 minutes, when I realized that my keys were in that guy’s apartment…
