What do you get when you go up/down 32 floors worth of escalators in three stores?

A simple fitted sheet of course! Korean bedding is different than bedding in America. I have a Western style bed, but it had Korean bedding. In place of normal sheets, there is this thing that is about the same texture as a mattress pad. It is just slightly larger than the mattress, and it just sorta lays there on top. Then there is a normal blanket on top, and this is the bedding that I was given. It would work just fine if I didn't move at all when I was asleep, but every morning I wake up in a tangle of blanket and mattress pad thing. It was starting to drive me crazy.

Western style bed sheets aren't very common in Korea. I knew this, but I thought that I wouldn't need them or something. I had a set of sheets packed, but took them out when I was trying to make everything fit. That was definitely a poor decision. I had heard that you could find Western style sheets in a store called Home Plus, so I decided that it was going to be my task to find sheets today.

I got on google maps and discovered that there was a Home Plus that was four subway stops and a short walk away from my apartment, so I wrote the directions down in my handy dandy notebook and set off. I found Home Plus with very little trouble, which was pretty exciting! I almost got killed trying to cross the street, because I keep forgetting that in Korea cars have the right of way at all times, but I managed to escape unscathed. I walked into the store and it looked like I was in a high end department store. Only there was a dippin' dots stand in the middle of it. It was very strange.

There was a set of escalators that I eventually found, and since I was on the first floor, I thought it made sense to go up. The second floor was men's clothing and the third floor was electronics. The third floor was a pet store, and the fourth, fifth and sixth floors were part of a parking garage. I was perplexed by the time I reached the sixth floor. Home Plus is supposed to be a grocery store, and have a bunch of other stuff too, but I hadn't found any of it. As I was riding the escalator back down through all of those floors, I noticed that it kept going past the first floor. There were in fact three more floors under the first floor, but I only had to go to the second one.

I wandered around trying to find the bedding section. Based on what I saw today, the way that the store was laid out made absolutely no sense. After looking around for awhile, I finally found the bedding, but I was having a hard time telling if something was a sheet or a duvet cover or something else entirely. I should have written down more Korean words before I left ;-) I found a British guy in the store who must have lived here for a really long time, because he spoke Korean. He helped me ask an employee and they told me that they didn't have any Western style bed sheets. The British guy gave me directions to another store that was relatively near by, and suggested that I try there.

I left the Home Plus to try to walk to the 2001 outlet store, and on my way I passed a dedicated bedding store! I was excited, so I walked in to find a tiny shop with only Korean style bedding with one employee who spoke about as much English as I did Korean. It was a little awkward. I left that store and found the 2001 outlet. It was another very tall store and again I went all the way up to find the bedding on the 8th floor. They had sheets, and I was super excited!! However, they only had fitted sheets, but that was definitely the main concern. In Korea, at an outlet store, it costs 29,900 won to buy a single fitted sheet for a super single size bed (somewhere between a twin and full size). It isn't 500 thread count Egyptian cotton, it is just a normal bed sheet. I've never been so thankful for Wal-Mart in my life ;-)

After I bought a sheet, I actually managed to make my way back to the subway and my apartment without getting lost OR run over by the crazy drivers! It was a pretty exciting day, and I anticipate being pretty excited in the morning when I wake up with all of my bedding in the appropriate place ;-)