Stranger!

Yesterday (2/21/2007) was a pretty good day (I started writing this on 2/22/2007). My girlfriend and I had dinner, drinks, and ice-cream with a friend of hers that helped us arrange our trip to Bali, Indonesia. Actually, she didn't help us, she arranged the whole trip for us. Luckily, our friend is a travel agent.

Around 9:40 p.m. we finished having drinks and headed home (her sister's home). We were coming home on the 9301 bus in Seoul, and since the ride is fairly long we were also taking a nap. I was having trouble resting though, because we were sitting above the left rear wheels and their vibrations were tickling my feet. Sounds strange, but it's true.

While I was fidgeting and repositioning my feet, the corner of my eye caught some activity across the isle. I wasn't exactly sure what it was at the moment, I just felt like something out of the ordinary was happening. I then saw a kind of puzzled and startled look on the face of a girl in the window seat. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable, and the source of those feelings seemed to be coming from the man resting in the seat next to her. But, if anything happened, I hadn't seen anything (for sake of record, this was at about 10:40 p.m.). As I was watching, the man seemed to have been disturbed by her nervous activity, and opened his eyes. Everything then settled down for a moment, but I suspected something, so I kept my eyes on them.

Almost immediately after she sat down to go back to sleep, I saw the man move his hand onto her left knee, and I was as shocked as she was about the whole thing. Maybe not as shocked as her about it, but pretty shocked. She knew exactly what happened this time, and said something to him while pushing his hand away. He then tried to shush her quietly into submission while continuing to pursue his actions. She then started slapping his hand and arm away, and shuffled as far away from him as she could. But, she could only move so close to the wall of the bus in her seat. After being able to stop his sexual assault, she stood up from her seat and went to stand near the exit of the bus.

I woke up my girlfriend, explained to her what I had just witnessed, and told her which two people were involved in the whole event. Neither one of us knew exactly what to do. The girl needed to wait for her bus stop to get home, and while we were contemplating what to do next the girl started crying. I asked my girlfriend to try and console her in some way, but she wasn't sure what she could say to help her. I then suggested a few things to say, and got up from my seat so that my girlfriend could go talk to her. When my girlfriend came back, she seemed to feel a little better after somebody showed that they cared about her and what happened. Eventually, her stop came and she got of the bus.

The guy that molested her was still sitting across the isle from us, and was pretending that nothing happened. He even made a call with his mobile to let his family know he was on his way home. We still weren't sure what we could do that would result in any consequences for him, but we were trying to think of something. I then suggested we take a photo of him, and post his image with a full explanation of the event. We both liked that idea, so I did take a photo of him with my camera. But, we were advised not to post his photo by friends and family, for legal reasons of liability for slander. That's only because we don't have any actual proof that he did anything. I know that stinks, but that's the way it is.

I do have some good news, though. My girlfriend and her sister made a visit to the local police department, and told them we have a photo of this guy. The police on duty gave them a card with an e-mail address to send the photo to. So that's where the situation stands so far. My girlfriend has sent the photo to the address she was given, and we don't know what will happen next.

Eh, what the hell. Here's the photo of the guy with a blue rectangle over his face.