A Trip to Costco

On Sunday, January 2nd, I had the joy of going to Costco. We were out of our usual Costco items and we would not have had time to go again until next Saturday. Since my list was quite expansive and we were out of everything we usually buy at Costco (coffee, cheese, bacon, tortillas, etc) we decided the trip needed to be made, even at the price of going on a holiday weekend. It occurred to me as I was descending on the escalator that I was going down to the lowest level of Costco hell. Dante must have forgotten to mention that one! I looked at my watch and it was 4:15pm. The store was extremely crowded and it was difficult just to move my shopping cart because people were weaving in and out, around other shoppers, stopping in the middle of the paths to look at something, etc. Not my kind of shopping experience! The Costco has two floors with goods on them, and the rest is parking and administrative areas. On the first floor, I only needed 2 items, but getting to them was challenging. After acquiring them, I made my way to the escalator to take me to the food area. The line was about 12 shopping carts long, and was merging with another line at the actual escalator, making it go very slowly. In addition to this, people without carts were pushing their way ahead of the carts and getting in front of them, thus causing further delays. Lines are a relatively new concept to Korea, so as with many other parts of the world, cutting is seen as acceptable (most of the time). At the escalator, there was a Costco employee whose sole job (at that time) was to ensure the line moved smoothly and that people didn't put their carts too close together on the escalator (that last part is quite normal here, and I am guessing they had some incidents where someone got squished a bit by shopping carts!). He did a pretty good job and I was going up the escalator to the first basement floor.

The food floor was even worse than the 2nd basement! Happily, I knew where most of my objectives were located and was able to move with purpose, if not speed, to get to them. Moving from one aisle to another was a particular challenge because the check out lines were so long they went half-way back into the store. Happily, Korean society does not view pushing/shoving as an offence as long as you are not too forceful, so it was not too difficult to push my way through to the other side (although it was kind of awkward for me, as pushing is still something I view as rude). I managed to get most of the items on my list and had to go way up to the front to get my coffee. This was a good thing because I knew from my last experience of Costco on a holiday weekend, that several of the check out stands cannot get a line longer than 5 carts due to their location. So, I slowly pushed my way forward against the mass of shopping carts and customers and eventually got my coffee. I then quickly slipped into one of the shorter lines (which for some reason many Koreans ignore) and was (relatively speaking) quickly on my way to the escalator to take me to the ground floor.

This escalator was also packed badly, but after not too long, I managed to get through to the top and out into the cold, icy air. The challenge now was figuring out how to get it all to the subway! I loaded my backpack and then my Costco bag but discovered that I only had one Costco bag (I had thought I had two). The bag was so overloaded that I could only carry it a short distance before my arm fell like it was going to fall off. Nevertheless, I managed to haul it to the subway and get on, dragging it on the ice at a couple points help with that too as the ice made it slide very easily! When I was to my destination I hauled it upstairs, waited for and boarded my bus and was headed for home. Oh, despite the horrendous crowds and lines, I was on the subway by 5:20pm. Pretty impressive!