Ye Dental Clinic - Chuncheon, South Korea

In what was one of the best mornings ever, Michael had one of his wisdom teeth extracted and I got to relax and  mooch off of Ye's free WiFi and food.

For the past couple of weeks, Michael has been complaining about pain in his mouth from his wisdom teeth. One , in particular, was poking him in the cheek and causing a permanent canker sore. He finally broke down and agreed to get them out in Korea instead of waiting until he gets back to the U.S. A good thing too, because we have dental insurance here and it costs next to nothing.

In Korea, there isn't a lot of bureaucratic red tape to go through. Every doctor and dentist is a clinic. You don't schedule an appointment, you just walk right in. The owners at our hagwon know the head dentist of the dental clinic, though, and called to make sure there would be an English speaking personnel on site the day we went. They told us there was two options: Saturday or Sunday. That's right, the dental clinic is open every day of the week.

We were told to go as soon as it opened on Saturday, 9:30. Because of a little snafu with our alarm clock, we got there around 9:40. Uh oh, there are a lot of people at the clinic on Saturdays. It really didn't matter though. The staff was nice and there wasn't a whole lot of waiting. They had the English translator help Michael fill out paperwork and then took him to get pictures (x-ray). Then there was a 30 minute wait for the doctor, so they sent us up to the 6th floor to hang for a bit.

The director of our school told us that maybe I would get to go up to the 6th floor to wait and acted like it was the coolest place ever, and it was. The entire 6th floor was a cafe with cushy chairs, 3 computers and a bar with 3 baristas waiting to take your order. I perused the menu at our table and decided I would just make some coffee at the water station, but then a barista came to our table to take our order so I asked for a caramel latte.

It came out looking like this.

Michael and I hung out for a while and then I went over to the self-service station and picked up some snacks/my breakfast. Upon reading the menu, I learned that today from 10:30-1 they were serving bagels and from 2:30-4:30 chocolate chocolate chip muffins. Also located throughout the clinic were bowls of clementines, free for the picking. So I grabbed some pieces of bagel (they were all cut up) and a clementine and sat down to dig in. Of course this is the moment that they called Michael back down to the 5th floor. Oops.

I said goodbye to Michael and finished my food. I came back down to the 5th floor and waited for about 10 minutes before the dental assistant came to find me. She led me back to the room where Michael was in. I got to watch!

They took an x-ray and found that the one of his teeth is coming in completely sideways. That one he is not going to be able to get taken out here. The two on his left side are not poking out enough to be taken out yet. So, just the one today. When I came back, Michael was reading some instructions for him in English. He had already been given the topical anesthetic and shots, so he was having a hard time talking. The dentist came in after a few minutes, grabbed a wrench thingy, twisted for a couple of seconds and then he said, "finished!" Michael couldn't believe it was over. The dentist showed us the tooth and pointed to the x-ray where the tooth was and said "Gone!" He left and the aide said, "See, professional guy!" 

A few seconds later we were paying for the extraction (a whopping 9,600 won/ $8.62) and the nurse gave Michael some extra gauze. We went down to the first floor pharmacy and waited 2 minutes for his meds. He has to take two pills three times a day. So that's 12 pills for a total of 1,400 won/$1.26. Michael was feeling so good that we walked home (about a mile). We arrived home at about 11:30.

A few hours later, Michael is feeling fine. He ate a little and took his first round of pills. Bad news is that on the x-ray, they found two cavities so he has to go back in to get those filled in a couple of weeks. Since our experience has been so cheap (who pays only $10 to get a tooth pulled?) I plan to go in as well for a checkup since I am pretty sure I also have a cavity. So, Ye Dental Clinic, highly recommended.

A Korean take on Chinese food

After a strenous hike up Mount Anma, we ordered a little feast at Homeplus's food court before hitting the store for some groceries. Michael was feeling adventures and ambitious and decided Chinese was in order. Usually we go with Japanese fare: a cutlet for him, some soba noodles for me. This day was a little different.

Behold, the gigantic feast for 11,000 won (about 9.85 USD). Starting clockwise from top left: fried and battered pork in a sweet glaze, fried and battered shrimp in a sweet and sour sauce, noodles and seafood in a spicy broth, and jajangmyeon (pork and vegetables in a black bean sauce over noodles). In the center was some fried rice and three dumplings on top.

 We miss Chinese food. It's just not the same here.

Why I continue to dream about moving closer to the equator

Just another day in Korea, children playing on top of a frozen stream.

Hoping a taxi will pass by soon so we won't freeze before getting our groceries home.

It's been declared that this is the coldest winter Korea has seen in decades. Seoul broke records from the early 1900s. Chuncheon had a low of -8 degrees Fahrenheit! 

To sum up: It's cold and miserable here and has been for 7 weeks, we walk nearly two miles each day to and from school, our school still hasn't been able to find replacement teachers, and Michael's getting his wisdom teeth out in about two weeks.

I have some other posts I haven't bothered to finish yet. Give me some time, I think I have a little SAD kicking in due to this horrific weather. 10 weeks left.

Catching Up

With less than 12 weeks left in Korea, Michael and I are pumped to do some stuff before we leave! We've had a blast in our temporary home and are planning some more things before March, I swear! Last month was our surprise vacation and we didn't do much. A lot was planned, but there were some set backs. We were going to go to an ice fishing festival, but it was cancelled due to Hoof and Mouth Disease scares. We were planning on skiing, but we couldn't figure out how to get a shuttle in Chuncheon to a ski resort. Oh well.

So let's back up and I'll tell you what were up to the week of our winter vacation.

We worked Christmas Eve until about 8:30 and were too hungry to wait to make dinner so we hit up Yumsem, our favorite fast food restaurant. Pork Cutlet with Omelet for Michael and some Dwenjang Chiggae (tofu and seafood stew) for me. We went to Paris Baguette and bought a cake, because they are just too cute.

Christmas came and we went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and took them to the movie theatre with us. Yup, here in Korea, you can bring your own snacks to the movies. We saw this movie, which was pretty good.

When we got home, we pretty much became bums for the day. We gave each other presents: a headset for Michael, leggings and wristies for me. We watched such holiday classics as A Christmas Story and Trading Places. We ate an egg drop soup hybrid that we like to call corn soup. It's a classic at our place.

Michael and Gizmo testing out the new headset.

We stayed up late to talk to family and watch everyone open presents. Thanks parents and siblings, for your gifts and your willingness to open each present in front of the camera for us to see. We missed everyone, but we were glad to see some familiar faces. I gotta say, it didn't really feel like Christmas this year.

On the 28th, we headed to Seoul. We were excited to take the new train, which connected Chuncheon to Seoul's subway system. It's pretty awesome. On an express train, we can arrive in Seoul in only 50 minutes. Unfortunately, we can't yet figure out which trains are express or standard, so we take a chance of having to make 15 stops, therefore extending the ride time to an hour and 25 minutes. Either way, it's still shorter than the slow train! The other thing about the change is that reserved seats are not available. It works just like the subway - the first one to the seat gets to sit in it. We were lucky enough to have a seat both coming and going.

We headed to just outside Itaewon for some burgers at Jacoby's but we didn't realize they were closed for lunch during the week. Bummer. We walked down the street and ate at Le Vert instead. It was okay, slightly disappointing since Jacoby's is ranked #1 in Seoul for their burgers and Michael was expecting a delicious hamburger.

After that, we went over to the National Palace. I'm not sure if it was because of the holidays or the weather, but the palace was closed. The museum was still open and so we checked that out. We got to see some old relics from Korea's imperial days and even some random Vietnam stuff. We also got to see some Royal cars from back in the day.

This is some sort of self-propelled water clock.

This was a pretty good museum, although a bit too much for Michael and I to take in. There were rows and rows of royal seals and documents (all in Korean, of course) and about 1/4 of the things were just replicas. We enjoyed the stamp making station at the end and ended up with a couple of neat postcards for my collection.

Our last stop was to Myeongdong, Korea's famous shopping district. Can you believe we have been here almost a year and just now are getting to some of the more touristy parts of Korea? It was starting to get dark and it was a pretty cold day so after taking in the sites a little bit (and stopping to shop at H&M), we decided to eat at Mr. Pizza.

A four-story Dunkin' Donuts

I was surprised to see that Mr. Pizza operated the exact same way as Pizza Hut. There's a salad bar and the pizzas are nearly as expensive as Pizza Hut's. One nice thing about restaurants here is that they let you share. When Michael ordered a Coke Zero (specifically saying one), the waitress brought it out with two straws, fully expecting both of us to drink for the price of one!
Their motto is a little weird.

"Love for Women"

On the second of this year, we went to our own Myeongdong in Chuncheon. We did a little shopping and saw Tron at Primus. It was our first experience at Primus Theaters and will probably be our last. The screens are smaller and the seating is not as nice. The 1000 won discount doesn't really make up for the lack of awesomeness. We are CGV whores.

Gizmo "re-enacting" Tron.

All in all it was a nice, relaxing vacation filled with chocolate and heated floors. I was going a little stir-crazy in the end and I don't think I can handle any more "stay-cations". I was actually excited to go back to work on the third. Time off is meant for adventure! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and we'll be seeing many of you in only a couple of months!

Returning to the U.S.A.

We just learned today that our possible replacements will be expected to arrive in mid-March. That means we will probably be coming home sometime between March 21 and March 31. So if everything goes well, we will be able to return in about 11 weeks. It seems odd that we don't have a ending date, but things around here are just done spur of the moment. We won't know the exact date possibly until the day before our flight.

As excited we are to go home, we are also sad to be leaving behind some things. Michael got his first Kimchi craving today and I will really miss BBQ cheetos. I love being able to walk to work everyday and be so close to a large city. I will miss seeing mountains everyday. Reserved seating needs to be implemented into American movie theaters. There are also many things we still have to do before we go. Even though many festivals have been cancelled lately, we will definitely have some adventures between now and March.

Just 77 days and we are finished! Start the countdown!

Sorry for the lack of postage. We are having a bit of a struggle doing anything besides our usual hike, school and lounging routine right now. We learned that all of the festivals this winter were cancelled due to a Hoof and Mouth Disease scare and skiing is more expensive than we'd like. Oh, and we're also working on getting our girl, Gizmo, vaccinated and planning out the rest of our time here in good old Korea. Stay tuned, I will have some of our winter vacation adventures posted soon.