Bukhansan National Park

On a sunny day in March, we headed out to Seoul for a bit of exploring. We wanted to go hiking and we'd heard that Bukhansan is a nice hike. We took the subway to Dobongsan station and looked around for all of the hikers we were supposed to follow. We had a hard time finding any. We finally picked two serious looking hikers with heavy packs and expensive looking gear.

We were off on a hike through the concrete jungle. Not sure if we were going the right way, but not having any other options, we followed them for about a mile down this busy road on the outskirts of Seoul. 

About 20 minutes later, we took a turn down a country road past a military camp.

Some time later, the hikers ahead walked into a YMCA camp. Oops. We decided to keep going, figuring we would hit the mountain eventually. We walked past some wildlife.

Finally, we made it! The Korean versions of Yogi Bear and BooBoo welcomed us to the park.

Making sure our hair is fixed. For some reason, Koreans want to make sure they look nice at all times, so they have mirrors everywhere. A couple kilometers later, there was a mirror tied to a tree for our convenience.

Kitty! This shy gal was just hanging out in the mountains

It was a smoggy day in Seoul, but the view was pretty nice.

After a bit of hiking, we decided to head back. All in all, it was a nice little visit. I wish we had found the main entrance to the park, but we still had a nice time!

10 Days

The eighth marked thirteen months of living in Korea. We've really enjoyed our time here, but we're excited to be leaving soon. It didn't seem like it would happen, but two replacements have been hired and we will be flying home in about 10 days! We've been hurriedly preparing ourselves to go. Being so busy with everything has caused me to slack on the blog.

Some of the things we've been up to include:

Packing all of our unnecessary items into two giant boxes to mail home on the slow boat.

Trying to sell all of the possessions we've accumulated over the course of a year. We managed to buy a lot of stuff.

Wedding Planning. Table arrangements and invitations don't make themselves, at least I think.

Next week we will be training the new recruits, filing for pension, closing our bank accounts and furiously cleaning and clearing out our apartment.

Plane tickets have been purchased. Because of the horribly tragedy in Japan, the travel agent had trouble getting us direct flights home. Our plans are to fly to Japan on March 26th where the airlines will accommodate us for the night and then leave for Chicago on the 27th. It's all happening so fast!

Seoul Grand Park

Michael and I hit up the zoo a couple weeks ago. At 50 degrees fahreinheit, it was the perfect day for walking around outside! The Seoul Zoo is located in Seoul Grand Park in Gwacheon, South Korea. Easily accessed through the Seoul Metropolitan Subway system, it's less than a two hour trip from Chuncheon.

Not much to talk about. We saw it all: lions, tigers, bears, the meerkats.

My favorite part was seeing the red pandas, so cute!

We had a lunch of roasted squid and corn for me and a deep-fried hotdog for Michael.

This guy tried to eat Michael's hot dog.

I was pretty impressed with Seoul's zoo and admission was only 3,000 won a piece. The zoo is very spread out so we were pretty tired after all of our walking, but it was such a nice day to be outside!

A Trip to the Dentist!

Because I am such a cheap person, I had not been to the dentist in two years. And the time before that was four and a half years ago! Money is always a good excuse, but it is probably not a good idea to neglect your teeth. Anyway, since I have dental coverage for the first time ever, I decided to cash in on it before we head back to the States.

On Sunday morning, Michael and I headed to Ye Dental Clinic together. We arrived at a quarter to 11 and it was pretty busy. I waited for 15 minutes and they took me into x-ray. After that, I was sent back to the waiting area for half an hour. This seems about what I wait at an office in the US too.

The first thing I did was see the dentist. He poked around in my teeth and determined that I had a cavity. I had suspected this was the case, but luckily it was just a small one. He said, "It will be 30,000. Okay?" As soon as I said yes he prepped the table and started drilling. It took only a few minutes to drill, fill and seal the tooth. He was out in less than 15 minutes.

Then came the real work. The dental hygienist was rough and unsympathetic that my teeth were so plaque-covered because I hadn't had a teeth cleaning in two years. She scraped plaque with a motorized pick, polished my teeth, and flossed. I thought my teeth were pretty okay in the flossing department, but she lectured me before I left to floss my bottom front teeth.

All said, I paid 80,000 won for my visit. Not bad for an x-ray, cleaning, and filling.

Michael didn't fare as well as I did. The hygienist said his teeth were very clean, but he ended up with significantly more cavities than I and he was able see a dentist last January. I won't tell you the number, but he has to go back this Sunday to get the rest filled. :(

Lunar New Year

I'm a bit late in posting (three weeks, ahhh!) but I thought I'd let you all know what we were up to during Seolnal. This year was extra special since it fell on a Thursday, so we had three days off of work and a five day weekend! We originally thought we would go skiing during this vacation, but we backed out. Somehow, the price of skiing is just intimidating to me. Every week we get closer to our impending unemployment and I feel like a real tightwad, wanting to save up every last bit of the money we are making so we don't end up squatting with family members for the rest of our lives.

We did have some fun though. On Wednesday, we headed to Seoul and enjoyed burgers at Crazy Burger. Then we stopped at the Foreign Food Mart for salsa. This is the only place in Korea where we have been able to find decent salsa.

Our director suggested visiting the Hanok Village in the middle of Seoul which sounded interesting enough. We ended up getting lost and wandering through Namsam Park, which is the mountain that N. Seoul Tower rests on. We had a great view of the city below and got some exercise, so it wasn't a total loss.

Walking back to the station, we stumbled upon pet central with dozens of pet stores. We cooed over the adorable puppies and kittens before heading to Yongsan. This was probably our 6th stop to Yongsan in the course of a year - the electronics market has pretty much everything!

On Thursday we just stayed in. Many shops we closed.

Friday, we went to VIPS, a popular restaurant chain in Korea. They are known for their steaks and for the salad bar, which is essentially a buffet. We were both very impressed with the selection of fresh food and will be going back before we leave. This is a pricy restaurant, between 20 and 50 dollars a piece.

Saturday we headed back to Seoul because Michael's power cord on his laptop stopped working. Once again, we were back in Yongsan at the electronics market. Success! A storekeeper was able to locate a power cord in only about 10 minutes. We ate at a basic Korean fast food place and had some basic food - pork cutlet and seafood rice bowl.

We decided to see a movie and were desperate enough to watch Gulliver's Travels. I remember my sis reading this as a kid and her loving it. Well, the Jack Black version is a modern take and was not so great. Michael and I felt dumber after seeing it and our wallets felt slimmer as well after spending more than 20 USD to see it.

Sunday we went for a hike and did our weekly shopping at HomePlus. Strawberries are in season and are delicious!

All in all it was a delightful break, but I was happy to be going back to work on Monday. I'm having a hard time keeping busy during time off. I spend too much time in front of the TV and letting my brain turn to mush.

A Winter Hike

Since winter arrived, the amount of hiking that we've been doing has slowed down significantly. For awhile we were going every morning, but now it's down to one or two times a week if at all. Usually, we only tackle about a third of the mountain. One Sunday, however, we had the time to slow down and do the whole shebang. Decked out in our finest hiking gear, we trekked through the snow and cold to reach the top.

Lesson Learned: The last train to Chuncheon does not actually go to Chuncheon...

I lured Michael out of the house one weekend with the promises of a burger. I told him it was just dinner and then I threw in the idea of a movie as we were leaving the apartment. It looked fabulous in my mind. I looked up the times of the trains (although I still wasn't quite sure which ones were express, which I do now: the red ones) and I looked up movies at Mega Box in the Coex Mall, just in case. There was a movie playing at 8:25 and I figured that at 1 hour and 40 minutes, we had plenty of time to make the 11:03 train or if needed, the 11:23. My mental math should have included packed subway cars, running up several flights of stairs, and waiting for trains to come (sometimes they are 20 minutes apart!).

We got on the 4:43 train to Seoul, filled with people who got on at Chuncheon station (we get on the second stop, Namchuncheon). Not an express train, we had to stand for about an hour and twenty minutes only to get off and stand on two more packed subway cars for about another hour. After purchasing tickets to the movie, we went clear to the other side of the mall to TGI Fridays. We went primarily because Michael remembers there as the best burger he has ever had in Korea.

This time around, Michael was disappointed and so was I because I was forced to order some noodles doused in cream sauce (there was some guise on the menu of there being vegetables in it, but all I saw were a couple of onion pieces). A good time was had though, because we were able to enjoy some food, even if it wasn't the best. After our dinner, we hustled back to the theater. Ordered some cheese popcorn and a pepsi nex and got to the movie just in time.

We saw The Be All and End All and it was pretty fantastic. It's about a 15 year old boy who finds out he's dying and his final wish is to lose his virginity. Predominately a comedy, I was extremely happy with the choice.

Here's the part of the night were some mistakes were made: First, we went to the bathroom after the movie. This slowed us down about ten minutes. Next, I pulled us off the train at the right stop, then Michael decided it was the wrong stop. We got back on the train and he realized it was in fact the right stop, just as the doors closed and the train pulled away from the station. So we had to get off at the next stop, cross to the other side of the tracks and wait 10 minutes for another train to come. By this point, Michael was getting upset and we realized that the last train to Chuncheon (according to the schedule we picked up) was not 11:23, it was 11.

We continued to Sanbong station anyway and ran up the twenty flights of stairs finally to the departure gate. There was a train, still there! It was about 11:10 when we got on and it departed about 5 minutes later. We were so excited to be on a train back home and were surprised about 20 minutes later when a message came over the loudspeaker. The next stop was the final stop of the night and the train would be ending services.

We scrambled off the train as everyone else was and kind of just stood around the train station for a couple of minutes, trying to decide what to do. We were in a town that we didn't even know the name of, and we didn't know what we should do. A couple that was on the train with us came up to us and told us they were going to the sauna (jjimjjilbang). Our previous experience at the 24 hour sauna was not very pleasant, so we decided to go the other way, toward some neon lights of the small town. We walked around and saw some standard Korean city things: a movie theatre, some restaurants, and many closed buildings since it was now nearly midnight. We were able to locate one motel, the M motel. It was located on the 9th floor of a dingy building. This didn't seem like a good sign, but we didn't have many options.

Long story short, we stayed in a seedy motel for 6 hours. At 6 am, we woke up and caught the next train to Chuncheon. Our taxi driver could barely keep his eyes open as we went on a wild ride back to our apartment. A short time later, we were fast asleep with our cuddly kitten.

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.