Life This Week in South Korea Dec 18-24, 2023

Monday 12.18

Yep, it is pretty gosh darn cold out there. It was 18 degrees (F) when I left for class, but honestly, on a sunny day with no wind…and my body being the hard-working furnace that it is, I was not so uncomfortable walking the half-mile to class. I pulled my hands up into my sleeves and stuck them in my pockets and I was really fine.

Got last week’s test back. I got an 83. It would have been higher but for some careless spelling mistakes. But I have to remind myself I didn’t even know there was going to BE a test that day, so…for being unprepared, I’m pretty pleased. Plus, it’s higher than any grade I got last term, so…Yay, Me. Yay 준 씨 (Jun the tutor) for helping me SO MUCH.

Didn’t go to Cell Phone Plan Land cuz my moral support friend wasn’t feeling up to going tonight, so we’ll go tomorrow night. And tomorrow I have to go without or without her cuz my SIM card expires on Wednesday…so if I don’t have a Korean phone plan by then I’ll have to pay for another month of SIM connection and still won’t be able to order online.

Had convenience store dinner…some sweet&spicy chicken that I put over the house rice. It was actually quite yummy. $4.

Tuesday, 12.19

It was a big day! I left the premises and took PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION BY MYSELF. One town over, bus with no transfer, somewhat familiar area. I planned my route beforehand while I had wifi at home, took screen shots of everything, and headed out on my voyage. I went to a pretzel shop for breakfast. BY MYSELF. Had a lovely bagel with brie, apple, cranberry and honey…a latte, and got a cinnamon pretzel to bring home for later. It was glorious. My phone worked going there, but stopped working on the way back, but I got on the same bus as earlier, just on the opposite side of the street, and it brought me home 🙂

This may not sound like much, but for someone who’s generally pretty independent, to have been so dependent for four months on other people for going ANYWHERE…was really…it was not good for me. And it’s just very unnerving to be somewhere unfamiliar without a car, and losing your source of directions, transportation information, ability to call a taxi, and language translator app to even ASK anyone how to get home, etc. That has pretty well crippled me since I’ve been here.

Then a friend went with me after school to the cell phone store to finally get my permanent Korean phone number. Hopefully this will end all my phone internet connectivity issues and I will be fully free again.

It was a little challenging, the store guy didn’t know more than a couple words of English…and I don’t know enough to talk about something as complex as a cell phone plan. My friend’s phone works so we were able to use her translator app as needed and we essentially got the job done, although I ended up with a much more expensive plan than I had expected and had to sign a 1-year contract when I really would have preferred a monthly, since I’m just not sure how long I’ll be here. I was *prepared* to do a 1-year contract, but I’d have preferred not to. Anyway, for better of worse, it’s done and now I can get on with life here in Korea without worrying about getting stranded everywhere I go.

Wednesday, 12. 20

Another test today. It felt pretty good. There was one word I could not recognize on the dictation…and I’m sure I made a couple mistakes throughout, but I *understood* everything. I wasn;’ taking wild guesses at answers. I’m curious to see my grade.

Thursday, 12.21

Today was a test. Not a school test, but a LIFE test. HOW MUCH CAN BETTYE WITHSTAND? Ha. So, I left class at 5:30 to head over to meet Hyungun, my language exhchange friend. It was only my second solo bus voyage so I was a little anxious. I left the school building to walk to the bus stop in 9 degree (Farhrenheit) darkness. As I was headed in the direction of the stop, I checked the schedule one more time (it seems to my unfamiliar eye that the schedules change constantly)…and surprise, surprise, NO DATA. NO INTERNET. But wait! I just got my magical Korean phone plan! I thought that was supposed to solve all my problems!

Ohhh…now I didn’t want to walk UP A HILL to a bus stop while uncertain that the right bus was coming there and I didn’t even know what number bus it was anyway (I usually prepare better for the event that the phone will cut out, but I had a false sense of security since I had the new phone plan so I hadn’t taken screen shots of every leg of my journey). NOW WHAT? I headed in the other (downward) direction thinking I would just get a taxi instead, it was SO cold, I didn’t want to be wandering around and waiting for busses.

HEY DUMMY – NO INTERNET MEANS NO REQUESTING A TAXI.

Ohhh…I knew I was already running late to meet Hyungun and now I didn’t even have a way to contact him to let him know…OH THE ANXIETY…in my “what do I do now” wandering I passed a cell phone store, the same company I had just signed with (but not the same store) and I went in and asked “영어?” English?? And they all looked at me like Not So Much. Okay. Terrific. I couldn’t even use the translator app to explain my situation because No Internet, so it was a series of pantomiming and us each understanding a word here and there of one another…and him finally going to HIS translator app to ask me questions.

About 20 minutes later he had me reconnected to the internet – he thought it was cuz I still had my US e-sim turned on, but I don’t know…that’s been turned on since I’ve been here and I HAVE had intermittent connectivity, but it was working for the moment so I wasn’t questioning.

Now I was so late (we had planned to meet at 6:30 in a Starbucks in a big mall in Gangnam, which is about 20 minutes away by car), and it was already 6:30 and I still didn’t know how I was getting there. At that point, a taxi seemed the safest as it would be twice as fast as a bus, plus, i have a greater comfort level with a taxi, plus WARM. Have I mentioned it was dark and 9 degrees?? And I have a stupid fall coat and no gloves and no socks? Ugh.

So I walked down the block to a better pick-up location and started requesting a ride. For 15 minutes I moved from place to place (oh, Hyungun was just like – when I finally texted him – no worries, I’ll just go buy socks – ha ha).

At least 37 times during this fiasco I thought JUST CANCEL JUST RESCHEDULE THIS IS RIDICULOUS YOU’RE FREEZING JUST TELL HIM YOU CAN’T COME but…I just…I could not do that. Honestly, meeting my new friend Hyungun on Thursday evenings has become a (the) bright spot in my week. So…on I went. I could NOT get a taxi to accept the request, so I finally walked BACK to a bus stop and waited 15 minutes to FINALLY get on a bus bound for the mall.

I finally got to the mall at 7:30, where Hyungun was still patiently waiting (it’s fine, I just got a coffee)…BUT THEN…(ha ha now what)…neither of us realized there were TWO Starbucks in the giant mall, so of course the one I was being guided to by the mall maps was the WRONG one….which I didn’t realize til I got there and was like where are you and he was like where are YOU?? Ha ha. He was like tell me where you are, I’ll come get you…he finally found me, and we made our way back to his table with his cold coffee and sandwich (sadface).

I left school at 5:30 and sat down at the table with him at 8:00.

But it was worth it 🙂 We had some nice conversation…he brought me a giant jar of kimchi his mother made…and afterwards he walked me to my bus stop (the man is a literal walking Green Flag), and that was that. I was home, freezing and exhausted by 11:00pm.

It was a DAY.

Friday, 12.22

I am TIRED. I can definitely feel my body getting more tired every day from Monday to Friday as I walk to school. By Friday I am just DRAGGING myself up The  ^*%^$#! Hill. And I was cold all day. While the temps were slightly lower yesterday, this day FELT colder to me. I was cold during the entire 4-hour class to the point it was hard to concentrate…and when I got home afterwards I cancelled grocery shopping plans with my friend cuz I was like I. Just. Cannot. Go. Back. Out. There. She was like yay, I didn’t want to go out there, either, ha ha. She did walk down the block(ish) to Papa Johns for her dinner and picked up some chicken strips for me 🙂

Today my internet has been pretty much nonexistent. I had to do my tutoring session this morning on my phone cuz the laaptop would just not connect. It’s hard for me to see anything on the phone, so that was annoying.

Why Does Korean Internet Hate Me? I praised it SO HIGHLY before I got here (It’s The Fastest Internet in the World!) and now it’s just…letting me down daily. My…quality of life here is directly tied to having reliable internet. Ugh.

Saturday, 12.23

Whee! Fun! It was a super fun day! Yay, I deserve it 🙂 So, the other night my friend Hyungun had asked about my new phone plan and he was shocked at the price and thought maybe they were ripping me off cuz I’m a foreignor…so he said he’d come out on Saturday to go back to the cell phone store with me and see if he could get me a better plan (heart eyes). So we met, he was unable to get the price down BUT apparently there’d been a small miscommunication with the price – the man had shown me the price on his phone (90,000won, which is about $70 US) BUT what he didn’t make clear (to us who can’t understand what he was saying) is that he was giving me a discount, and the price was actually 69,000won (about $53US). Still a little more than I’d expected but not unmanageable.

After the cell phone store, we walked out and we just started walking (I’d gone there by bus)…and finally he was like “do you want to get coffeee somewhere where we can talk?” OF COURSE I DO. So we walked to a coffee shop and talked for about an hour, by then it was around 5pm and he asked if I’d eaten lunch – OF COURSE NOT, I’D HOPED TO HAVE LUNCH WITH HIM. He’d remembered a particular dish I’d mentioned wanting to try 닭갈비 – spicy marinated chicken served with ramen and a mountain of melty mozzarella cheese, so he said he knew of a good 닭갈비 place nearby. Because it was Saturday night, on a holiday weekend no less, it was pretty crowded so we waited a bit for a table. I mentioned it was good to be out, he was like “what do you mean?” I said I hadn’t been out at in the evening in awhile and it was just nice to be out. He goes, “anytime you want to go out and do something, let me know, I’m in” Eeee.

The food was amazing. Come on, how could spicy chicken with noodles and melted mozzarella cheese be BAD?? He also made me my first 소맥 – SOMEK, which is soju + mekju (beer). It was deelightful. So we ate and drank and talked and laughed. THEN he asked if I’d ever been to a traditional 술집 – which means, literally, alchohol house 🙂 So, a bar, but not a cocktail bar, just soju and mekju and “drinking food,” like pajeon (vegetable pancakes), tteokbokki (rice cakes in spicy red sauce), stews, etc. Of course I have not, so off went in search of a little hole in the wall place with cheap drinks and food.

I never would have gone into these two places by myself because they seem so…KOREAN. Like, not a place foreignors go…and I’m not totally familiar with how all these places work. Sometimes you go in and seat yourself, sometimes you call loudly for someone to come take your order, sometimes you go to a counter to place your order, sometimes you press a button on the table and someone will come take your order. Sometimes you pay in advance, sometimes you pay at the end. It’s just a lot of uncertainty. So I was grateful to be with someone who knows the ropes.

Anyway, several more someks and I was a pretty happy girl ha ha. I drink so infrequently anymore…mostly cuz I normally have such a high alchohol tolerance that it takes so much to even just make me tipsy, that I’m overful and it’s just not worth it. But the combination of soju and the very light Korean beer was lovely. And I’m a good drunk, ha ha. You know how people’s personalities can change when they drink? Mean drunks, sloppy drunks, happy drunks? I’m a happy drunk. It just like takes down my wall of inhibitions and I can laugh and say/ask things I wouldn’t normally have the comfort level to. So it was fun.

SO FUN. Ha ha.

At one point he took a picture of our table with bottles on it and sent it to his friend/my tutor and asked “guess who I’m drinking with?” and somehow Jun guessed correctly.

Around 11:45 he was like “my train stops running at midnight, I gotta go!” and off we skedaddled before he turned into a pumpkin. And I walked home. The End. That’s probably the best day I’ve had since I’ve been here 🙂

Sunday, 12.24

Christmas Eve for me here in the future. The holiday/non-holiday has felt very weird. I KNOW the holiday is coming, I see decorations, but it’s like it’s not a part of me. Anyway. My building friend and I went in the evening to Cheonggyecheon Stream, which is a stream that used to be a highway and now it’s more like a long park along the water. They had it decorated for Christmas and we walked along a long way to see the sights but finally it just got too cold so we made our to a vegan restaurant I’d seen on an earlier outing. It was excellent, I would for sure go back there again.

Then home…to a SAUNA. Something was out of whack with the heat. And not only was it just SUPER HOT, because it’s floor heating, the floors felt like walking across the hot sand at the beach in August. It was painful. I slept with my window wide open even though it was only about 20 degrees. It was the only way to stay alive.

Tomorrow is Christmas, but….it’s just weird being away from everything and everyone I know that’s holiday related. But I hope everyone else has a lovely, peaceful, warm (but not TOO warm), joyful day with family, friends, cats, books, Doritos, whatever is your preference 🙂

메리 그리스마스! Merry Christmas!