Life This Week in South Korea: Oct 28-Nov 6, 2024
Monday, Oct 28
Was supposed to go have a ct-scan follow-up to my kidney procedure back in June, but I cancelled. Hey. If I’m not gonna leave my box to go see leaves, I’m certainly not going to leave it to spend three uncomfortable hours in a hospital.
Stayed in bed a long time in the morning (as if I hadn’t just done that all day yesterday), then went to class.
Another scintillating day in Seoul.
Tuesday, Oct 29
Tutor in the morning, a writing test and grammar test in the afternoon. Came home and crashed. I have really hit the wall on studying and school work.
It’s after 9pm and I’m listening to the live bands on campus at the fall festival. This is the festival when I hurt my foot last year, And it still hurts. One year.
No class tomorrow cuz we have a class trip. They call them “culture classes.” In my last class we got THREE of them…this time only one. It’s to Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. I went there right about this time last year. It should be less crowded this time cuz last year it was on Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) so admission was free.
If I don’t leave my box I’ll get another unexcused absence.
Must. Leave. The. Box.
Wednesday, Oct 30
Oofah. Today was our culture class field trip to Gyeongbokgung. It was crowded after all, cuz it was some special day when they offered free admission. I mean, the standard admission is 3,000 won, which is $2.18 US. Which…okay. I know I’m speaking from a place of privilege, where I can afford to do an unnecessary thing for $2, but.
Anyway. Unfortunately the teacher had an inefficient tour plan and we went up and down (and up and down) the same steps several times, rather than just doing everything up the stairs…then doing everything not up the stairs. And a lot of walking. You pass through one palacey building to get to the next, sort of like a railroad apartment on a very large scale…I lost count of how many times we went up (UP) and through to proceed on our way. Fortunately, a sweet group of girls stayed with me and helped me up and down cuz by the end I was really…not making it up anymore on my own.
By the end I was crippled and when we passed the main gate I hightailed it out…then texted the teacher to say I left. She called me (ha ha, SNAGGED) and was like, no, you can’t do that, you have to come back. HA HA HA HA sorry not sorry. I managed to say “I just can’t walk anymore,” what was she gonna do?? It was 5:00…class is over at 5:30…I was DONE.
We covered more territory than I did last year when I went…but I still want to visit one of the palaces alone. People can never understand how I can spend 10 minutes working on taking a picture of one small thing. But that’s what I like doing. So today was just like snap and run. And by run I mean limp quickishly.
Thursday, Oct 31
Today I played hooky. I went to a park that has looked pretty on social…with a hanok style cafe on the grounds. But it is still just a little early for a full foliage, so I had a nice iced latte with a salt bread…and then walked around and took a few unremarkable photos.
I did make myself take the subway…cuz it was during rush hour and I thought I would never get an uber. But it was a different line than I’m used to taking so it was a lot of back and forth and up and down getting myself to the right place at the two different stations. I’d already walked a mile by the time I got off at my last stop…and hadn’t even started doing The Thing I Wanted to Do yet! I’ve only got about 2 decent miles in me, after that I’m starting to hate life. Yesterday at the palace I walked three miles. But I rationalized that if I got myself there by public transport, then I could uber home. And I had a nice, chatty uber driver, so it was a fun ride and I got to actually speak some Korean with someone who wasn’t set on correcting me.
I saw some school kids out in costume on the street…they were so cute…but I don’t miss Halloween at all.
Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Itaewon Halloween disaster where all those people died from a crowd crush in a narrow alley. I will say they learned some from that, as anytime there’s any event with a potentially large crowd (like when we joined the 999,999 people to see the fireworks earlier this month), there were police and security everywhere, making sure people are moving in an orderly manner and not blocking roads/paths.
For the most part, Koreans are very law/rule-abiding. Like they will ONLY cross the street at a crosswalk, patiently waiting for the light to change in their favor. Unlike NY who I see just did away with the jaywalking law. People just ignored the law and crossed the road when and where they wanted and finally it just became too much trouble to try and arrest/ticket/fine them, when there are really bigger fish to fry in the city.
New Yorkers are REBELS.
Friday, Nov 1
A normal day. I took it easy in the morning before class…my knee is a little painful so…I wanted to give it a day of rest before the weekend.
After class I walked to the mall for the bank and ArtBox store for new pens and post-its.
Living Large.
Saturday, Nov 2
Got up early and headed to Jongno-gu, which is more central Seoul, around the big palaces, City Hall, etc. There were several areas I wanted to go to for pictures…but again, I was just a bit early, peak foliage-wise. I’m gonna have several places to revisit next week!
I took the bus and for once made no mistakes.
I had a latte at a nice cafe and had some good news from back home – that my old boss has a new grand-baby – the mother being one of my very favorite people from work. I was happy for them but it was a little bittersweet hearing the good news from 6,000 miles away, sitting at a cafe by myself. There were some tears. Fortunately I was there early so there were not many people to see, but still.
After finishing my weeping and coffee drinking, I headed to one of the smaller palaces, Unghyeongung Palace. There will be a separate post about that.
After the mini palace I headed on foot to a brunch place that was a little further than it seemed on the app. It was crowded and I had to wait a bit. But they use the Catch Table app, so you just put in your cell phone number and then can wander around or find someplace to sit and they text you when your table is ready, so the wait was not too bad.
And then I REALLY misjudged…started walking towards the bus…my hip and knee were bothering me…and then I realized it was a 12-minute walk (by Naver standards…and they use race walkers as reference, not fat 60-something’s with bad joints), and I was just like nope. And was in an Uber in less than 10 minutes, heading home in comfort.
Ahh.
Sunday, Nov 3
I’d had more leaf-hunting on the agenda for today but my body was saying NO THANK YOU so I stayed home to do work and study and relax.
It was fun finally getting out this week. After failing the midterm I have really made an effort to not obsess about studying…I’m not passing the class, anyway. So I do my homework and daily vocabulary…but don’t do all the pre-class prep I’ve been doing. And that’s been good for my mental health. I have more leaf-peeping planned for next week – I’m trying to cram a LOT of places in cuz one good rain right now and this will all be over.
Just look at all those pictures! And there’s many more I’m holding for other posts. It’s good to be taking pictures again…even if they’re non-spectacular, ha.
Anyway, Happy November – see ya later love ya bye.
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