Monday, July 28

The entrance to Kondae, the food/bar alleys near me.

Had an early morning hospital appointment: 7:30am to get bloodwork done, then 9am at the nephrologist.

That’s what I thought. But surprise, they also wanted me to pee in the cup. WHY DON’T THEY TELL YOU AHEAD OF TIME THAT THEY’RE GOING TO WANT YOU TO PEE IN THE CUP?!? They tell you to fast/not fast before bloodwork…why can’t they tell you about cup-peeing as well? Because LIKE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT I peed before leaving the house. And had no more pee to give. I was fresh out.

I sat in the stall for THIRTY MINUTES. Nuthin. I snuck out of the blood/pee area, went and got some water, walked around for about 15 minutes, then went back to my stall. Still nuthin. I finally gave up and put my failure of a cup onto the shelf, and went over to the area where my appointment with the dr would be.

When it was finally my turn, one of the PAs was like follow me and hurried me back over to the blood/pee area. The woman behind the desk reached underneath and handed me a new pee cup. I said “chey-song-hamnida…upsoyo.” Sorry, there is none. Ha. Then went back to wait at the dr’s waiting area.

If only they’d told me ahead of time, I could have cooperated.

Anyway, the dr said the statins she gave me last time have helped bring my cholesterol level down, but my triglycerides are still high, so new meds for that, and more statins to keep the cholesterol in a good range. And my low kidney function is still low. She’d thought the statin might have helped with that. At the pharmacy I got a third thing I don’t know what it is. I have boxes and boxes of meds to take home with me. Ugh.

Tuesday, July 29

Haircut and bang perm day. A new salon. Very nice. I went armed with a picture from that very salon: This is what I want. This style, this shape, this length, these layers.

Her: chic tapered layers

And, as usual, I came home looking a little like Berries & Cream. What IS that? They NEVER get the bottom right – the tapered bottom. I don’t know what else to say/do to get them to understand.

Me: The same Berries & Cream they ALWAYS give me.

Oh well. It’s so hot my hair’s up in a ponytail everyday anyway.

And I got a fresh bang perm to take back to the states with me since it seems virtually impossible to get there. And this will have to hold me til November when I’m in Japan.

Wednesday, July 30

My friend gave me this pin. It’s a success amulet. Success in surviving Korea, ha ha.

Crashed today. Felt tired. Felt overwhelmed by all I have left to do. Never went out. Stayed inside and did productive and restful stuff.

Oh, finished The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. Wow. I gave it Five Stars. I NEVER give Five Stars. I have maybe five Five Star books from my entire lifetime. Published in 2020, the story was set during the depression in the 1930s in America’s dustbowl states/era and the huge pilgrimage of people to CA to “find a better life,” only to find themselves in a worse situation than they’d started out in. Treated as “less than” cuz they weren’t “from here,” there were so many parallels with what the US is going through right now. I cried. A LOT. For the characters. For my country. It was a good but hard story, told well. Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, do recommend.

Nine days til I leave Korea. Single digits.

Thursday, July 31

Back to the hospital this morning for my final visit with the eye people 🙂 I literally started tearing up at the desk at the end…they’ve all been so sweet and kind during my many MANY visits.

I got a clean bill of eye health (still recovering well) and an appointment sheet as I was leaving “come back back around fall 2026 for a follow-up.” Ha ha.

I had to wait awhile for an English copy of my medical report to bring back to the US with me…so I hung out at Dunkin Donuts next door for maybe my last mochi donut (I’ll miss those) and a yummy lychee peach coolata. I always look at the fancy new drinks but always go with the tried-and-true favorites. But I figure with a week to go, I should try something different. It was lovely.

Then I came home, changed out of all my sweaty clothes, ate leftover fried chicken (gonna miss this KFC chicken), lay down to get cool/start a new audiobook…and woke up four hours later at 6:30pm.

Friday, August 1

I had to come to Korea to find a Hello Kitty I Heart New York tee shirt

ONE WEEK TIL I LEAVE KOREA. 

Today was full court press. I pulled EVERYTHING out of EVERYWHERE. Sorted through all the paper piles, the meds, the little incidental things that just sort of appear in your life but that you don’t need to carry forward with you.

This made a BIG MESS. And then I was tired and wanted to quit and take a nap…but my bed was covered with ALL my clothes, books, etc. Ugh. So I had to actually finish the project.

In the end, everything fits easily into the 2 suitcases…at the end, the cameras, laptop, assorted electronics, etc, will go into the rolly carry-on. Nothing will be overweight. I won’t have “WARNING! HEAVY! LIFT CAREFULLY!” stickers all over like I did when I was coming here.

I’m feeling a little hopeful that maybe I CAN travel onward (after the US) with just two suitcases (instead of three). That’s the goal. If I was only staying in warm climates it would be easy – but I’ll probably always be in either Korea or Japan for December and maybe January, so I need some cold weather things, too. And they’re bigger and bulkier.

I envy slim people with their tiny clothes. “I can fit 28 days of clothing in my purse!” Ugh. Katie. Katie takes a DUFFEL BAG for a week away – ANYWHERE.

Anyway, the hard part is behind me.

It was nice only having to pay eight days of rent 🙂 No rent again for me til December! Gotta get this credit card paid down again, so the next three months rent budget goes towards that. And airfare to fly around the US.

The most updated itinerary is Aug 9-Sep 4: Los Angeles, Sep 4-Oct 9: Florida, and Oct 10-30, San Antonio. Oct 30: Japan. And beyond.

Saturday, August 2

Yesterday was a crash day. I was pooped from packing on Friday. I watched an anime, “Silent Voice.” I’m trying to watch more anime before I go to Japan because there are so many places that are like “these are the stairs from Spirited Away!” (I’m making that reference up), and I want to know the references. And I’ll be watching lots of Ghibli cuz I want to go to Ghibli Park, maybe in the spring cuz I’ll have more time (3 months vs 2 this fall), and it’s quite a ways from Tokyo.

I hope to stay at least part of the springtime visit in Tokyo, well, near Tokyo. Tokyo’s more expensive than the more southern places I’ll be staying, so…we’ll see. But anyway, yeah, anime.

Did I tell you guys about my KPop Demon Hunters experience? I can’t recall if I talked about that in last week’s post. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, it’s an animated Netflix movie based on two kpop bands – a boy band and a girl band…there’s some good against evil, protecting the world, yadda yadda yadda. And some really good songs. If you havent heard the song Golden SOMEWHERE….I don’t know. Anyway. People kept telling me I needed to watch, I needed it watch. It would make sense, right? I love so many Korean things, kpop, etc. The thing is, I’m just not a big animation fan. In theory yes. The artwork is incredible, etc. Just watching it doesn’t do much for me. I feel no connection to cartoon characters…and just like with live action k-dramas, if I don’t feel a connection with any character, it’s just gonna be a miss for me. Animated ANIMALS, yes. Bambi? Dumbo (omg)? Kimba the White Lion? I creid every episode. But people? Not so much. And maybe I just haven’t seen the right one YET, which is why I’m trying to watch them here and there. But this? KPop Demon Hunters? Nope. I feel GUILTY, ha ha. I just stared at the screen the whole time waiting for two things: 1) the song Golden, and 2) for it to be over.

Have any of you watched it? It seems to be transcending any particular interest in Korean music…people you’d never expect to have watched it, have not only watched,and loved it.

Yesterday’s anime was the same for me. It was fine…i did have one brief “eyes filled with tears” moment when the guy tried to save the girl from killing herself by jumping off the balcony – she was saved, he ended up in a coma…and when the mother and sister of suicide attempt girl came to the hospital to say they were so sorry, they got down on their knees in front of coma boy’s mother and I just CANNOT HANDLE people getting on their knees. It makes me so emotional.

Kneeling in front of someone in Korea signifies the deepest respect, apology, or submission. When they do it in kdramas as an apology everyone’s like No No Get Up What Are You Doing?! It’s a really meaningful posture.

Sunday, August 3

Oh. Weirdly, I spent most of the day responding to TikTok comments and questions. I had a post…oh god, I can’t believe I’m about to say this…go viral. Ha ha. Relatively speaking. My highest view count ever was 3,000something. Friday’s post is now at 36,000 and still going. WTH. It was just a poorly filmed/produced montage of me taking apart my whole room and packing up my suitcases…with a voiceover of me talking about how I’m going to miss my little room. And it just took off. And I always try (here, IG, TikTok) to respond to every single comment and question…and there were a LOT. And then it started spilling over to other posts. It was a little crazy.

Am I famous now?? Ha ha. Maybe that Korean entertainment visa is not that far out of reach, after all 🙂

And I ate pudding.

The end. The next time you see me…I’ll be in sunny California  🙁

🙁

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