My Hospital Trip.

I mentioned in my last post that I was sick and/or trying not to get sick. As it turned out... it got even worse. Not only did I have a sore throat and sinus problems, but I ended up with an ear infection which hurt bad in and of itself. But then last night was in the Top 3 most physically painful moments in my life as the earache reached an all-time high (low?). On top of that, the infection began spreading to my eye. So on top of that horrid pain, I didn't also want to end up with pink eye. I decided it was finally time to go to the hospital.

I had morning classes today, so I did those first. Then one of my co-teachers was looking into whether or not I needed to make an appointment to see the doctor at the Sanbon hospital. I could do so, but it wasn't necessary. So another one of my co-teachers called a taxi for me to take me to the hospital from the school.

To cut this part of the story a little shorter, I ended up on the third floor where the ear/nose/throat doctor was. Luckily the receptionist guy spoke some English, so he was able to check me in, help me pay, and tell me where to wait. And I only had to wait like 3 minutes before the staff came back from lunch and took me right in. The doctor spoke a little English, so he asked me what was wrong. I told him. He proceeded to put a camera scope in my ear and tell me, in more medical terms, that I have an ear infection. Imagine that. But then he ended up spraying something up both my nostrils, which was awkwardly uncomfortable. He put some cream stuff in my ear. And then he sprayed something in my throat. Then the nurse printed the prescription papers and took me back to the receptionist guy, who told me I just needed to go to fill it at the pharmacy. I was in and out in 5 minutes.

This is where the story gets annoying, though. I take a bus back to my officetel, as there's a pharmacy on the first floor of the building. The guy looks at the prescription and goes to look for the stuff, but then comes back and tells me he can't fill it here--I have to go a pharmacy right next to the hospital. I had a suspicion that was going to be the case, knowing my luck. So I hop in a taxi and go all the way back to Sanbon. I ask a cashier in a little convenience store attached to the hospital where the pharmacy is, and he points me in the right direction. I find it, hand over the papers, and they have it ready in about 5-ish minutes.

Unfortunately, the lady who gives it to me spoke limited English, so the most she was able to tell me (at least that I could understand) was "Three times a day. Something something something. Do you understand?" Yeah, sure. But I was able to figure it out. It's medicine for 7 days, and I have to take it three times a day for that week. I have no idea what each pill and whatnot is or does (though I'm sure she tried to tell me at one point). But I'm gonna take them anyway.

All the lovely pills I have to take.

I think it's some kind of cough or sore throat syrup.

And then I came back home. Overall, I think all the traveling cost more than the hospital visit and meds.  Or at least equalled out. The hospital visit PLUS the prescriptions came out to roughly 14 dollars (not including travel cost). Yeah. You heard me right. In America, this would have cost me... what... probably something close to 100 bucks? And this is part of why Korea has one of the best healthcare systems in the world.

My Day In Sanbon

So last Sunday (3/10), my neighbor took me to Sanbon, which is basically downtown Gunpo. It's the heart of the city--where everything is at. And it's glorious (at least in comparison to where we're at normally). (Note: All pictures were actually taken today (3/16) when I went back on my own.)

We left about 2:30 PM and grabbed a taxi. Apparently a taxi for two is just as much as a bus for one, so might as well grab a taxi (it's about 2 bucks). He taught me how to get there via taxi so I got to tell the driver "Sanbon yok" (I'm only guessing that's how you spell it until I can confirm). It translates to "Sanbon station." Once we got there, we went to the center of Sanbon so he could show me things in every direction.

Front facing the train station.

Toward the back (away from the station).



To the left with some benches

(and I think towards the bus stop)

To the right (I think).

  

We decided we were gonna go see a movie that afternoon, so we would get our tickets ahead of time. The two options for movies in English at the time we wanted were Jack the Giant Slayer and Stoker. Of course I chose Stoker. I've seen 5 Park Chan-wook films in America (he's a Korean director for those who don't know). Why wouldn't I see his first American film while I'm in Korea? The irony is too great. (Off topic, but I also plan on seeing the American remake of Chan-wook's Oldboy, my favorite Korean movie, while I'm here, too.) Anyway, this particular theater is in a giant building with different stores on the bottom floors and apartments up above, so we went up to the theater and got our tickets. We also had to choose which seats we wanted, as there was assigned seating.


One of the posters inside with listings/times.

From there, we made our way around Sanbon. It's basically this one long road/walkway with intersecting roads as you go along. He showed me different little restaurants and places so we could figure out what we wanted for lunch. We ended up just getting a couple burgers and fries. It was decent, though the patty itself was more like this rib-meat burger that was about the thickness of a few sheets of paper. But it was filling enough.
  

Wanna go to Outback Steakhouse? They have it!

The little burger place inside this tiny little garage.

Then there was the adventure known as E-Mart. E-Mart is basically like a giant Korean version of a Wal-Mart or Super Target and the like. The first floor was basically all foods, and the second floor (yes, there were at least two floors) was mostly electronics and appliances (as I later discovered, there are a few more floors… clothes, cosmetics, and parking as far as I could tell). To get from floor to floor, especially if you had a basket, you went on these things that were basically a mix of a moving sidewalk and an escalator. So a moving ramp, I guess? And I was forewarned before going in that Sundays are the worst possible days to go because of how crazy busy it is. And he wasn't wrong. For those back in Victoria, imagine something like the day before Thanksgiving at HEB times three. You have to just wade through Asian people like they're an ocean you need to get through. But I was assured this was the worst I'd ever see it, and most other days it's not close to that bad. Oh, and there's these little lockers as you come in to put any bags you don't feel like carrying. I was also told there's ones especially for little dogs so people can put their dogs there to wait while their owners do their shopping.



The moving ramps as best as I could get.

From E-Mart, we made our way to a Dunkin Donuts for some hot chocolate and to just sit and talk for a while and kill time. And apparently Koreans love them some donuts, because the place was packed. We were there for a while until he decided to show me this little bar and grill (that serves breakfast) that's apparently a good place to meet people, but it was closed.

We still had quite a bit of time to kill, so we went to an arcade and played a little House of the Dead 4 (for those unaware, a zombie/monster shooting game) while a bunch of teenagers watched us. I lasted just a little bit longer, but soon died off, too. We still had quite a bit of time, but we thought we'd just go to the theater and relax there and wait. Little did we know our most entertaining part of the day was yet to occur.


The front of the building with the theater
(it's super tall with the apartments above).

When our elevator finally takes us up to the theater (it kept taking us down into sub-levels to get more people), we took a seat in this waiting area near these bathrooms. And this is where the fun began. As we waited, there was somebody (presumably in the men's restroom) making the most bizarre noise. It sounded like a mix of choking, heaving, and squawking. And I'm not even sure that description does it nearly enough justice. It happened in short intervals, and at first neither of us knew what was going on or if it was some cultural thing we were unaware of. But then we noticed even Korean people trying to investigate where the noise was coming from and/or what it was. But every time we'd try to start a conversation, this noise would start, too. And eventually we would just burst out laughing and couldn't control ourselves. It really was the most ridiculous thing ever. We think it was a guy having a really bad reaction to something. We suspected it was one guy who eventually came out of the bathroom soon after the noise stopped. But then he went back in and never came back out. Hopefully he didn't die.

We also talked about funny little things about we could be talking out loud in English because nobody around us knew what we were saying. So my neighbor started saying ridiculous things just to prove the point ("I ate a clown today!") to which nobody reacted. He also let me in on the little "looks" we will get as foreigners from Koreans. They won't outright stare (most of the time), but they will look at you at least once. And he was right--if you're paying attention, you will see the Korean people steal at least one glance at you. So while they (usually) don't look at you, they're always very aware that you're there.

The next strange thing happened as we were going into the actual theater area. The ticket girl looked Korean, but spoke English… with an Australian accent . It was quite strange. The theater room itself was incredibly small. Easily the smallest I've ever seen (and probably even smaller than you're imagining. The chairs themselves were comfortable, but there wasn't a whole lot of leg room. As for the movie--it started off really slow and weird. The first 20 minutes were very odd, and I never knew where it was going. But as it got into the story, it got better. By the end, I really liked it. Definitely not for everyone, though.

We left the theater and headed to the bus stop… in some weather that easily dropped like 20 degrees in the last couple hours. And I was shown how to take the bus home from there (and which bus to take). And I got home about 7:30 or so. And that was about it! This was easily the best afternoon I'd had so far in Korea. And I'm sure I'm gonna be spending quite a bit of time in Sanbon.