Stephanie has been in Korea about a week and a half now. Before she left she dislocated her knee. It popped back in but left behind a lot of swelling and a loss of function. She didn’t appear to have torn any ligaments and x-rays didn’t show anything other than the obvious soft tissue swelling. Her pain was decreasing as her range of motion was increasing up until she left and we all felt comfortable sending her.

One of the sponsors for the school where she is teaching is a medical doctor who is the owner of a local private hospital/clinic. We sent her to the clinic for an MRI to rule out any significant internal derangement of her knee. Stephanie called us and asked why they were doing blood work and more x-rays at the same time. We just reassured her and told her to not argue…

The next day the head of the clinic spoke with us regarding the MRI findings. He said that it didn’t show much more than the x-rays but that there was some cartilage that was loose in the joint capsule and he recommended surgery to clean it up. In fact, he was prepared to operate in two hours!

Stephanie was stressed out about surgery but was reassured when they gave her the option of a local anesthetic. She consented when they told her that yes, she could video tape the operation if she wanted. (As it was, the surgeon emailed us about 50 photos from the arthroscopic procedure.) The surgeon said that the surgery would only take about 20 minutes; it took 40. He also said that she only be staying over night and would be walking around the next day.

As it turned out, she spent the next four days in the hospital, two days letting the knee drain and two more concentrating on rehab. She loved it! I know, you’re thinking, “What? How could she love it? She was stuck in a hospital for five days!” Yes, but she was treated like a queen. She was probably the most popular patient there. She had t.v. (of course) internet (만원 for her stay) and one roommate.

She got out of the hospital today (퇴원) and will get right back into the routine that she never got into in the first place. So far it has been an adventure for her (and her parents..).

This has been an interesting week. Last week we sent Michael home. He was ready to go. As soon as he got home he was headed for a week long field trip to 제주도. We Skyped with his mother before he left. She missed him a lot but it looks like she had to wait another week before she got to see him.

We, on the otherhand, just sent our oldest daughter to Korea. She will be there for the next seven weeks. She is doing a “service project” for school credit here where she will be volunteer teaching at an elemetary school, helping out with English instruction. Her first day will be tomorrow.

She is feeling a bit overwhelmed with the lack of English interaction already. Not understanding anything that is said around you can be headache inducing, especially combined with jet-lag. Typical for her though, she has commented at how fashionable everyone is, especially their shoes!

Hopefully, I will be able to post updates about her stay in Korea on a weekly basis. I am sure that her Korean will improve. It will have to. I should have a full update next week!

I had a really long weekend recently and decided to take a short personal vacation. I headed off to 강원도 a province on the north-eastern edge of Korea. It is famous for the mountains and beaches, but I was just looking to get out of 서울. All of my long-distance travel within Korea has been by train or car, so I decided to take busses this time around. I boght a ticket for 강릉 and settled in what turned out to be a 4hr drive. It should have taken around 2~3 hours, but I guess everyone else had the same idea! I was hoping to speak as little English as possible on this trip, and since I was travelling alone, I stood a pretty good chance to getting to do just that. When I got to 강릉 the first thing I did was find a PC방. When travelling in Korea, it’s always a good idea to go there first. I used it to get my bearings in the city using Naver maps, and try to locate a good 찜질방 to spend the night in. With all my information, I sat out to get a taxi. I wanted to practice a particular pattern in the real world, something new from my class: It works out to “what’s a good thing to…….?” or “what’s the best way to…….?”

So, I started my conversation with the taxi driver:
저는 강릉에 처음이라서 뭐 하는게 좋을까요?
This is my first time in 강릉, what should I do?

He responded by listing all the things that were on my tourist map, so I guess I had sucessfully asked the question. He recommended going to the beach, seeing some old traditional houses and temples, etc. And of course eating 회 fresh, raw seafood. So he dropped me off at the 찌질방 and I went off to find dinner. I stumbled across a 왕갈비집 a few blocks away. They were advertising one serving for 8,000 원. However, I haven’t had much success at these places ordering by myself. They aren’t so into that, and usually require that you order two servings. But since I was eating alone, I had to ask the 아줌마 about that:

안녕하새요? 혹시 혼자서 주문하면도 돼요?
Hello, excuse me, but is it alright if I order by myself?

She turned around and looked at me and imediately responded with:
돌어오세요! Come on in!

I ordered a mamoth sized portion of marinated pork with all of the fixings. It was delicous and I had a really pleasant conversation with the 아저씨 who was cooking my meal for me.

In the morning, the weather was looking pretty awful. I went to a convienience store to have some yogurt and juice and get a recommendation about what to do.

ME: 오늘 날씨가 안좋아서 뭐하는게 좋을까요?
Today’s weather isn’t so good, so what is there that’s good to do?
CLERK: 어린이날이라니까 어린이랑 놀았으면 좋겠죠?
Today is children’s day, so wouldn’t it be good to play with your kids?
ME: 사실은 어린이 없으면…
Actually, I dont have any kids…
CLERK: 없으면은 그녕 여자친구랑 지내 보새요
If you don’t have kids, then just spend time with your girlfriend.
ME: 근데 혼자서 왔어요.
I came here alone!
CLERK: 혼자서 왔군요. 그런데 바다에 가보고 경포대에서 구경해 보세요.
Oh you came alone. In that case, go to the beach and also do some sightseeing at 경포대.

I didn’t really leave that conversation with anymore information than before, but I headed to the beach. (The weather cleared up just a short while later) That’s where the picture came from! There isn’t much more to say about the trip. I also went to the nearby town of 속초. But I really enjoy travelling around Korea outside of Seoul. It is where I can really see the benefits of my Korean study.

I usually write about my experiences with Korean orphans, but I’ve just spent a week in Taipei, so I decided to switch things up a little bit…

Of course, the language of Taiwan in Chinese, but a lot of Koreans travel there, and my Korean came in handy at least once. I was entirely unprepared for the Chinese… I should have spent some time with SurvivalPhrases.com before the trip. Alas, I was hopelessly lost, except for the precious few Hanja I understand and recognize.

In Taipei, there is a section of town called Snake Alley. It must have been much more exciting in it’s hey day, but now is just another street market. The name comes from store fronts where the guy will pull out a large (2m) long snake and bash it’s head to stun it, hang it by the “neck” and then slice open the main artery to drain all the blood. I guess they serve the meat as well – but I didn’t try. We also weren’t allowed to take pictures…which is where my Korean came in handy. I was standing in front of one such snake butcher, and recognized some Korean tourists. After living in Seoul for a while, Koreans can be pretty easy to identify. But they were also speaking Korean. I stepped over to one woman and said:

“혹시요..뱀고기를 목고 싶어요? ” (Excuse me.. do you want to eat snake meat?)

She responded by shaking her hand and head, and saying in English “”No.” She ran back to her friends, who must have said something like “I think he just spoke Korean to you!” She came back, and we proceeded to have a pretty standard conversation about how well I supposedly know Korean, where I live, what I do for a job, etc. Then she wanted to take a picture of the snake gutting. But the man behind the counter said “No Picture!” I guess these Koreans don’t speak English, because she kept right on clicking. So I stepped in:

“사진 찍지 마세요” (Don’t take pictures)

-“왜요?” (Why?)

“저 남자가 찍지마래요” (That man said not to take any)

So, you never know when your Korean will come in handy! Have any of you had some great experiences with Korean outside of Korea?

Hi everyone. I’m back with another picture of a Korean bar/restaurant but this time I’ve labeled this post under “Travels in Korea” instead of “Humor in Korean” because it’s not so much about ‘humor’ this time. 😀

Here’s a pic of a small bar that’s located between the two subway stations 강남역 and 논현역 in Seoul. If you look at the name of the shop, it’s CASTLE PRAHA. And for those who travel to Korea and see this and wonder “Why Prague?” or think “The owner of this bar must like Prague very much”, I’d like to introduce to you a nice Korean TV Drama.

Here’s a link to the MV of the theme song of the drama :

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5HPQXxpCGtk

And here’s the link to the official webpage of the drama :

https://tv.sbs.co.kr/praha/

The drama was such a hit in Korea in 2005, and from 2005 to 2006, Korea was one of the major countries that people visiting Prague were from, and they even made a new direct airline from Inchon to Prague because of the Prague boom. Interesting, huh? No wonder there are still a lot of shops and bars named after the city.

There was another Korean TV drama named “파리의 연인(Lovers in Paris)” that sent A HUGE number of people to Paris after the last episode was aired, but that’s another story. 🙂