So, do you like my apartment? It is small compared to Western standards, but I dont really spend that much time there. I need to get some more furniture, but then I dont want to be spending money on things that I won't be bringing home with me.This past week has been another week of 'firsts'. Meghan took me on my first ever subway ride, from the doctor's clinic to Walmart, and then from Walmart back to Bomo (my suburb). I'm pretty confident that I can now buy my ticket and find the right subway track to get to both downtown and Walmart, which is great because its frustrating when you have to keep asking people to help you with things. Its amazing how incompetant we are with no Korean language skills. Meghan and I both went to the doctor (first visit to Korean doctor!) yesterday, and we had to ask for directions and help all the time. we couldnt understand the receptionist at the clinic, so we had to ring Ran (the foreign teacher manager from school) and get her to translate. The other day when the internet guy came to install the internet at my flat, I couldnt speak Korean, he couldnt speak English, so once again I had to ring Ran to act as the interpreter.
The doctors visit was quite an experience. Meghan has 2 sports related injuries that she needed to get seen, and I have my mysterious painful foot problem that has come out of nowhere. We'd been given the name of a sports clinic not too far away from work, so we headed out with our map and the name of the clinic written in Korean characters. Koreans have a different idea about hospitals here, every place that has a doctor, be it a GP or a sports doctor, is called a hospital, they dont seem to have a word that distinguishes "going to the doctor" from "going into hospital". Luckily the doctor could speak English so we didnt have to go through the whole miming process, but he did come up with some hilarious phrases. He needed to look at Meghan's hip, so he said "Miss Meghan, reveal your pelvis" which of course made Meghan and I giggle for the rest of the day. He also said that if she went to gym she had to have "naked hands" (ie: no weights). I had no such funny lines, but when the doctor found out I was from NZ, he laughed and laughed, and then told me about a story he had read online about a NZ policewomen who was found to be a prositute by night. He seemed more interested in that than my sore foot.
Last night I went with Ana and Tynessa to Trivia Night at the Commune, one of the Foreigners Bars. (first time at a bar downtown!) It was really weird being surrounded by so many foreigners and English speakers. And everyone was really tall! (I'm the shortest in my family, so I was stoked to be told by my students the other day that I have very long legs and I am very tall!)