Korea

Thursday, May 22

I finally, after what felt like a 97-hour journey, arrived back home to the goshiwon at 3am. Like the trip to Japan, this one also had many moving parts for me to be anxious about. And I was too anxious to try to take my anti-anxiety meds with me, so…

The ferry from Japan arrived in Busan, South Korea around 12:30pm. Then there’s the whole immigration/customs process, about which I was Very Nervous – what if they said NOPE, you can’t come back in. Technically, they can do that. They don’t need grounds. They can deny admission (admission?) to anyone they want. So it was a relief to get through there with no problems. Ferry security is a little less High Pressure on the whole security thing anyway.

I discovered my phone was not working…the international plan I’d set up with Verizon had ended…and apparently immigration notifies the phone services immediately, that I am no longer a resident and so my Korean phone number will be cancelled. It was actually a little confusing if it was being shut down now or not til June 16 (random date). My automatic billing date is the 22nd, which is today, so we’ll see what happens. If I lose the Korean phone number I will probably also lose grocery and food delivery…and maybe some other things I’m not even thinking of.

So – No Phone = SUPER ANXIETY for me. No phone in an unfamilar place? acjnSCHNwknciuaxjnqs12iuey9327r8ufjwnc.

Fortunately, there were taxis right outside the ferry port and I got someone to (slightly begrudgingly) take me to the express bus terminal (it’s 45 mins from the ferry). I got there 2 hours before the bus to Seoul was due to depart and since Busan is not Seoul, there were only a few little independent food places and they were all getting ready to close up shop. I managed to get a corn dog and a kitkat so at least I didn’t starve to death while I was waiting.

What I DID do while waiting, was reach out to Verizon to see if I could restart the international plan for a few more days while I got my Korean phone number sorted out. She was like, why don’t you go on the Ultimate Unlimited Plan which offers unlimited international service to 210+ countries and it’s only $1 more than your current plan??

Uh, YEAH, why DON’T I go on that? Why didn’t anyone offer me that when I first moved to Korea? Why didn’t anyone offer me that just last week when I signed up for the $12/day International Plan?? Sigh. Anyway. That’s a relief to have. I still need a Korean phone number for some things here, but if I can’t get my permanent number sorted out I’ll just have to get a Korean sim card with a tempory number. It won’t allow me to order groceries/food, but…

Anyway. Finally the bus came and it was super luxe. It was a 4-hour trip from 10pm-2am. We had a slight delay with an elderly woman who was crying, then screaming, then scooted on her butt on the floor up to the driver…he tried calling someone…she finally calmed down and walked back to her seat and we carried on. I never understood what the problem was. All I could make out was him saying “please don’t cry.” Thank you 18mos of Korean language school.

Again, when I got to Seoul, even though it was after 2am, there were taxis right out front, so there was no transportation issue. I walked into mmy room around 3:30am and was like WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!?

Then I remembered that, because I had to have the landlady in while I was away to fix my sink, I had REALLY cleaned up before I left. I just didn’t recognize it so neat! But what a nice surprise that was!

I’d rescheduled my dr’s appt for this morning cuz I knew it would just be too much to get up and out that early the morning after All That Traveling…so I just took it easy today.

I was supposed to go tonight to a kpop concert at my school…my building friend Kim likes one of the girl groups, and I thought it would be fun to see Psy (“Gangnam Style”) in person, but…I just did not have it in me to stand in line from 2pm to get seats for a show that didn’t start til 8pm. From my window I could hear when they cheered for Psy, it was so loud!

And now I am officially a language school dropout and just a “tourist” in Korea. I booked my flight to LA for Aug 8, so that’s like 11 weeks. I want to re-do my “to do” list so I make sure when I leave I’ve done all the things I’ve most wanted to do.

And I’m sorta looking forward to being in the states for a bit…I’m house/pet sitting for my niece when she and her family go to Hawaii for 11 days. It’ll be nice to stay in a super comfortable house with a car!!! While I’ve spent a ton of time in LA over my lifetime, I’m really never there independently so I’m making a list of things I want to do while I’m there. After a couple weeks there I’ll head to San Antonio to stay with other family for a couple weeks…and then finish up in Florida with Katie for the last month…then be back in Japan for November 1.

Friday, May 23

I’d sorta had plans today just locally, just with myself. But when I woke up I was so congested, I didn’t want to be out in public trying not to sniff or cough or blow my nose. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I’ve gone through over half a roll of toilet paper with nose blowing. Enough Already! I’ve had this cold since April 14!!!

I spent the day in my nightgown (yay) working on a couple blog posts for the next few weeks. It’s so nice to be able to spend more time working on posts without feeling guilty that I’m not studying.

I’m trying to post more consistently about life in Korea…vs just MY life in Korea…and things related to traveling, travel on a budget, traveling with anxiety, etc. Eventually I’ll take these same topics to other countries.

Is there anything in particular about Korea or traveling on the cheap that you’re interested in, that I can write about while I’m still here?

Saturday, May 24

Did I do anything today? Not really. Worked on a weekly “itinerary” for my weeks so I don’t just laze my days away. It’s very general so far – now I have to prepare lots of STUFF. It starts Monday.

Sunday, May 25

I headed out this morning on an easy mission. An apartment building being taken over by climbing roses in the neighboring town, Seongsu, and I wanted to take pictures. Then to a donut place I’ve been wanting to try for ages. And on the way home stop at the phone store to see about extending my phone number the rest of the time I’m here.

From the bus on the way to Seongsu I could see the phone store wasn’t open. I’d suspected it might be closed on Sundays. I found the climbing roses easily enough. But I got to the donut store an hour before opening (at 11:30am). Interestingly, regular restaurants open early in the morning, but donut shops and many cafes not til later, closer to noon. And I don’t care for spicy stew first thing in the morning. So I walked around for half an hour looking for somewhere I could sit inside, but found nothing. All the chain coffee shops (Starbucks, Mega Coffee, etc) are out on the big main streets and I was deeper inside the neighborhood. And already felt I was reaching my walking limit. So with another half hour to go I said oh forget it and headed back to the bus stop.

Which was right next to an open chain coffee shop. Of course, ha. I headed home anyway. Stopped at the convenience store when I got off the bus. I wanted a sandwich. I got what I thought was ham and cheese. But was actually ham, cheese, and crab. Like a crab spread. They always put something on sandwiches that I don’t think belongs.

Monday, May 26

I went with my school/building friend, G, to get his hair cut. I had a couple things to get in the mall so I didn’t mind going along with him. But ArtBox, where I was going to get new pens, was closed…and the market didn’t have the roasted chicken I was looking for, so…I was forced to sit in Starbucks with a bagel and a Grapefruit Honey Black Iced Tea. Life’srough.

Since that was my outing for the day, the rest of the day was spent indoors making my list of things I want to do/accomplish this week, and a nap while listening to a new book I’m not crazy about.

I have a very limited selection of audiobooks. I refuse to pay $$$ for them. Mostly I listen on Spotify but most of the books I want to read are longer than the 10-hour limit so then I have to wait til the next month to finish and that’s annoying. One month when I was reading something I was really enjoying, I paid extra to get extra hours…and what’s unused is supposed to carry over from month-to-month, but now I can’t figure out how to access them again.

I can’t get Libby set-up again til I’m back in the states.

But I had some books on Chirp that I bought long ago when I was a heavy audiobook user (whenn I was driving 100 miles a day to and from work), so I’m working my way through those. Even though so far I’m not loving them.

Tuesday, May 27

Headed over to the phone store to see about extending my Korean phone # the rest of the time I’m here. It said online it opened at 9am. I got there at 9:30, not open. I waited til 10:15. No one ever showed up. There wasn’t like a coffee shop or anything in the area to hang out in…and the sun was hot while I was just standing out on the street. So I went home. I’ll try again after my eye appointment on Thursday.

I came back and spent some time updating my Korean Anki (flashcard app) decks to continue learning more vocabulary. And spent an hour on my first Japanese lesson. Whoa. THREE different alphabets, all used for different things…like within the same sentence. I thought it was confusing (and it is!) that in Korean they use two sets of numbers. One for like counting, and the other for like telling time, etc. And even with time, you used one set for hour, and the other set for minute. I was forever getting numbers mixed up.

I finished the really long remote work project I’ve been working on for over a month.

Napped. Scrambled eggs and sausage for dinner. Finished a cute Japanese drama.

Wednesday, May 28

Not sure what happened. My alarm was set for 6am, I wanted to go to a rose garden while the light was still low and there wouldn’t be many people there. I don’t remember ever hearing the alarm, but I woke up around 8:30 with the alarm set to snooze.

So, I opted for a lazy stay-in day.

And then proceeded to spend three hours, with the help of ChatGPT, to try and fix my blog emails that have not been sending for some time. Do any of you still get them? Every step required 2-3 pre-steps. Ugh. I hate things like this…and in the past (and why it hasn’t been working for so long) I would say “oh I don’t have time for that right now.” But now I do…so I’m hell bent on fixing it. It’s still in process, but…I’ll get there.

I just got a new work assignment, so I’ll spend the afternoon on that. Oh, it’s already 3pm. I haven’t had any lunch. I’ll eat and then get to work.

I feel really relaxed these past few days. It’s good.

Thursday, May 29

Alrighty. Guess what I get to do next week??

ANOTHER EYE SURGERY.

Not the originally planned procedure to remove the silicone oil…but an all new surgery because the retina is detaching again. A different, more complicated procedure that hopefully (knock on wood) should hold this time.

And…after I went through all that back and forth about my insurance before I headed to Japan (cuz remember I lose the Korean National Insurance when I’m not a student anymore)…and ended up paying $500+ for an international medical insurance for three months….today they said I’m still on the Korean insurance. I was like that’s a mistake, they called them, I spoke with a woman AT the National Health Insurance. I explained about no longer being on a D4 visa, that now I was a tourist and I had a new “leave by” date. She was like, as far as we’re concerned, as long as you keep making your payments, you’re on the insurance until August 23. So. That’s good. And now I’m trying to see if I can get any refund on the International insurance…if they say no, I’ll ask if I can just change my end date, and apply the insurance to the next time I leave the US.

But in the meantime, even WITH insurance it’s still $$$ out of pocket. And I’m really hating the Korean hospital experience. The useless pain meds, the uncomfortable hospital costume, the food. And then the whole two-weeks-face-down again. And the painful eye and the endless eyedrops.

Ugh.

So, my day, that I thought was going to be an hour going through follow-up testing at the hospital, then a trip to the phone store to get my number sorted out, turned into five sweaty hours running around in the hospital ($250) for pre-surgical testing and then home to collapse.

Friday, May 30

My alarm was set for 6am…but I woke up at 5am to lovely light…so went ahead and got up and headed to Daeyeonsan Rose Garden. I started out on the bus, but the second bus never came (sometimes the app says the bus will arrive in just a few minutes…but the signage at the bus stop says it’s going to arrive in like 52 minutes. I’ll wait for the earliest one, but if it doesn’t come, I reroute myself or sometimes – like today – end up in an uber). The driver got me to the general area, not understanding I wanted the rose gardren, not just the park entrance. And I did not realize the rose garden was up a hill. And stairs. Sigh.

All of Korea is up hills. Amd stairs.

Anyway, I made it. And it was well worth it.

I’ll just share a couple pictures here cuz I’m going to do a separate post on the garden itself.

I got pretty emotional, sitting there taking in the beauty. My sister and I used to love going on summer garden tours and we especially enjoyed old and climbing roses. I was grateful it was early and there weren’t that many people around.

And when I left I had to walk up another, super steep hill to the bus stop. It was one of the micro-local busses and it was such a fun ride going up and down steep steep, narrow, winding roads…with someone else driving, ha ha.

The rest of the day was spent doing remote work, editing rose pictures, and studying Japanese. With a mid-day nap 🙂

Other than ^(*#U^@!! eye surgery, I’m finally enjoying retirement. I despise obligations. Sometimes even when they’re my own. I don’t want anything to impinge on My Time. 

Saturday, May 31

Another month’s end. Just two full months and 8 days left in Korea. And my stupid eye will take up close to one of those months…with surgery, face-down time, then just general discomfort time. I’m really aggravated but what are you gonna do. But I can hardly believe that’s all the time I have left!

In more stupid news, I finally got to the phone store and was told no, I cannot extend my phone number/service til I leave Korea in August. I will have to get a new Korean sim card with a new Korean phone number. I told him not today, cuz a) according to the text from the phone company, I have two more weeks til they shut me down, and b) maybe, just maybe, the phone company will follow suit with the insurance company and just keep me turned on as long as I’m paying. It’s worth a shot. And frankly I don’t even know that I need a Korean sim card at this point as I have the international plan now from Verizon and have unlimted international data, talk, text on my US phone number.

And I’m not entirely sure I’ll lose food and grocery delivery. I needed the phone number to set them up…but now they go through my Korean bank for the money…and I’m still able to move money into the Korean bank without the Korean phone number, so…I’m not sure if immigration just notifies everyplace (like they did the phone co) and says NO MORE CHICKEN FOR HER.

Anyway, that was my little outing for the day. Other than that, just remote work, photo editing, chatting with a NY friend on Instagram…

Sunday, June 1

I mostly just grumbled to myself about having to go to the hospital tomorrow for TWO DAYS before they even do the surgery. I Do Not Understand. I’m taking my laptop and to-do list and will find somewhere with desk.counter seating and at least get some work done. Once the eye is surgered it’s hard to do much of anything involving seeing for awhile.

I finally got onto the Medicare site thinking there was gonna be a whole rigamorole to get signed up, but no. It’s pretty much automatic if you’re only doing the first two levels (Plans A & B), and that’s all I’m doing for the time being as most of my time, at least for the coming year, will be spent out of the country.

Laundry, putting away a Coupang order, straightening up the room so a) it will be nice when I come back exhausted and b) in case they need to come in while I’m gone. Last year this is the week they cleaned all the air conditioners, so…

And it’s June. Happy June.

Wish me luck with the stupid hospital and the stupid eye surgery.

See ya later luv ya bye.