Day 89: "Mommy, please take me to the toystore and the gynecologist!"

So it was back into work early this morning to do some more textbook recording. It was all fairly ordinary for the first little bit, with me recording words from harmless innocent topics such as colours, fruit, vegetables, days of the week, kinds of weather, family members. etc....and then suddenly I came to the 'Medical' section of the text. This is a section of our textbook that I haven't seen up until now, and then next thing I knew I was reading outloud and recording words such as 'pediatrics', 'psychiatry', 'radiology', 'dermatology' (wow getting difficult here, especially considering that this textbook is for readers who are CHILDREN) and then it was 'ophthalmology' (no idea what this means, have never heard this word before, had to guess how to pronounce it) and then I had to record...'gynecology'...

What the...???

*did a big double-take and came so close to BURSTING out laughing*

Why the hell would a nine-year old need to know the meaning of 'gynecology'??? Dear Lord I hope I don't have to explain that one to the kids in class at some point! What the hell would I say? (that would make sense to them and still be appropriate for young ears?) It was hilarious anyways....

Today was Jessica's birthday and this past weekend she had invited me to her birthday dinner, so I thought I'd go and celebrate with her this evening. The dinner was way out at the TGI Friday's out in Ilsan which means 2 hours on 1 bus and 4 trains just to get there. It's a long ways to go, but hey I had no plans tonight anyways so may as well, right? So I made the great trek out there and actually arrived on time - if that journey isn't proof of dedication I don't know what is! :-) There was a big gang there for dinner including lots of faces that were new to me. Dinner was great and the party was fun - gotta love birthdays!

Next thing I knew it was quarter after ten and time for me to make the same great trek all the way back home. I decided to take the bus to Seoul instead and then catch my train from there as that usually shaves off some time, but I wasn't sure where to catch the bus from this part of town. Emilie, Kelsey, and Amy left the same time as I did and tried to help me find the right bus stop. The really frustrating thing about taking the bus in Korea is that the busses only stop at certain stops on a street, and they are not often labelled so you have to guess if you're at the right stop. And even then, busses here don't stop automatically, you have to 'hail' them down by stepping out into the street or waving at them, otherwise they'll just drive right by barrelling ahead...

Well we tried to hail a few busses but none of them would stop. Hmmm...must be the wrong stop... I walked up the street to the next one and tried the same thing, but alas, had the same response! Fuck man what does one have to do to catch a bus around here! I ended up having to walk like 10-15 minutes in the pouring rain up the street all the way to the next subway station before finding a bus stop where I could actually catch a bus! Grrrr.... At this point I was worried about missing my train at City Hall Station which would leave me stranded in the city.

I got into City Hall Station just before 11:30pm which is roughly when the trains stop running. I made a b-line to the ticket office convinced that I had still made it in time (just) to catch the last train. I ran up to Mr. Ticket Man and was told that I had just missed it...by 3 minutes.... ARRRGHHHH!!!!! NO WAY TO GET HOME NOW! I'm not going to cab it home from here cause that would cost a *FORTUNE*, so I called up my friend Michael in Itaewon and begged and pleaded to him to let me crash at his place overnight. He just laughed and said 'yeah come on over!' I'm lucky to have good friends!

Getting to Michael's from City Hall proved to be another challenge! Taxis are aplenty in Seoul, but catching one, and actually finding one that *wants* to go where you do is another story! I stood on the street corner trying to flag one down, but empty taxi after empty taxi just raced by... Finally one stopped and I asked 'Itaewon?' to see if that was cool. He just shook his head and sped off, nearly running over my foot in the process! Yes, that's right, taxi drivers here choose you, you don't choose them. It's really fucking annoying, I have to say, and Seoul is the only city in the world I've ever been that does that. A driver will only take you somewhere if he feels like it, and they tend to be *really* picky about their destinations. There's been times in the past when I've asked like 10 taxis to take me somewhere and I've been turned down 10 times in a row. It's like who pays your fares buddy??? THE CUSTOMER!!! HELLO!!! Finally I found a cab that would take me, and I went over to Michael's to crash. We stayed up for a bit just chatting and then went to bed around 1:30am. An unplanned detour, but it was fun to hang with Michael anyways.