Day 137: Excrutiating!

My friend Kelsey had to run into Seoul today to get a bunch of vaccinations, and she invited me along for company. I didn't have any plans of my own today so I thought why not? I ended up signing up for more than I bargained for!

Kelsey's going on an African safari in just 2 weeks and so she needs to get a shitload of needles to keep her safe from the Plague and Ebola and Hanta Virus and Dengue Fever and all the other biological surprises that lie waiting in the jungles of the Dark Continent! Actually she just needs the usual Hepatitis A & B shots, a shot for Yellow Fever, and some malaria pills. Since I'm planning my own big trek across Asia next year when I finish at Poly, and will need to get most of these shots myself, I decided that tagging along would be a really educational experience for myself.

We subwayed it into Seoul and went to the National Medical Center located right in the heart of the city - one of only two places in Korea where you can get the shot for Yellow Fever. Kelsey had a 2 o'clock appointment, and it was a supposed to be a 'pop-in, pop right back out' trip to the hospital. BOY WAS THAT EVER FAR FROM THE TRUTH!!! What an ordeal...

It turned out to be one of the longest, most frustrating, most drawn-out, most bureaucratic, most *excrutiating* processes I've ever had to witness here in Korea! We spent the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS getting shuffled from desk to desk, from nurse to nurse, from one wing of the hospital complex to another... Nobody seemed to know where we were supposed to be, nobody had any clue what was going on in other departments of the hospital, and almost nobody spoke any English at all! It seemed like we kept getting told the wrong information, and kept getting directed to the wrong desk or the wrong nurse. Doesn't anybody here know what's going on? Is this the first time EVER in Korea that ANYONE has ever gotten shots for travelling to a developing country? You'd think that this whole process would be done by just one nurse in just one part of the hospital, but nope, it was like they designed the whole Vaccination Experience to be as irritatingly complicated as medically and humanly possible! It took all we had to remain patient and composed, but eventually we got everything we needed, Kelsey got all drugged up, and it was time for her to head back to work - 2 hours late!

MY GOD THAT WAS NOT AFTERNOON!!! LOL!

When we got back to Ilsan I decided to go shopping for my first big load of groceries for my new place, and I spent way too much money on treats for myself. There's a giant grocery store here called Carrefour that has a lot of foreign foods (well, more so than can be found at other Korean grocery stores anyway) and so I bought a bunch of comfort food for myself - nachos and salsa, some good quality cheese, Ritz crackers, Pepperidge Farm cookies - all the good stuff! YUM! It's been *several months* since I've gotten a care package so I've been feeling especially lonesome for some familiar Western foods (hint hint, everyone!) ;-)

I was feeling culinarily inspired when I got home (perhaps maybe only the third time or so that this has ever happened to me) and so I decided to make dinner for Steve and I. I grilled up a big stirfry of veggies and then cooked up some tomato and basil pasta dinner to mix it all together in. And amazingly it actually turned out really good! Yah me! ;-) After dinner Steve and I went and got some ice cream and then laid out in the grass in the big park near our home for quite a while. Tomorrow is our big debut, our big break, out introduction to fame via QUIZ SHOW: THE CONTENDERS!!!
We've been studying all week on random trivia, and also on the category of 'Friends' because we've been told that in Round 2 that'll be our category! I've watched the TV show religiously since it came out ten years ago but Steve's confessed to me that he's never actually seen an entire episode in full - EGAD!!! It was a Crash Course on 'Everything One Needs To Know About FRIENDS' for Steve taught by yours truly! But we're totally stoked to be on the show and are ready to go and kick major ass tomorrow on TV!!

WISH US LUCK!!! :-)