Day 2 - July 21 2014
I slept for all of 4 hours the first night, and was all wide awake by about 4-5 am but didn't actually leave until 7 to try to find my way to Yeson in time for
Amy's surgery.
The subway turned out to be fairly easy to use, the most difficult part was actually finding where to get the rechargable subway card instead of the one use or day pass ones. In the end, I was lucky that my station (Gangnam Station) had an info office and a convenience store next to it, so the former pointed me to the latter and they talked in Korean and soon after I had my card. I see that that's actually mentioned in the
wikipedia page now, but who looks there beforehand, right?
That part took some time, but once set up it was easy to recharge and find my way around, I think I took five trips for about 1050 (just over $1) each through the day, and have about half of it left. The stations are trilingual, Korean, English and Chinese on nearly all signs, and while it's a
really complex conglomeration of lines, the trains are good about announcing each stop, and the train stations are fairly good at pointing you toward the line, and direction of travel, that you are looking for, though I managed to end up on the other side of the connection I actually wanted to make a couple times anyway. It's fairly similar to how Singapore's subway work, which I have (old) experience with since I grew up there. Except more complex, but very well organized at the same time. The trains and stations were equipped with LCDs with varying amounts of info, and the subway map was so complex that there were often sub-maps for each track or listing connecting stations only. One thing was severely lacking from the stations I visted though - seats! Although the wait for each of my trains was never more than a few minutes. The train themselves were very wide, half again as wide as our trains back home.
It was a short ride to Apgujeong, where Yeson was. I managed to get lost because I didn't initially notice that the second set of
directions on the Yeson website was for Apgujeong Rodeo station, which was on a completely separate line, not Apgujeong itself. Had to retrace my steps and then found that the other set of directions works great. I made a picture trail
here and may add more later. I'm also glad I went there today, the day before my pre-op, so I could tick that off the stress checklist.
Due to all those shenanigans, I was actually 15 minutes late, but did manage to get there in time as they were preparing Amy for her surgery, and I breathlessly wished her well before leaving. Also briefly met and exchanged pleasantries with Jessie and some of the other staff there too. I then had a minor panic attack after leaving, so I decided to go back to my hotel room and sit down a bit. Took the subway back and this time ran into rush hour subway traffic, yowch. Wasn't too bad overall though and I got back to my room without further incident.
When I was headed for Yeson in the morning, all the stores in the pedway areas above and around Gangnam station were closed up and it looked rather desolate. It was a different story by late morning to early lunch period though, people bustling everywhere and all the stores and stalls open with bright lights and flashy signs. Night and day difference.
In the afternoon, I went down to Namdaemun market, 2 line transfers and 12 stops away. I didn't actually buy anything, just browsing, as lots of stuff was in Korean and I'm not a very brave soul. It was pretty intense though, tons and tons of stalls and shops set up, either outdoors, set into the sides of the buildings, or within enclosed air-conditioned buildings themselves. Wide roads, narrow roads, insanely narrow indoor passages, streets merging madly together, stairs sloping down to worryingly buried alleyways. It was pretty neat all in all, order in chaos and all that, and very busy too.
It's an outdoor market, but essentially all the stores are set in covered nooks and so are sheltered from light rain. There were accessory stores, which were basically indoor rooms with tables each specializing in a certain item (read: had a pile of said items) like hairclips, bags, shoes, thread, bangles, etc, impossibly narrow aisles, and a girl tending each table. Import stores, which were buildings with tables full of western brand-name products like electronics, kitchenware and other potpourri. Overall there were lots and lots of clothes stalls, hat stalls, shoe stalls, bag stalls, and lots of food stalls mixed in too, with the occasional randomly out of place store (like a toy store). Some of the stalls had people standing outside who would yell some gibberish at me (to hawk their wares) to make me wince as I walked by. I don't know about others but to me that would actually lower your store's desirability. At least, I always bypass those because I don't like the pressure to shop there "under encouragement"!
All in all, it was kind of a flea market or outdoor market district, the buildings were all built specifically for the market. It was a low tech region, not much in the way of electronics and such, but a gold mine of clothes and other accessories. The pace of travel was fairly slow and in the tighter passages (usually indoors), the modus operandi was "gently push and squeeze by if someone is blocking the way". It was neat seeing couriers that were transporting goods slowly weave their way through the crowds on motorcycles too. I had lunch in a random corner store, then let myself wander for an hour or two before I found one of the subway entrances again and left.
I then went back to Yeson, sat down with Amy and Skype chatted with her for an hour or so as she recovered, before heading back to the hotel. If you read this, hopefully by now you're feeling better and ready to do those jumping jacks.
That definitely helped calm me a little too, seeing her before and after and hopefully lending me the courage to go through it, it was like reading the spoiler guide to a game or tv show! The nausea and disorientation and a bit of a lack of energy (and a sore, but not painful, throat) seemed to be the main issues facing one post-surgery, mostly from the anesthesia I suspect, but the nausea and headache were all projected to be gone by discharge time in the evening anyway.
I then went back to the hotel, figured out how to use the washer (well, dryer portion), and finally figured out how to activate the air conditioning as well. Turned out it was a separate remote in Korean, that wasn't mentioned in the instructions (It just said the air-con system was "operated by a control panel" which apparently meant the remote, and not the thermostat on the wall which does control the heating). I'm still a klutz though, I had someone unlock the safe for me (using a master control) but then it promptly relocked again without a password once the guy left the room, when I closed it to see how it fits. And I couldn't get it open again. Big sigh.
Even with the instructions in English in the file (What red light in the safe?? There wasn't one!) I couldn't get it to work, so.. I think I'll just carry my valuables around with me.
Bought some ice cream and milk and a few snacks from the little convenience store next to the hotel, in prep for my surgery. Nice to have that there, so at least when I don't feel like tackling Korean restaurants or food stalls, especially without a voice, I can still get some food from there if needed. Not quite Korean cuisine, though I definitely haven't seen Octopus Fried Rice frozen dinners at my local Safeway back home!
I am about 12 hours from my pre-op now, and 30 hours or so from surgery, and argh. Stress, worry, anxiety and fear. Although, this was the point during my trip to Portland where I decided to pull out, the night before the pre-op/two nights before surgery, and I currently have no such similar panic.. yet.
Edits: Oh, today was the first day I've gone out wearing a skirt too. Well not really, but that one was nearly an ankle-length skirt, and only once. This one was (just) above the knee and felt great. Yummy! I figured hey, this was a trip of so many firsts already, may as well get this one out of the way too in a foreign country where it's easy to rinse and forget! if it goes badly!
Also, while I do get approached quite a fair amount back home by people asking for directions, needing the time etc and looking for (I guess) a friendly face, I didn't expect that in Korea by an old Korean lady who didn't speak a word of English, while I was clutching a tourist guide in my grubby paws too. Unfortunately had to helplessly shrug at her a bit, but it was still neat in a way I can't quite put to words right now.
