Korean Bus Misadventures

Today, my challenge was to take an unfamiliar bus to a doctor's office I'd been driven to while feeling terrible.  I managed to do that, but it wound up being a big mess that took about an hour longer than needed.  Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with how things turned out, but at least it'll be vastly easier the next time.

I've only talked about my recent bout with illness on Facebook, so here's a quick recap for anyone who hasn't seen my many posts about it there: I've been sick for going on four week with what I thought was a cold but appears to be acute sinusitis.  I finally went to see a doctor and took a sick day last week when I simply couldn't function anymore due to a horrible, constant, hacking cough.  My boss, Julie, drove me to the doctor's office then, and he diagnosed me and prescribed a battery of medicine, including antibiotics and antihistamines, for five days.  I ran out of medication yesterday, but I was only feeling maybe 25-50% better, so I needed to go back.

Julie told me to take the 223 bus at the bus stop near Lotte Mart, the nearby supermarket, so off I went at 11 am.  I got to the bus stop and confirmed that the 223 stopped there - it had a cool display that showed where each bus was and how long until it would arrive - but when it showed up, the driver looked confused when I tried to get on.  He asked me where I was going, but I barely knew myself.  I tried my best to explain, and for a while he thought I needed a different bus until I said I was going toward the airport.  He told me to go to the bus stop across the street, but when I got there, I didn't see anything that said the 223 would stop there.  I texted Julie and asked which stop I was looking for (one stop after E-Mart, she replied), and thankfully the 223 arrived a couple minutes later.  Problem solved, I thought.

The bus made its way to the E-Mart stop, but the next stop was about 30 seconds away, wasn't announced and didn't look familiar, so I thought I needed the next stop.  Worse case scenario, I would just get on a bus going back and try again.  It turned out that the next stop was a good 5-10 minutes away, taking me almost back home!  I crossed the street and got on the next 223, though I had to pass through three stops again before I got to the right one.  The area still didn't look familiar, but I knew it had to be right, so I blundered around for a few frustrating minutes before I finally saw something I recognized.  I finally got to the doctor's office around 12:30 pm, much later than I'd anticipated.

Thankfully, things went smoothly at the doctor's office.  The doctor saw me almost immediately, and he had me take some quick X-rays of my sinuses.  They showed that my sinuses are still full of mucus, so he prescribed another seven days of medication and said to come back next week.  After getting a sizable bag of meds from the pharmacy, I trekked back to the bus stop to go home.

Julie had told me that the bus stopped close to my apartment, though I had no idea where, and somehow managed to get off too soon because I thought it looked familiar (it wasn't).  After what felt like a long wait for the next bus, I found out that I'd gotten off exactly one stop too soon.  While not a major error, it still annoyed me because I'd messed up both getting there and getting back.  I got home around 1:30 pm, which left me with a little time to eat a small snack, brush my teeth and get changed for work.  At least I know where to go next time, the next week's trip won't be as frustrating or exhausting.  Plus, I'll hopefully be feeling a whole lot better.

On a related note, I am very grateful for the extremely low medical costs here in Korea.  My visit today - including X-rays - cost ~$5.  I think I spent more taking the bus, though admittedly I took four buses instead of two.  My medication was my most expensive yet, but it still only cost ~$18, which is less than my copay back home.  This illness might be debilitating and maddeningly persistent, but at least I'm not going broke treating it.

The Noh Family Wedding

On Saturday, August 31st, I attended the wedding of Soee's older sister at Apgujeong Catholic Church.  The ceremony was fairly brief, and I didn't understand much because it was all in Korean, but I thought I'd share some of the interesting differences between a standard Western wedding and a Korean Catholic one:

-Instead of the bride and groom not seeing each other until the bride walks down the aisle, the bride and groom came out together.  The groom then walked to the front first, followed shortly by the bride and her father.  (On a related note, both the groom and the father wore white gloves.)
-The bride and groom then knelt at the base of the steps leading up to the podium.  (I'm not 100% sure if they were kneeling or sitting, since my view wasn't very good.)  At the end of the ceremony, I saw people take away a couple wooden objects that they were kneeling on/sitting at.
-The bride and groom almost never faced each other; they spent the vast majority of the ceremony side-by-side looking up at the priest.  They also read their vows off a script provided for them.
-Instead of a big kiss to finalize things, they faced the audience and did a quick peck on the lips.
-There was a best man and maid of honor, but no groomsmen or bridesmaids.
-After the ceremony, the bridge changed out of her wedding dress into a simple red dress.  I heard that it's traditional to wear a hanbok (a traditional Korean dress), but they can be really hot in the summer, so it's becoming more common for brides to wear Western-style formal dresses instead.
-The bridge and groom cut a small cake as part of the reception, but no one ate any of it.  After cutting the cake, they then retreated into a family-only room in the back for what I imagine was some much-needed privacy.
-As is typical in most Asian countries, wedding gifts are usually cash, around 30,000 won (for acquaintances) to 50,000 won (for close friends).  I understand that this was the solution to the age-old problem of "I got six of the same thing, and none of them were what I wanted!"  Instead of wedding registries, however, they decided to just give money.  I brought a Western-style gift (a hair dryer requested by the bride), though only because they wanted me to do it that way.

I think that's about it for the major differences I remember.  If I can think of anything else, I'll update the post.  Overall, it was very interesting to observe and be a part of it all!