This week has been a pretty full one. Last Friday night, Alan and I met at Seongnamdong for dinner. There's a burger place a few doors down from ANell Salsa called the Toolbox.
It's a nice little restaurant and the food is delicious. The burgers have egg and bacon on them in addition to the meat patty and have some sort of Korean sauce. The meal is served with fries but they also have chili fries you can get for extra. I would definitely recommend them.
Saturday morning, Alan and I woke up early and headed to my school. The kindergarten was putting on an art exhibition for the parents and I thought it'd be fun to go see it. I had originally told my supervisor that I wasn't going. In fact, all of the English teachers said they weren't going. So she was pleased that we showed up. The weather was gorgeous that day and the exhibition was outside, so it was really pleasant. And I got to show Alan the zoo that is my school. He met the ostrich.
That evening, we went back to Seongnamdong for salsa dancing...only to find that there was no salsa party at ANell that evening. We were already out, so we decided we may as well try out the foreigner's bar in the area. JJ's. It's also on the same street as ANell (everything seems to be on that street) and down a little alley. They have a dart board and a pool table, so we got a drink and shot some pool for a bit. Alan pretty much destroyed me. I'll have to work on my pool skills. But it turns out that JJ's has a swing/line dance night every Tuesday. I'm not much of a swing dancer, but maybe we'll have to check it out sometime.
This work week went by pretty quickly for me. Thursday evening was my school director's birthday. So she took the entire Little Campus staff out for dinner. She even let me bring Alan. Dinner was at a really swanky place called 삼산 드마리스 (Samsan Dumarisu) near the Lotte Department Store. It was the biggest buffet I've ever laid eyes on. They had different sections for foods for different countries. Korean, Japanese, Chinese. They had pasta, salad, bakery items, steak. Desserts galore. A large section for fresh fruit. It was all delicious. I'm pretty sure that both Alan and I felt amazing after that meal.
Yesterday, Friday evening, Alan's lab group was going out for Korean BBQ and invited me to join too. The place is within walking distance of home, so it was pretty easy to get to. Just along the river. Korean BBQ is always an interesting experience. Meals in Korea are very communal, so you don't really get your own set of food. They have side dishes on the table and you have your designated cooker who puts the meat strips on to cook. You just use your chopsticks to grab meat right off the wire and eat it. Another interesting (disgusting?) thing about Korean BBQ is that there always seems to be someone who likes to eat the meat raw. Not sure I could stomach that. But it was a pleasant meal and it was fun to meet Alan's professor and his lab group mates.
Now, this entire week, I've been battling an ear infection. The first one I've ever had. But in my attempt to clean it out myself with cotton swabs (which doesn't help at all), my ear canal became nicely inflamed and full of fluid. I was nearly deaf in my left ear for the last three days. It was as though I had an ear plug in at all times. Unfortunately, the hospital is only open during the hours that I happen to work. Thankfully, they are open for a few hours on Saturday morning. Alan and I got up early this morning and went to 도강 병워 (
Dongkang Medical Center). They had an English website, so we were under the assumption that this would be an English speaking hospital. It wasn't. But, my Korean was efficient enough to communicate to the receptionist what it was I needed and I got myself in. The nurse didn't speak English either, but the doctor spoke some broken English. He looked at my ear and told me there was a lot of discharge. So he grabbed a tool not unlike the suction tube you'd find at the dentist and sucked everything out of my ear. It wasn't exactly pleasant. But I felt pretty good afterwards. I could hear again. He prescribed some ear drops for me and with my broken Korean, his broken English, and some entertaining miming he was able to tell me what to do with them and how long I needed them for. The nurse directed us to the pharmacy just across the street and I got my ear drops. The entire ordeal was extremely cheap. The doctor visit itself was about $20 and the medicine was about $25. Not bad.
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| Temple entrance |
This afternoon, after getting back from the hospital, we grabbed the 807 bus out to the middle of no where.
Mt. Gaji is one of Ulsan's Twelve Scenic sites and is the tallest mountain in Ulsan. There's something called the "four seasons of Mt. Gaji". The mountain looks very different (and very breathtaking) each season and so we've decided that we're going to make the hike through each of the seasons. Today we made our fall hike. The trail starts at 석남사 (Seoknamsa Temple). The temple is run entirely by nuns and they charge an admission fee to see the temple. What we didn't know was that they only take CASH. The nun was extremely kind though and she ushered us through anyways. The temple was a Buddhist place of worship and it was really pretty.
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| Scenery at the temple |
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| Temple |
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| Hiking trail at Mt. Gaji |
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| Scenery |
The hike itself was pretty strenuous. We made it about halfway up the mountain, but since we didn't show up till 2pm, we weren't able to finish the entire hike. It's dark by 6pm and on such a trail, it wouldn't be a good idea to be wandering around in the dark. The peak we got to though, was a helicopter stop. You know, in case you die and they need to come collect your body. The view, even from halfway up, was still gorgeous. It started raining before we reached our turnaround point, so the way down was a little slippery, but with gravity's help, it was still faster than the way up.
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| Hiking trail at Mt. Gaji |
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| There was a lot of quartz along the trail |
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| Ropes to help your hike |
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| The four seasons of Mt. Gaji |
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| The red triangle is where we made it to |
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| Our view |
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| Back at the bus stop after our hike |
Overall, the day has been really good. Full of ear relief and beautiful scenery with my wonderful husband. I'm really looking forward to going back to Mt. Gaji.
Saturday morning, Alan and I woke up early and headed to my school. The kindergarten was putting on an art exhibition for the parents and I thought it'd be fun to go see it. I had originally told my supervisor that I wasn't going. In fact, all of the English teachers said they weren't going. So she was pleased that we showed up. The weather was gorgeous that day and the exhibition was outside, so it was really pleasant. And I got to show Alan the zoo that is my school. He met the ostrich. 
That evening, we went back to Seongnamdong for salsa dancing...only to find that there was no salsa party at ANell that evening. We were already out, so we decided we may as well try out the foreigner's bar in the area. JJ's. It's also on the same street as ANell (everything seems to be on that street) and down a little alley. They have a dart board and a pool table, so we got a drink and shot some pool for a bit. Alan pretty much destroyed me. I'll have to work on my pool skills. But it turns out that JJ's has a swing/line dance night every Tuesday. I'm not much of a swing dancer, but maybe we'll have to check it out sometime. 
This afternoon, after getting back from the hospital, we grabbed the 807 bus out to the middle of no where. Mt. Gaji is one of Ulsan's Twelve Scenic sites and is the tallest mountain in Ulsan. There's something called the "four seasons of Mt. Gaji". The mountain looks very different (and very breathtaking) each season and so we've decided that we're going to make the hike through each of the seasons. Today we made our fall hike. The trail starts at 석남사 (Seoknamsa Temple). The temple is run entirely by nuns and they charge an admission fee to see the temple. What we didn't know was that they only take CASH. The nun was extremely kind though and she ushered us through anyways. The temple was a Buddhist place of worship and it was really pretty. 
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