Thanks to that warmer weather, Sader and I have started running several times a week, and one morning we saw this beautiful view as we walked down a road near our apartment.
We are planning a trip to Cheongju sometime this month. It's a bigger city about an hour away from us. Our friends told us it has an awesome Indian restaurant that we are excited to try! We miss Indian food.
One exciting thing that happened for me (I say for me because this very same day Teaven had a very awkward and frustrating encounter with our vet.. more on that later) is my trip to Seoul about a month ago. As an early birthday present, I went to Seoul to get my hair dyed. Now, you may ask why I would go all the way to Seoul just for my hair. Well, here in Chungju, it's very difficult to find salons that have real blond hair dye. Most of the time it's more of an orangy color. In fact, there was a high school student who passed Teaven and I on the sidewalk and said "you, me, hair color same" when in all reality it was no where near the same color! So, all that to say I went to Seoul because I researched and found a place that has experience doing hair on foreigners. I had so much fun that day! When I arrived at the bus station, I took the subway to Hongdae, where the hair salon is located. Lucky for me, there was a Taco Bell right down the street, so I ate there for lunch before my appointment. My appointment was great. I felt so pampered. They gave me English magazines to read (such a treat when I haven't read a magazine in 8 months!), and always made sure I was comfortable. Their English was great as well! My hair turned out great. In fact, I believe it's one of the first times that I loved my hair immediately after it as done. Usually, it takes me a couple of days to love it. I will admit, it was pricey, but I loved it. If you ever need your hair done in Seoul, check out Hair and Joy. Afterwards, I went to a mall that Teaven and I really like and bought him video game since he had such a bad day back at home. Then, I headed to the bus station, had KFC for dinner, shopped around a bit, and then had Baskin Robbins before my bus was ready to leave. It was a great day!
Now, on to Teaven's side of the story. I apologize if I get any details wrong. He is much better at telling it than me. A little background first: Teaven and I have been going to a vet not far from our apartment. When we first started going, he did his best to speak English to us. Then, he found out we have someone who can translate for us, and he began to rely on her every time we went to the vet. Well, we decided to get Sader fixed before he gets much older, so we asked the vet for an appointment. We had a holiday on Thursday, so we decided that would be a good day to get it done. We met Mina, our Korean co-teacher at our Hagwon, at the vet, and she was able to tell us everything that was going to happen before she had to leave. What ensued was about 3 hours of craziness. The vet would bring Sader to us each time he got a shot until he finally fell asleep. Then, after the surgery, he called us in to help him as he was finishing everything. This was weird for us, but we dealt with it and finally got to take Sader home. The vet told us to come back the next day for Sader to get some shots. Well, since this was the day I went to Seoul, Teaven had to go by himself. While the vet was trying to communicate something to Teaven that Teaven already knew, three Russian people walked in. The vet was getting frustrated because he didn't think he was being understood, so he went to the Russian people and told them everything, hoping they would be able to tell Teaven. However, these Russians did not speak English, and it was the vet wasn't very smart to assume all white people speak English. They spoke Russian and only one of them spoke Korean. So, Teaven and the Russians both tried to explain to the vet that they did not speak English, but he just was not getting it. After the vet finally gave up, Teaven found his assistant attaching old x-ray film to Sader's cone to make it longer. It's ridiculous to think they thought Sader wouldn't be able to chew the x-ray film off. Obviously, they need to invest in some bigger cones. After Teaven told her to stop, he tried to pay, but they wouldn't give him the medicine. So, he called Mina to tell them to give him the medicine, and the phone conversation turned into a huge yelling match between the vet and Mina. Teaven was finally able to pay and hasn't been back since. lol. I'm sure I left out some details, but as you can imagine, it can be extremely difficult to communicate to people in a different language. It's also a little eye-opening living in this country because we are able to experience a little of what discrimination is like. In America, that would never happen.
Anyways, that was much more long winded than I expected, but I hope you enjoyed it!
