A recap of September.

Radiation therapy, part two, concluded two days prior to Chuseok (추석). Chuseok falls on the same day as the Chinese mid-autumn festival. It is often termed the Korean Thanksgiving. Though the similarities with Thanksgiving seems to simply be the fact that it is a long weekend and food is involved. It centers more on ancestral themes. The media reports that the younger generation tend to celebrate the traditions less. Some threads attribute it partly to the fact that the gatherings are only on paternal sides of the family, and that women still do all the preparation and cooking while the men, well, do not and idle.

This round of radiation was over a lesser number of days. A larger immobilization mold was made to keep her from moving during the radiation. We took it home at the end. Just to have a little fun. Halloween costume? Our favorite photo is the one where she looks like the dorky kid in the movies that has had an accident but is still a bundle of smiles.

 

The last day of round 2 radiation marked what would likely be her last visit at this particular hospital. We continue at another hospital. The last hour was spent in a hilarious triangular rotation between billing, medical records, and the international health dept. Foreigners have to go on a “pre-pay” basis here. So you ask for a copy of medical records, then go to billing to pay for them, then go back to records, then go to international health services to ask for assistance due to various pieces not in sync between Korean/English versions. Repeat. Each little “department desk” is modern, fast, friendly, efficient.  But the system makes it a tad convoluted.

The next day, it was an early morning trip to the second hospital. To get her treatment shots. Before the general outpatient staff took off for the long weekend. Three jabs. Tummy and rear cheeks.

Revenge of Grape Nuts. Since we finished early at the hospital, we decided to wander further from our apartment to find other cafes. To perhaps spend a few relaxing hours writing to family and friends. We found one where k-pop did not permeate at damaging volumes. We ordered our coffees and also bought what looked like an interesting bread baked with some sticky goodness in the middle. I have a chipped tooth with an onlay, one. A few years ago, not having spent my childhood in America, I got curious about what the big deal around Grape Nuts were. My first mouthful had broken a piece off my molar; a strong, over-fluoridated-since-birth Singaporean tooth. Needless to say, I dislike Grape Nuts. Well, the first mouthful of sticky bread had me finding something hard in my mouth. The crown onlay on the chipped tooth had come off. Great. After all the constant days of hospital visits, today was meant to be the relaxing unwind. The long weekend looming, would there be a dentist working? The day before “Thanksgiving”? Searching online in our neighborhood wasn’t very productive, so we simply made a quick appointment for a dentist further away in an expat area. Even though we’re positive there is an English speaking dentist in our neighborhood to be found. Annie came along, since she might as well have a consult with the dentist, about one of her medication’s possible side effects. A temporary fix was made and I was to go back on Saturday to start the process of getting a new crown. Surprisingly, the dentist and staff weren’t taking a whole long weekend.

That night, we eyed the mooncake that M had brought when visiting from Palo Alto. With double yolks. I wasn’t going to miss it, so it was a comedy of chewing on one side of my mouth. Annie isn’t a fan of salted duck yolks. I am. It was thus very simple to divide and conquer the mooncake. Though given that salted duck yolks have twice the cholesterol of butter, and I was having two, I doubt if having two at one sitting was good for me. Tasty nevertheless. Annie enjoyed her bites and watched the moon.

We postulated that she would be alright with walking for a longer stretch. And given that it was Korean Thanksgiving, we decided to head out towards Ansan, to an area that had been denoted as a multicultural food street.  A good hour plus away by the subway.

We started with Vietnamese; pho and bun bo hue. The tables actually had the tray of condiments, and the Pho came with actual húng quế (thai basil)! In Seoul, your Pho would often come with pickles, pickled onions, and no basil. A rather authentic menu, even with hot vit lon (Vietnamese equivalent of balut); which a few tables were enjoying. There was a host of street food and other restaurants, ranging from Indonesian to Uzbek. Including strange butcher shops; though I had thought selling dog meat was supposed to now be illegal here. All “chinese” food though, were northern chinese. We didn’t try any after walking around; reasons apparent in latter observations.

Negatives? Sadly, plenty. The image of clean subway stations and streets of Seoul came to an abrupt change in the few blocks surround Ansan station. Either some groups brought their stereotyped behavior, didn’t care to integrate to a new environment, or the mono culture in Korea simply assumed this was stereotypical and accepted it as norm. Not a place of abject poverty, but one filled with people who didn’t care. We’ve traveled through places that were economically poor, yet filled with people who cared for their environment. Here, trash littered the streets and liquid seeped out of food waste bags onto sidewalks. Constant spitting. It was so disappointing to see that I couldn’t bring myself to take a photo of the environment. What happened here?? We skipped any further eating in this neighborhood. We did see a few of those old school Asian gold shops. The ones where all sorts of financial transactions can occur. We joked about how I should have brought my tooth’s removed gold onlay to sell. Sidenote: If you’re backpacking through developing south east asian cities, these shops often have great exchange rates when you use crisp USD bills. Often better than the day’s official rates.

The next day proved to be more rejuvenating. We decided to do a further loop along the river walk by the apartment. Aiming for a pain free 3 miles for her. Equivalent to a loop around Greenlake back in Seattle. Along this section we encountered numerous exercise stations, idyllic areas under bridges, modern bathrooms, elevated shelters, and posters of what spring and autumn would look like. Oh, and here’s also screenshot of what was at the other end of a park where we turned around. Bummer I don’t have a rope, or a partner for some weekday exercise; it’s not too shabby of a climbing wall within a mile from home! Today marked the furthest distance in the past two months she’s been able to walk pain free.

Towards the end of September, we had dinner at N’s place with two of Annie’s co-workers. A wonderful Persian feast. Y also joined the same company as Annie, but in the Seattle office, and came to the Seoul office for a week.

We also found new shortcuts around the neighborhood, halving the time to walk to an area we had not walked to often. There’s also an older market street in that area, right across from a nice Lotte department store, and surrounded by numerous small eateries. A mix of old and new. We have walked there more often now. That’s it for a haphazard smorgasbord of photos and bits for the latter part of September.