One spring morning, we woke up to the brightest and clearest
day we had seen in Korea this time around. Decided to visit a park along the
inlet that we had seen on our Costco runs. Taking a wrong turn, we wound up on
the opposite side of the expressway from the park and discovered a seaside-y
sort of place full of seafood restaurants, seaside walkways, and street vendors.
Upon further investigation, we found a tiny amusement park with an arcade
(including Time Crisis!), a mini aquarium, and two old naval ships which we
could go into. One ship had previously belonged to America and had been through
WWII in the South Pacific, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War before being
turned over to the Korean navy in the 1980s. Not feeling like eating octopus,
we drove to the nearest Burger King in Dangjin. 
The next weekend, being four days long, gave us enough time
to visit Andong and Cheongsong-Matt’s old stomping grounds. Drove for nearly five
hours directly east. We easily found a love motel in Andong and enjoyed
exploring the area again. The next day, we drove the forty-five minutes to
Cheongsong, along a road we had never been before. Cheongsong was a great trip
down memory lane! It has changed so much, with more posh coffee shops (for
rural Korea) and some more restaurants. Heard someone calling out Matt’s name
as we walked down the street. Turned to see one of Matt’s old students running towards
us—he actually remembered him! We tried to find Matt’s old landlady, but she wasn’t
home. 
Spent the rest of the day hiking around the foothills and
around town. Cheongsong and Andong were more beautiful than I had remembered,
with clear skies and huge green trees. Returned to Andong along the bus route,
finally stopping at the giant grasshopper park we had seen many times from the
coach window. It was getting dark and was quite scary, being the only people
there. Finished off the night successfully eating 1 kilogram of pork, not
recommended to eat that much in one sitting!
Before returning to dreary, dirty Shinpyeong, we stopped at
Korea’s highest stone pagoda, located right in Andong. I was a nervous wreck
the entire five hours home, hating Korean drivers who love to come to a sudden
crawl inside a tunnel and then go crazy after the tunnel to make up for lost
time.
Started cleaning the apartment, cupboards and such, a week
early, which was good because it took several hours at a time to do minor
tasks. One day had to drive an hour away to the pension office, just to spend
half an hour filling out paperwork. By the time we returned to Shinpyeong, we
had to go to work. Another day we had to go to Dangjin to open a bank account
in order to transfer money to America. What a mess that was!
South Korea has often been applauded for its technological
strength of late. I don’t really get how that could be. Many of the computers
are ancient, still using XP and a really old version of Internet Explorer.
Anti-Virus programs are never updated as soon as the free subscription runs
out. Many of the websites consist of broken links. When Matt asked why Korea
has the oldest versions of everything, he was told it was because no one had
the money to upgrade, even though most of the upgrades that can be done are
free.
Non-the-less, it was still surprising when Matt spent an
entire day going around to local banks trying to find one that would transfer
money out of the country. Instead we had to visit other banks in Dangjin and
set up new accounts. This isn’t easy, it takes hours to fill out the paperwork,
go to your other bank and transfer the money to the new account, go back to the
new bank, and fill out the wire-transfer forms. We were at this for two hours
producing ATM cards, bank books, Alien Registration cards, passports, and bank
numbers, only to be told that we couldn’t transfer money because we had
transferred from different banks in 2012! After another two hours, we were able
to transfer money, with the warning that we couldn’t do it again this year because
we had already transferred the limit, which I can unfortunately say, isn’t true.
After returning to Shinpyeong, we headed to work, where the
students were a mix of sad and happy that we were leaving. I was for one,
relieved, especially after our boss had decided to forgo the insurance from the
car wreck, making us pay $400 for the car. Upon questioning an unclear
statement from our boss, he flipped out and accused us of being argumentative
and we were the subject of scorn for the next few days.
We were told to leave the apartment a day early, so we did.
The boss “kindly” gave us a ride to Dangjin bus station and made sure we had
purchased the tickets out of town before giving us a surly goodbye and driving
off. We waited around the bus station for several hours, sat on the bus for
another two hours, and arrived at the airport, exhausted. Concluded that it
would be cheaper to stay at the spa in the basement of the airport and catch a
movie at the movie theatre, rather than pay the $30 taxi ride and $50 hotel
fee. Didn’t catch a movie in the end, because apparently, it costs $18 to leave
the spa for longer than an hour.
Plane luckily arrived on time, and we fought old Chinese
ladies for over-head space and foot space thanks to their yen for duty free
crap. In no time we had arrived in China, where we had made it in time to get a
free hotel room!
It was a grand hotel with a beauty pageant and another
conference going on. We tired ourselves out waiting for various south East
Asians to check in. They were all herded to the basement rooms (no windows),
while we westerners were ushered to the higher floors. We giggled at the window
between the bathroom and the bedroom and settled down to sleep, only slightly disturbed
by the scratching and gnawing of a rat in the closet. Woken up early to catch
the shuttle bus past abandoned hotels and four-story houses for the next part
of the journey to the UK.
