the myriad difference between hospitals and clinics

well, it finally happened. today i went to a korean hospital for the first time. this, i guarantee you, is far less dramatic than it appears. here hospitals are called hospitals and clinics and walk-ins are called hospitals: there is zero differentiation between the two in discussion with koreans. you sort of realize you're not going to a hospital-proper when you're walking up a flight of stairs and a couple 13 year old girls in school uniforms are walking down, leaving their hagwon for the day.

after a lovely trip to neighboring gwangju, i managed to finally contract the epidemic that exists only in elementary schools. starting sunday morning i have felt like a dozen mice are running around inside my head. my nose won't stop running and it feels like my lungs are filled with soot. it doesn't matter if you teach at an isolated little town in the pacific northwest or a dingy metropolis on the other side of the world, you will get sick. this is why flu season starts. this is why doctors are rich and hated.

a note on the former. actually, a complete digression on the former: medicine here is cheap. and not cheap like insurance-cheap. i mean really cheap. i was resisting my co-teacher's attempts to get me in for a check up because i was afraid of the bill. i had seen angela go to the clinic and get treated for strep and she ended up paying about $80 USD for a pretty slick medicine drip (more on my costs later). as per usual, and being the cheap bastard that i am, it was difficult to get me to pay to pay for something i knew would just go away on its own in another few days. also i hate needles. they can just go sod off, thank you.

my co-teacher, mun su-eun (that's sue to you, by the by), finally got tired of watching me blow my sorry chapped nose and took me to a "hospital" today for a check-up. she asked if i had brought my insurance card and i told her that no, i wasn't planning on making a trip to the hospital today so i hadn't packed it with my lunchbag. "okay, no problem. just bring your ARC." from the time i entered the waiting room of the clinic, on the 2nd floor of a non-descript building on a non-descript street very close to where i live, to the time i was walking back out with a prescription notice in hand was less than the time it took for the battle scene on the bridge in mission impossible 3 to run. i was in and out in less than ten minutes and was informed that i wasn't as sick as everyone thought i was. it's tough to say i told you so sometimes. the doctor lady told me to take three and call her in the morning (actually quite literally), handed sue a bill and showed us the door. at the front counter i paid 3600won (just about $3.19 USD) and was out the door. there were no extended forms and liability waivers to fill out. there was no waiting for 20 minutes. dynamic korea comes through in a positive way here.

downstairs was the pharmacy. not across town like in the united states. apparently clinics and pharmacies work together in a federally-run health care system so that the crippled, or merely coughing, patient doesn't have to go on a vision quest halfway across the state to get their damned pills before collapsing in a heap on the side of the road due to exhaustion because they've run out of gas money and can't hitchhike because if they stuck out their thumb their crutches would fall out. i found this convenient. someone of more dire circumstance than myself might find this downright helpful. it took the people behind the counter less than 3 minutes to fill my prescription and for 9 doses of 3 pills each i paid 1700won ($1.50 USD). once again, no forms, no request of address, phone number, social security number, second piece of identification and the serial number of your first mountain bike. just in and out. later in the evening i would buy a pack of halls throat drops that cost more than my entire prescription.

as david sedaris so elequently put described his own habits while living in france, "now i can finally afford to be a hypochondriac."


...or maybe it's the air here?

-e pics n' things!

alien registry; the wall in my apartment

Eight business days after applying for my Alien Registration Card (and four business days after Ang), I have finally become a perfectly legal and partially contributing member of Korean society.* Considering the nuts and bolts of the application process and the complications that can arise unless it gets briskly taken care of:

The ARC is your lifeline during your stay in South Korea. It is the next best thing to a Korean passport we can get and we can only get it if we are working in country. I can only compare the importance of the ARC here with the (relative) non-importance of having something of the sort while in England: much more so. For example: during my five months in England I was able to get a phone and internet service (separate from the university's) without the UK-equivalent to the ARC. One day I stumbled into an O2 store and, 15 minutes later, stumbled back out with a phone and a buttload of minutes and texts. I've seen some forums that say you can have a pay-as-you-go phone with just a passport but those plans tend to be exorbitant in price and leave you feeling like a penniless husk at the end of each call. Some would say But Elliott, they're great if you don't use your phone much! This is something I would agree with but if you don't use your phone much you're going to be broke and unable to use your phone because you ran out of minutes trying to re-up. Also you can't re-up on weekends. Also there are apparently something like 17 million cellphone stores in the country of South Korea but only 2 deal with pay-as-you-go-plans and they're located nearer the DMZ than the 18 year old kids patrolling it.** So then, for all practical purposes no card, no phone.

The same goes for both internet and TV. You don't get either of them until you've received your ARC. In England you don't get TV (legally) until you've payed the licensing fee (it was something like 150gbp/annum when I was in country two years ago). Here in Korea the licensing fee supports the Educational Broadcasting System and the Korean Broadcasting System (both public programming) and will run about 30,000won - roughly $30 - per annum and is billed through the electricity fees your home or apartment accrues. Easy. Though it doesn't matter if you don't have an ARC.

And, for those of us stuck paying US bills while overseas, the fact that you can't start a new bank account until you receive Precious Card can be particularly worrying. EPIK, our recruiting agency and the overarching governing body for English language in country schools, signed Angela, me and about 700 other green teachers up with an account at Nong Hyup Bank. Seems perfectly fine until you realize that the account has been set up with your passport and you can't get paid until you set up an account with your ARC (because everything here works on direct deposit and your schools don't actually pay you money until they see that you're a legal registered alien and not just a rubbish collector living in the woods scraping off the good people's hard labours). Also Nong Hyup Bank doesn't give your money to banks overseas which means that you can't freely transfer money between Korea and the States. The only bank that Angela and I know of that does cheap, easy international funds transfers is KEB Bank and to set up an account there you need an ARC, a lowly official passport and E-22 working visa being insufficient and simply insulting, thank you very much.

So, the moral of the story: without your ARC you will find yourself between The ROK and a hard place.

-e

p.s. Playstation 3 consoles seem to be very expensive here so consider this a distress beacon: SHIP MINE NOW TO *message garbled*.

* The whole not paying taxes thing is a bit of a bonus, it must be said.
** I didn't have time to fact-check this one. Pure conjecture.

pics n' things!

undergrounds

it seems that a city is only a City® when it has a fully functioning below-surface transportation system. london has the tube. paris and tokyo have their metros. new york has the subway. there are few exceptions that immediately spring to mind save the L in chicago and perhaps the rickshaw/pedicab system in shanghai. here are massive urban centres that function as cultural, political and societal hubs of their surrounding regions. they are the largest metropolitan areas that embody all of the traits of their country or state and they represent this polity to the outside world - these are the figurehead cities, the shining examples of an area.

some of my favourite cities want to be Cities® but don't know how to be. portland has been battling Light Rail implementation for as long as i can remember. the MAX is available downtown and, to some extent, in some major attractions outside of the city centre. seattle will never get a monorail capable of anything practical because, apparently, everybody there has seen that episode of the simpsons. the latter city, however, does have a leg up on the former.

of the two major metropolitan centres of the northwest, seattle appears to be pursuing Cityship® with the growing usage of a widely unknown tube system. the system is not terribly expansive. yet. it is not terribly easy to use. yet. it is not terribly easy to find. yet. however the tracks are growing and the buses that use the tunnels travel at reliable intervals. i am reading an article in the Seattle Times, "A light-rail wonder", and it shows new tracks being laid as another passenger platform for a stop in Beacon Hill is completed.

seattle, with its so-far-successful incarnation of "the world's game" via the Sounders FC, wishes to become a City®. they are getting closer with the installation of a reliable, practical, culturally, politically, and socially friendly transportation network. the seattle underground is a secret weapon. my own experience with it is limited but it was the tool that enabled me to get from north seattle, near fremont, to the airport in just less than 30 minutes (with a change, btw) with a ski bag. there will undoubtedly be teething problems but, i guarantee you they won't be as severe as Springfield's monorail.

-e pics n' things!

gourmet my ass

it is my belief that those who claim there are such things as gourmet hamburgers and hot dogs are the same people that should be made aware of recent advances in the fields of mental health. in my researches one of the more understated gourmet dogs is served up by the GHC in London. good dogs, sure, but their mantra states: "We've taken the humble hotdog and reinvented it." why?

we may label extravagant and overpriced items of cow and pig as gourmet but it is up to the true purist of summer grilling to maintain the blue collar status of these foods. most gourmet burgers and hot dogs are garnished with enough sides and toppings that the real joy of the hand held meal is lost: the meat. want a good brat? don't smother it in almond paste, sprigs of romaine, peanut oil and salmon chutney. poke some holes in a fresh link from a vendor like hempler's or otto's. put the link in a pan of boiling beer and give it a few minutes. the beer shouldn't be too powerful - when you're dealing with this type of flavouring you will quickly lose the lovely individual spiciness of the meat if boiling in a really strong IPA or Porter (though a simpler pale ale from a brewer like full sail should be just fine>. instead stick with the classics like pabst or rainier. this will also carry the "everyman's" aspect throughout the entire cooking process - a simple meal requires a simple drink. but beware beers like budweiser or coors unless you enjoy eating what will end up tasting like scrapings from the underside of a wheelie bin lid from behind tesco's. once the link has had time to soak up the beer, toss it on the grill for marks or fry it in the pan after straining the beer out.

or, and in my opinion this is reaching, you can put together what i ate myself not twenty minutes ago. get a healthy red onion, cut width wise around the onion's latitude and create quarters out of the resulting onion rings. begin to fry those in a small amount of oil (the onion will create most of its own cooking oils as it sautees). wait for the onion to brown but make sure the centers of the larger slices are still a bit crunchy. next toss your link of choice in, the simpler the better - a spiced link such as a chorizo or a louisiana hot will work nicely for our purposes. let this cook on low heat for a while and in the meantime prepare your buns: pull them out from the fridge and put them on your plate. once the links are finished cooking let them sit in the onions and, while the pan is still hot, pour a bit of worcestershire sauce over the mix. finally, and this is really what makes this a little different, put a bit of chevre on the buns. a good chevre will go miles with just a few crumbly bits but beware the bad stuff. as a good former roommate told me, good chevre is irreplaceable as a meat accompaniment but bad chevre will taste something like turpentine. there are a lot of varieties out there but for this type of application i tend to go with a basil & oil flavoured cheese. put the links in the buns, garnish with those lovely sauteed onions, eat until you feel like bursting and remember that never do you need to pay $8 for a gourmet link. this is the essence of hot dogs and grilling - these simple recipes that will liven up an already respectably simple food. it's like giving a Lamborghini ray guns: it doesn't need them to go faster but it sure might make the experience more enjoyable.

enjoy the nice weather.

-e pics n' things!

on a lighter note

if you at all value small british cars getting turned into stretch limos...



-e pics n' things!

revised trip

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or.


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banks

the banks in england, for now, seem stable. my holder, HSBC, appears to have a solid foothold in the quickly crumbling mountainside that is the financial world. the other two major banks in england, and greater europe, Lloyd's TSB and Barclay's, also look to be in the relative clear. the latter bank, Barclay's, sponsors the UK's Premier League so their insurance policy is, in a way, the millions of fanatics who religiously attend matches with easy preference over such things as weddings, funerals and job interviews. (fun fact: Hull's F.C. just made it into the Premier League this year as a total dark horse competitor. go Hull City!)

but i digress.

HSBC has been a decent bank so far. none of the large banks in the UK charge ATM fees, i.e. there are no withdrawl fees on a Lloyd's TSB atm if you are withdrawing from a Barclay's account. each major bank has a wide ranging fleet of branches and teller machines across not just the west half of the country (think about it, wells fargo) but across the whole of europe. their staff is helpful and HSBC offers a solid checking/savings for students with their Passport program (the only drawback being a £6 monthly fee for the first 12 months). and with the oversight of the Bank of England, inflation is kept low due to preset interest rates. these are all good things.

but. a bummer occurs. i deposited my US loan checks to, you know, pay for school and live and stuff, only to discover that it takes HSBC up to ten weeks to pay them into a checking account. this means that i will have my monies over half way through my stay. hmm. something doesn't add up. so i went into the local branch this morning to talk with a representative, the same nice woman who helped me set up my checking account in the first place. she informed me that there are actually two ways that banks can cash these foreign checks: negotiation and another that i can't remember. the short of the yarn is that the teller who i initially deposited the checks to assumed that i would rather wait for ten weeks as oppossed to wait about two days for the negotiation method. i wasn't even informed about the option. the only difference between the two methods is that with negotiation your account is credited the amount and once the check clears (usually within three to five days), the money is yours. with the other method the check actually gets sent to your home bank for confirmation, to pakistan for target practice and then finally buried in soft peet for three months and recycled as firelighters (R.I.P.) before getting deposited in your account. so, if you're at least 10% sure you have the money in your account, it's worth the negotiation route.

one check is still waiting for deposit via the long method and one check was deposited by negotiation this morning. this will actually be good, spreading the money out over a longer period of time with the bulk coming in the latter half of my term here, when i'll need it the most.

other than this little hang up i have had relatively few problems still. classes are humming along and i am rather enjoying two, War & Memory in 20th Century Australia and Medieval Yorkshire: from the Norman Conquest to the Wars of the Roses, while the third is a little tedious, America: from Colony to Republic. with the latter i was looking forward to getting an English account of colonial history after being imbibed with the US version for the last 22 years. so as luck would have it, and it usually does, my little plan backfired and i have a canadien who studied in the US as my professor. all classes will end with a final essay. i have encountered a great deal of interest among professors who find out what i was studying last spring as there doesn't seem to be a great deal of russian history available here (i.e. none).

i keep forgetting to mention that the director of the international office gave me his Hull University Faculty tie when i asked where i could purchase one. i thought that was neat.

on a somber note, not many people here have seen or know about the big lebowski. as a result they seem to miss the importance of a good white russian.

-e pics n' things!