(merkit hukassa)

Adventures in Korea

Tag Archives: Japan

Fast dentist is fast

In Finland I waited for six months to get an appointment with my dentist. It really sucks a big time, the queues there. Here my filling suddenly came off and after trying one private dental clinic down the street (they kicked me out, saying they don’t speak English) I went to the university hospital’s dental clinic.

After filling in some forms the dental hygienist walked me to the x-ray guy, click, “okay Leena, phinished!” and out to the dentist. She checked my teeth while waiting for the filling material and told me my filling came out because my wisdom teeth is putting too much pressure on it – and I need to have it removed. Is next month okay? Oh, and we need to finish your root channel treatment and put a new crown on your teeth, is next week okay? And do you want a golden or porcelain crown?” And all this took maybe 30 minutes.

I have no clue how much do I need to pay for all this, but it’s probably dirty cheap compared to private dentists in Finland. Which would be my only option, since it’s impossible to get in the public dental care. For this one round – emergency filling, one local x-ray and one panoramic x-ray and check-up I paid  83000 won –  58 euros. Let’s see how much does it cost for the rest. I don’t really care, I’m just happy to get my teeth fixed and I have my insurance.

I’ve been x-rayed quite a lot in these last two months – first full torso x-ray back in Finland when I had to stay in the hospital, then here my lungs and my teeth. I need no more radiation.

GLEE club started for real. It’s a mixed choir, rather big one. I was happily surprised of their talent and even the young conductor dongseng gets my approval. We started with this song (skip to 3:40) – medley of animation music. My choir back home should learn from Korean culture – no excessive chatting and stupid questions, just listening and doing until the practice was over. After that we had plenty of time to talk – it seems to be common to go to a bar after clubs. We apparently had fun – after two bars we came back to the club room to play some more drinking games – until 6 AM. Those games are totally awesome.

Then again, I caught a cold so today I’ve been staying at the dorms, trying to get better. My friend is coming to Seoul tomorrow so I want to be able to go and meet him there. Also, tomorrow we are meeting some other friends and I have a presentation to make and and and… Oh, some pictures:

First one is from my Ecodesign II class… we have to disassemble and analyze an existing product and design a better one.

The lower pictures are from our dorm room – our decorations. Poster of the play I went to see, Big Bang, Korean flag and a hentai poster we found on our way home.

Everland… and the Japan crisis

Yes, by far everything is okay in Korea, even though the earthquake in Japan was devastating and the situation in Fukushima nuclear plant is still extremely unstable. Luckily the wind is blowing towards the Pacific Ocean. I find it rather relevant to keep following the wind situation, but no one here is panicking over it. Finnish Embassy in Seoul asked Finnish citizens to update their contact information, so I let them know my local phone number. That’s all I’ve done.

I joined Friends Club and went to Everland with them last weekend. Everland is a HUGE theme park close to Suwon. HUGE. And so were the lines. The main attraction was this:

T-express

The T-express

On the first day we waited on a line for 70 minutes and on the second day for 90 minutes (because one of the cars was broken and they operated with only one car). But it was worth it… the first fall was almost 90 degrees and the ride was long enough. Everything else felt quite lame afterwards.

The weather was very nice so the place was packed with dating couples and families. The staff managed to hide their deep hatred towards the songs and choreographies  they had to do while operating the devices. Oh, I think this crew actually had fun, although it doesn’t really show on the picture:

We were hanging out with this group:

They are all really sweet and nice and they look especially cute when they try on cutesy merchandise like Tha here:
Tha

or me and Anouk here:

After the dinner we had a house party… they call it member training here. MT equals to lots of beer, soju, music and drinking games. They have a lot of games – most of them really fun. I’ll try to learn them and bring them home.

Here’s what Björn thought of the party: