Love Motels and Korea

A large part of the Korean culture is love motels. Kids live with their parents well beyond their adolescent years [acceptable limit] and literally only move out of their parents house when they get married. At that point, their parents buy them an apartment and they live with their spouse. When they go to university and start dating, there is no place to go for privacy, hence the love motel scene. These motels are very discrete, often with hidden garages or fringes at the entrance so that you cannot see who is parking their car. The rooms are rented by the hour and are used almost exclusively for sex. That is, except by foreigners. The expat community capitalizes on these cheap, but clean and usually decent, motels for accommodation purposes. Since we travel to different cities almost every weekend during the ultimate frisbee season, we have frequented many motels. The Hotel 369 was our most pleasant experience. For 60,000 won (often love motels run from 30-70,000), we were able to score a lovely room in Busan just behind the Oncheonjang subway stop and close to Pusan National University. I wanted to share what a nice love motel looks like. This way if you go to one and ask to see the room, you can compare.

The Korean Love motel: it's your home away from home! For 3 hours, give or take.

Most hotels provide slippers

Clean bathroom, including tub with jets!

That's right, there is a TV on the ceiling!

Every thing was classy ... except the red pleather headboard and matching chairs!

 

  Towels, robes, and a loofa were in a drawer

Free drinks in the mini fridge

Guests are given a "bathroom set" when they arrive that holds all the essentials in case you rushed to the motel

Including, but not limited to, toothbrushes, toothpaste, razor, bubble bath, face wash, 

collagen facial mask, condoms, lube, and other sex things

We recommend it!

A Sprained Finger

Of course, playing Ultimate Frisbee means you will incur a few injuries. Bruises, scrapes, strained muscles, etc. are pretty normal. Last season I was plagued with plantar fasciitis, this year my injury was a sprained finger. After reaching back to grab a disc that was behind me, it caught my finger and pulled it back. Way back. I felt a pop and then pain. I knew it wasn't broken, but definitely sprained.

A trip to the local doctor confirmed this. Haha, that's a funny story. I went to the Dankook University hospital because it's on campus, and I get a discount for being a Dankook employee. Win-win right? Well, I went to the reception and asked to see a doctor. After getting an English translator on the phone, to whom I explained the injury, the receptionist refused to let me see a regular doctor that day. She kept saying 'Doctor, opsoyeo' which means there are none. But tomorrow, she said, finger specialist. All I needed was a proper splint (I had fashioned myself a makeshift one already out of cardboard and tape, but I needed a real one) and perhaps an x-ray to ensure there wasn't a fracture. Apparently this was not possible without a specialist's expertise.

So the next day I go to where she booked my appointment and I arrive at a sign that says 'ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY' - wait what?! All I needed was a splint and I got sent to a surgeon. In Canada, this would have taken months to get in, but here I only waited until the next day. Despite my hesitation, the doctor was really nice and he spoke English. The x-ray showed that the tendon had pulled away from the bone (over stretched) and he wanted to give it time to heal. He was very impressed with my makeshift splint and couldn't believe I had made it myself (it would seem no one in Korea takes health care into their own hands). He taped up my finger to a splint and advised me not to use it and come back in 2 weeks so he could show me 'finger exercises'.

Two weekends of Ultimate later (yes, I had to keep playing!), I went back to him. He took my splint off and buddied my middle finger to the ring finger to stop it from twisting. The joint was very stiff, but after stretching it all weekend (and playing some more ultimate - hehe) it is feeling better! Not 100%, but I can almost make a fist on my own. Hurray!

 Middle finger sprain!

Sarah and Mom's Visit (aka: the month that flew by much too quickly ...)

Today my mom and sister returned to Canada. They were in Korea for 3.5 weeks and boy, did they do a lot! We tried to take advantage of all the time we had. I'll attempt to recap.

The first weekend that they were here was spent in Cheonan. We played some ultimate frisbee with our Cheonan group and then went out for shabu shabu. Mom was struggling with the chopsticks, but surprisingly, she liked the kimchi! Sunday we headed out to Independence Hall for some history and scenic pictures.

Post ultimate smiles!

Post ultimate eats!

 Independence Hall: Entrance and Korea Flags

The next week, they headed out to Seoraksan National Park to do some serious hiking and then to Seoul for shopping and a templestay experience. JM and I had some frisbee games that weekend, so we did not join them, but we all met up again after the weekend for our Chuseok break in Busan.

Templestay outfits!

Touring Gyeongbokgung Palace

After Chuseok, the four of us took an evening trip into Seoul to see the Nanta cooking experience. I had read some great reviews of the show online (it is Korea's longest running broadway show) and was excited to go to the theatre. Audience members are often pulled up on stage and lucky for us, we had aisle seats! So both Sarah and JM were called up. Sarah had to pull a barrel off some guy's butt and JM had to make mandu on stage as part of a competition. His team didn't win, but he was given a picture and a chef's hat as a souvenir. It was a great show - highly recommended for some amazing chopping skills and laughs!

Finally, our last trip was a long weekend in Jeju. Sarah and Mom took the ferry and I flew up after my last class. We rented a car that Sarah drove (!!) and it was by far the best decision we made. It was so convenient to have the freedom to travel when and where we wanted. We grabbed a tourist map and started circling places we wanted to hit. We planned out three days: east side, hiking Hallasan, and the west side. Jeju is an old volcanic island, Hallasan is a dormant volcano, so lots of sight seeing revolved around awesome lava rocks, formations, tubes, and cones. We stayed at the very cute Breakfast at Tiffany's B&B and our hosts were lovely people. Nice view from the rooms, log cabin style with the smell of pine. Very relaxing!

Jeju - Beautiful volcanic island

Day 1: Seongsan Ilchulbong, a tuff cone also called sunrise peak, has a great view of the ocean. By far the coolest part of the trip was the 1km long lava tube we walked through. A UNESCO world heritage site, this was such a unique geological wonder that all I could do was wish my grandfather was able to experience it with us.

View from the top of Seongsan Ilchulbong

Lots of stairs on the way back down

View of Jeju from the tuff cone

The entrance/exit of the lava tube. The ground caved in here, and that's how they found it!

Mom and Sarah walking through the tube

Melted rock

Day 2: Hiking Hallasan in the rain and sleet. Not as much fun as it sounds. Hallasan is the tallest mountain in Jeju, but sadly, we had no view at the top.

We made it to the top!

Day 3: The west side brought with it the amazing seashell museum/gallery (this was my favourite place), a hilarious waterfall (road drainage), a chocolate museum, and finally, the beach! A cute setting, where the beach was quite private and you had to climb down the escarpment to get to it.

 The artist not only displayed seashells, but she created art out of coral, bronze, and seashells.

This was the most spectacular gallery I've ever been to.

Three little mermaids

The world's greatest waterfall [*cough - road drainage*]

The rain did not keep us from enjoying the day

Mom jumps the same way every time

Jeju Island, 2013