En route to Joellabelle and Tan-Tan in Yeosu!

Now I am in the PC Bang drinking what I thought was pineapple juice, but is actually pineapple pop. It's kind of gross. But maybe it will grow on me. I never thought I would enjoy corn water...

Anyway, Monday morning I woke up bright and early to a clean apartment and not much to do. (I might add, I arrived in Suncheon Friday, and it took 3 INTENSE days of cleaning to de-contaminate my apartment. The teacher who was here before me cleaned NOTHING her ENTIRE year here, and left all of her stuff as it lay! So before I could UN-pack MY suitcase, I had to DE-pack the closets and all the drawers, it was so ANNOYING!! Winnie was with me when I walked into my apartment for the first time, and first she thought someone still lived there, and then when I assured her it was the right apartment, she asked me if I felt like crying. She said SHE would cry if she were me haha).

So back to Monday, I called Joelle and asked her if she'd be up for a sleepover Tuesday night. She said yes, so I went downtown to try and find the bus terminal and work out when the buses departed for Yeosu the following day.

I was barely ten steps out of Shidae (my apartment complex) when I ran into Dean. Dean did a presentation at our orientation in Gwangju because he and his wife have lived in Korea for five+ years. He assured me that buses run to Yeosu every 15 minutes, so I didn't have to go to the bus station. We went for tea instead.

A note on the weather: While we were out for tea, I was completely DRIPPING with sweat, the way I always am here. Dean asked me if I'd like to sit inside the slightly breezy tea shop, or outside, directly in the 32C BLAZING sunshine with 90% humidity. I was like 'is this a real question?' And HE said, 'ah, this is cool to me, I forgot you weren't here in June/July'.

Apparently, in June/July (which is monsoon season, so it rains almost everyday) temperatures hover around 38-39 centigrade, with 100% humidity due to the near constant rain AND school is in session right into August AND while many schools have air-conditioners, they usually don't turn them on!!!

I'm trying not to dread something that is ten months away, but I'm SO hot all the time NOW!! I thought I could deal with humidity since I'm from Halifax, but I DIDN'T KNOW it could BE like this!!! I wish I could put everyone in a box with the kind of temperatures I'm dealing with now, and then tell them it's worse! Far worse!! Two whole months of the year! I'm scared.

But anyway...Tuesday I got up and took a taxi to the 'bus-e station'. I get to this street with one lonely bus parked outside a store. I looked at my taxi driver questioningly, and she yelled at me for a few seconds, until I decided to chance the sketchy looking bus terminal. (It really doesn't help to raise your voice at someone who doesn't know your language. I can tell you this from first-hand experience).

So I walk up to a man in a uniform who is lazily smoking on the sidewalk. I say 'yeosu?'. He flashes 3 then 5 fingers at me, so I hand him 3500 won (about $4 CAD). He saunters over to this high-tech scary machine, feeds my money in and then hands me a ticket. I suppose this is a do-it-yourself ticket machine but HAHAHA like I could figure it out. Then he sort of meanders around, takes a few more puffs of his cigarette, and then picks up my bag and BOLTS onto the ONE bus there. For a second I just stared after him (nothing in his demeanor had indicated ANY kind of rush up to this point). Then I unfroze and ran onto the bus myself.

Suffice to say, I got to Joelle and Tanya's apartment safely, quickly, and cheaply, yet I was SO confused the entire trip!

(I've now been here for two months, and everytime I've asked the taxi drivers to take me to the bus-e station, I've been driven to the bus station, I've never seen that side of the road again!)