I was in the mood for steak yesterday but we couldn’t find a single restaurant that served steak in the busy Sinchon area, which is supposedly a happening place where young people like to hang out.

We encountered lots of cafes (serving cakes and coffee), several Italian restaurants and endless Korean restaurants, a terrifying number of which served octopus.

 

Sheylara searches for steak.

 

The thought of octopus is kinda off-putting to me for now, as is Korean food in general, as a result of my octopus meal experience.

Anyway, we finally settled for a ramen restaurant because the pictures looked good. But we were somewhat cheated because we ordered two bowls of shoyu ramen which were supposed to have hard-boiled eggs in them according to the picture in the menu.

When the ramen came, there were no eggs. We beckoned one of the kitchen staff over and pointed to the picture of the egg in the menu, then pointed at our eggless bowls.

“Where’s our egg?” we asked.

As is common in Seoul, the guy wasn’t too conversant in English but knew a few words. He shook his head, shrugged a bit and said, “No egg,” as if we were weird to be expecting eggs in our ramen.

What a rip-off?

The ramen wasn’t even nice. I would rate it 3/10 or thereabouts for taste of soup, texture of noodle and freshness of ingredient.

Furthermore, we ordered spicy california roll but got something like spicy tuna roll, instead. Our waiter had put in the wrong order. It looks kinda nice in the picture, but it’s really not nice. The red sauce tastes like chilli sauce, which is just wrong on sushi.

 

 

At least the kimchi was decent.

After this, I went and bought some Krispy Kreme to make up for the bad lunch. They now have a variety of Christmas-themed donuts, which is cute!

 

 

I’ve been deliberating over this for a few years now and I think I am finally ready to conclude that I prefer Dunkin Donuts over Krispy Kreme. Love the munchkins, especially.

There are tons of Dunkin Donuts outlets in Seoul! I’m prepared to believe that it’s the largest foreign food franchise in Seoul, the way outlets are everywhere.

 

 

Kay checked into the hospital yesterday.

The International Health Care Centre of Severance Hospital, which is the department that makes all arrangements for foreign patients, has English-speaking student volunteers wearing bright orange vests whose jobs are to take patients to and from locations in the hospital, like test labs or wards, or wherever.

We had two volunteers take us to the ward and one of them helped me wheel my little pink luggage. So sweet! I felt like I was checking into a hotel.

 

 

I know. I look so fat in my winter clothes!

The volunteers also serve as translators when we have to deal with staff that can’t speak English. It’s a very nice set-up.

 

 

The ward is quite sparsely decorated. Very plain, no sign of any effort made to make the room cosy and cheerful, unlike in Singapore hospitals. This plain, one-bedder costs KRW424,000 (S$484) a night.

 

 

Oh, there’s wireless Internet in the hospital after all. It’s made available to patients on request.

Some techie guy came in to the ward last night and fiddled around with my Macbook, spending something like 20 minutes just to set up my connection. I kept being called to key in my Macbook password to approve admin changes or to log in.

Dunno why it’s so complicated. You can’t actually detect the hospital network if you use your devices to search on your own.

My bed at the ward:

 

They gave me this package (plus a blanket) even though I’m not a patient:

 

Hospital food. I didn’t have any of it. Looks a bit blah.

 

Kay said it didn’t taste impressive. I bought sandwiches for my own dinner from the supermarket at the hospital. There’s a food court that serves great food here, but I just felt like eating sandwiches.

I bought more “groceries”. Everything in the hospital supermarket looks fresh and tasty and healthy. https://janesaddiction.org/inderal-online/ is a great place to buy medicines at a good price. My parents have been taking Inderal for many years as they both have problems with the cardiovascular system. And this is not their only medicine, so prices are very important to us. You can be sure that they are the lowest here. In addition, the service is at a high level.

 

 

The resident physician assisting Kay’s surgeon wrote the surgeon’s name on Kay’s arm with a marker last night (13 hours before the surgery). I think it’s to make sure that they operate on the correct arm.

 

 

Kay asked him, “Does that mean I can’t shower now? It will come off.”

The doctor said, “If it comes off, I will write again.”

What a funny doctor.

It’s now coming to 10 in the morning. Kay has just been put on a saline drip and is waiting to be wheeled into the operation theatre. Any time now.

I didn’t manage to sleep much last night, waking up several times during the three or so hours I was attempting to sleep.

Guess I’ll go to bed after he’s gone in. Probably will be resting or sleeping most of today, as will he after his surgery, I expect. I remember sleeping through the first two days after my surgery for a bone tumour a long time ago.

Update again tomorrow if I can!