Perks of Korea

Here is a list of perks of Korea:

Early release movies: Ok, so not all movies, but most of the worldwide anticipated movies have come out earlier in Korea than in the states. Movies like The Avengers and Skyfall were released almost two weeks earlier and movie series such as Harry Potter and Twilight have all come out a day earlier! What's even better than early release? Cheap tickets!! Regular tickets will cost you around 8,000WON before 10PM, but after that they dip down to as low as 5,000WON. That's so much cheaper than the $12 I will have to pay back at home.

Medical procedures: If you have been following my blogs, I have gotten a few medical procedures done out here: septoplasty, laser hair/mole removal, and Lasik. Both of the surgeries would have cost me over a fortune in America (probably over few thousand dollars each). However, even without health insurance, it is affordable and more in Korea.

Food: Since tipping is not a custom in Korea, it already knocks off a lot on the price of food at a restaurant. But even without the tip, going out for dinner here is much cheaper than cooking for yourself. You can get "fast" Korean food (much healthier than the American burger and fries) for an average of 5,000WON per entree. Lets not forget how cheap alcohol is. I'm not talking about cocktails, I'm talking about the beer and the ever nasty soju. Selling at less than one US dollar per bottle, soju is all you need to get your night started (or ended).

Rent/Living: A year ago, I lived in a villa and paid around 420,000WON per month. That's not bad at all, considering it was fully furnished and water is included in the rent. This year, I live in a high rise two bedroom apartment with a roommate and we pay 600,000WON each a month. I have a full living room, kitchen, and bathroom (with a shower door) and if it wasn't for work, I would never have to leave my building. My building has three different types of gyms, few beauty salons, a pharmacy, a number of restaurants, and so much more. A place like mine back in the states would cost over a thousand dollars a month plus utilities...let's not even go there.

Shipping: I'm sure shipping something overnight is costly, but anything standard is charged by the size of the box and not the weight. The postal service workers will try to get you to ship your boxes first class, but the standard is just as good. I have sent a few gifts to my friends at home and it only took five bucks per box and a week to arrive at the destination. All my friends who ship their belongings back home when they're done with Korea end up paying around 25,000WON per box for it to arrive around a month later. Like I said, they don't charge you by the weight, but by the size of the box. Please don't mistake this as shipping from US to Korea. Only the other way around.

What's not cheap? Anything American (Hollister, Ralph Lauren, TGI Fridays). Living in Korea is cheap, but you do have to live a Korean lifestyle. But don't forget, the money that you make out here will let you enjoy your guilty pleasures here and there.

Surgery

As most of you in the Facebook world know by now, I just had a Septoplasty. In other words, I had a crooked nasal passageway and had to get it straightened out. Apparently, deviated septums run in both sides of my family and even my little cousins have underwent this procedure. Why even go through all this? Because my friends/family couldn't tell the difference between me and a bear snoring.

A good news about getting this surgery in Korea is that it only cost me ~$US250 including medicine. Cheap right? This same procedure (with a couple of others) would have cost me over $6000.00 in Amurrica.

Surgery:
This was my first surgery ever. I had no idea how strict they were with jewelry and nail polish. They even cut off a bracelet I'd been wearing since college. Anyways, after crying about that, I had to strip naked and get into some patient scrubs! Yay to feeling free. I was then given an IV along with some antihistamine shots and was to wait about an hour before I could be all cut up.

Once I was taken to the OR, I was shot with anesthesia multiple times. It hurt so much, I yelled the F word outloud a couple of times. After that set in and lost all feeling of my nose/mouth, the doctor came in and cut my nose open. As he was shoving stuff up my nose, I could feel my nasal bone snap, crackle, and pop! Of course it didn't hurt, but I felt my bone being shifted around in there. After all that, I could feel the string as they sewed me up.

The surgery itself only took 40 minutes. They finished me off by shoving all kinds of gauze up my nostrils and then taping me up with more gauze in case I bled out. And bled out, I did. My grandma was NOT being supportive and all I felt like doing was crying. Every time I cried, the more I bled. Not only did I bleed through my nose, I even bled out my eyes. I felt like the bad guy from Casino Royale, as he wiped the blood off his eyes.

Post-op:
Going home was not fun. I nearly passed out as I tried to get up and thought about how effed up it would be if I fell forward and hit my nose on the ground. I wasn't allowed to wash my face or breathe through my nose (not that I could, even if I tried). Trying to sleep was even worse. I was told to sleep sitting up, or propped up. ugh. I woke up every hour because I was forgetting to breathe and nearly choked.

Look how wonderful and happy I look right here. I had so much gauze up my nose, it nearly doubled the size of my normal nose! Eating was hard, drinking was hard, talking was hard, life was hard.

Day 2 was not bad at all UNTIL I had to go back to the hospital to get the gauze taken out. OMG I never felt pain like that ever in my life. I cried so hard and told the doctor to just stop. He only worked on one nostril and I was crying like a little baby. Sleep was horrible. This time, I was sleep talking. I still have couple strips of plastic in there. I think it's to hold my nose upright and makes sure it sets straight.

Day 3, I am still taking drugs and am doing a nasal cleanse.  I have bloody mucus dripping out my nose and have to make sure that I wash out everything bad in there. On a funny note, look how much medicine I have!

I have other kinds of drugs to take, but thought it was funny that I could wrap my meds around my neck like a scarf.

Anyways, Merry Christmas Eve. Hopefully my nose will feel better and I can actually breathe out of it.