power adapter, get

so, after a few days of deciding i'd like to use my laptop, i finally decided to track down EMART. EMART is like a Korean WalMart, I suppose, but much fancier, and apparently the only reliable place to find adapters outside of Seoul. Step 1 involved being positive of where I was starting, which seems simple, but was surprisingly challenging. It involved no less than three or four websites, and satellite pictures from google maps. There was probably an easier way to find out, but that's not how I roll.

Part two was finding out where EMART was, much easier, just typed in "Yongin EMART" and there were 5 within not-unreasonable distance from me. One was a straight shot south then few streets over for about 3-4 miles, so I opted for that one. The only reason I think this was easy to find walking, without a map, was that it was right past a bridge, probably would have not been as lucky without that sort of landmark.

So, not bothering to check the weather or bringing a drink, hat, or sunglasses with me, I set out.

It was very hot, all of those decisions were terrible choices, haha. Good exercise though, which was one of my goals, so I can't complain. It probably would have been easier to get a bus or taxi, but taxis feel like cheating, and I haven't gotten a bus card yet, that's today's (Saturday's) goal. I think I can buy them at 7-11, we'll see.

Anyways, after awhile, I eventually found my bridge, which also had this cool little park thing running along it, awesome. I wish I knew how long it took but without a cellphone, which has doubled as my watch for years, no clue.

After the bridged I just took a random left hoping it would lead me there, and it did, hooray. It was broken into different floors, and you need to checkout with everything you get on each, which was different. So while exploring for adapters, I also found some amazingly cheap razors which I forgot to pack, bought those and headed up to the next floor. Walked up to the electronics counter, motioned to a American plug that I had brought with me for reference, hoping it would be enough to get my point across, nope. After me speaking in English and her speaking in Korean for a minute or two, I give up and just break out my English-Korean dictionary and point at 'adapter'. This still was not successful, she understood the adapter part but I'm not positive she got what I was adapting to, so she called over someone else who also unfortunately spoke no English. But this lady was on the ball, took me right to the outlet/plug section.

She spoke to me non-stop for about 3 minutes in Korean, combined with long gazes at the shelves, haha. There was only one thing there that could potentially work for me, but when I grabbed it, she made an X sign with her arms. I think she was trying to communicate a voltage difference to me, and that my electronics would explode if they didn't support the Korean 220v system. I'm not sure. But the alternative is a converter which they didn't carry, and I believe she thought I needed. So I waited her out and eventually she wandered off, I grabbed my prize and checked out. The only remaining challenge was a bag, but luckily an employee who spoke English walked by checkout as I was beginning to have difficulty communicating this with the cashier.

After all that I had some extra 500 won coins to buy some refreshing Gatorade from a machine. 500 Won = ~42 cents. Not bad for a serving size drink. Normally I drink a lot in one setting, but I'm already getting in the habit of smaller servings, which I hope is a good thing. The minicans of juice/tea/soda are everywhere and very cheap. So I'm going to try to further get into this habit.

Things are very unventful still, I spend more time in my hotel room than I probably should. If it weren't sweat-through-my-clothes hot most days I'd explore more. But once I start work next week I'll be spending more time with the other foreign teachers and hopefully this will lead to more active things.