I’m starting to feel pangs of guilt for how little I am doing per day. Granted, I am completely obsessed with learning Korean at this point, spending close to four hours a day between textbooks, Duolingo, TTMIK, and a couple of apps, but it is the feeling that I am in the hostel all the time. It’s become a comfortable routine studying most of the morning over a couple cups of coffee, and hanging out the rest of the day. Despite all the studying, I am not using Korean beyond “hello,” “thanks,” and reading the name of a dish of a menu. My small victory for the day was asking the cashier at a convenience store how much an unmarked salad cost.
I made plans to go for a run with the French guy working at the hostel in the early afternoon, but the bosses suddenly showed up to do some spring cleaning. While waiting around to see if he’d be free, I busted out my external hard drive for another guest who had been randomly searching YouTube for movies, and I ended up getting sucked into watching a whole movie in the afternoon.
After the movie, I headed out on my own for the jog, doing a lap around the World Cup stadium while checking out a swimming pool I found on the map. It was part of some sort of “Spa Land,” and I ended up more confused as to the pricing when I could only make out half the signage: sauna, gym, weekday, holiday, swimming pool, jjimjilbang, monthly membership. It got even worse at a separate entrance for the gym section, where I attempted to talk to someone and got the info sheet on various membership levels.
Back at the hostel, “Beethoven” had been busy transferring movies to his computer and decided to make a Harry Potter marathon. I grabbed some fried chicken takeout and made it about 20 minutes into “Prisoner” before I called it the night.
| Salad + Salad | 6300 W |
| Fried Chicken (boneless w/ sauce) | 12000 W |
| Beer | 4900 W |
| Total: | 23200 W (140 RMB) (USD 20.75) |
Running Total: 3020 RMB (USD 447.80)
Daily Average: 302 RMB (USD 44.78)