Saturday was another busy day. So busy, in fact, that I am a day behind with my postings.
I passed the morning in the typical manner, studying Chinese and — being Saturday — catching up on the news. News really seems less urgent when it isn’t fresh. Later in the morning, I went out to feed the homeless.
The previous day, I had been invited (not so much “invited” as proactively volunteered) to join a biweekly, church-sponsored charity mission by someone who had previously managed the hostel, but was still living there for the time being. Another long term guest also volunteered (technically she did first and I merely jumped on the bandwagon).
Anyways, we took the metro over to Seoul Station and met up with other volunteers in the upstairs of a homeless center. After some self-introductions and awkward small talk, we unboxed ramen noodle cups, Korean-brand “Yakults,” and choco-pies before hauling everything and a couple of folding tables over to in front of the train station where about 60 people were already lined up for a free lunch.
Homelessness isn’t as visible a problem in Korea as other countries, but it is reportedly quite common for older men to get laid-off by their companies in favor of fresh graduates and fall through the holes in the social safety net.
All the food was distributed in about twenty minutes with quite a few people making multiple passes through the line. There wasn’t much cleanup to do, and we headed back to the Hongdae area to get lunch at a “soup-rice” place, which was very similar to my last night’s dinner, except with pig instead of cow.
After a short rest in the hostel, I suited up to back out into the cold on a mission to get inside that sauna with a swimming pool. Another guest, who had happened to mention wanting to go to a spa, came with me. Though I wouldn’t have minded walking the 3 km to the World Cup Stadium, we took a bus. The sauna was really good (much better than the more famous Dragon Hill in any case) while the jjimjilbang portion was just so-so, as is standard in the Korean style. When I grabbed my swimming accoutrements to head to the swimming pool, I was stopped and told that I had purchased the wrong kind of ticket (sauna only instead of sauna+pool). At least, that is what I gathered from a one-sided conversation in Korean and I certainly don’t know enough to ask if I could just pay the 1,000 won difference. I’ll have to try again the next weekend.
I bought a 5-color salad mix in the giant supermarket also located at the World Cup stadium. I’m now in love with Homeplus and wish it was a bit closer so I could go every day.
| Lunch (gukbap) | 7,000 W |
| Spaland | 9,000 W |
| Salad | 3,990 W |
| Total: | 19,990 W (121 RMB) (USD 18) |
Running Total: 3511 RMB (USD 520.5)
Daily Average: 270 RMB (USD 40)