I woke up around 2:30. I drank some water and went back to bed. I heard Chris' alarm go off at 4:30. He got up a little later and went to the gym. I got up a little after 5. I washed up, got dressed, made breakfast and hot tea. I put the visa application packets in my bag and got money to pay for them. I checked e-mail. Chris came back from the gym just as I was finishing. I packed some snacks and put the tea in a water bottle. Then I bundled up. We got in the car and drove to Myra's parking lot. She came out and joined us. Chris drove us out in town to the bus station by McDonalds. We got out and he went back to base. The lady who sells bus tickets was not yet at her stand. I pulled money out of my wallet. Myra asked the first bus to come by if he went to Busan, but he just shut the door in her face. But the next bus did not pull up to the bus stop. Thankfully the light was red so he stopped at the intersection. Myra asked him about Busan and I guess he nodded. I handed him the fare for both of us and we got on. It was 7am. We rode the bus to Busan, which was not exactly a direct route, but we got to the first stop in just under an hour. We got off at Hadon. From there we were able to get a taxi. I told him we wanted to go to Ipark. I showed him the map on my phone. Then he nodded. And though it was on the other side of Busan, we were there in 40 minutes. I paid him about 25,000 won. Myra and I stood in the wind, looking for a building number. We decided to go in and ask at the coffee shop on the first floor. We were in the right building and when we got to the 5th floor, the Chinese visa application center was right there. They did not open until 9. So we went downstairs and walked around, stopping at a convenience store for coffee. Then we went back up. I walked in and a young lady immediately came forward to help me. I showed her the packets. She thumbed through them and then asked to see the plane tickets for the trip. I had to call Chris. He put the information in a pdf and e-mailed it to me. The lady had a computer which she set to Yahoo for me so I could pull up my e-mail. When the pdf from Chris came through, she printed it and added that to the packet. She had a few other questions, too, but we got through them. She indicated the last stamp on my passport and asked if that was the last time I entered Korea. It wasn't but there was no stamp for when I came back from Japan. I wasn't sure what to say. She also insisted on a contact in Korea so Myra assented to that. I did not point out that she would be gone at the same time we were. Then she passed all my info to another lady. I sat with Myra to wait until called. The other lady insisted on seeing my Korean Identification card, which obviously I don't have. She made me write on the applications that US military don't need Korean ID cards. She said the visas would be ready by Friday. A sign on her desk indicated that they had a postal service so I asked if the visas could be mailed and she said yes. (The sign also indicated that Americans pay 190,000 won while all other nationalities pay 55,000 for a Chinese visa). For the visas to be mailed she needed our address. So I called Chris again and he promised to call me back. The lady gave me a form with a small space to write the address on. I waited with Myra in the seating area for some time, then called Chris back. He had just e-mailed me the information. But the computer was in use by someone else. So Chris read me the English version. It was 8 lines long! He could not read me the Korean version. I tried to access my account through my phone but that did not work. Thankfully Myra was able to do it on her phone. So I went back to the lady and showed her Myra's phone. The lady wrote the Korean address on the paper. She explained that on Friday she would call and give me an account number to which I must transfer the payment. She could not take cash.
And then we were done. All in all it went well. We walked around the second floor to see the market which looked like Fresh Market. There were small stands selling artisan teas, etc. We both bought some stick cinnamon that smelled so good. Then I bought a package of dehydrated pumpkin chips and one of purple sweet potato chips. Then we asked around where to find the subway station. We were told it was too far to walk in this weather. It was windy and cold but not too bad. We walked three blocks to the station and went underground. We rode the train to Seomyung and transferred to the orange line where we returned to Hadon. When we came out of the station, we could not find the bus stop. We walked up and down both sides of the street. Eventually we did find it, but we must have walked by it once or twice. I bought tickets and we waited for the bus. This time it was labeled for Jinhae. It got us there in 35 minutes. We got off at McDonalds and started walking. We stopped at a corner grocery store where I bought pomegranates, mushrooms, cucumber and zucchini. Then we made our way to the base. I walked Myra home and continued up the hill to our house. I checked e-mail and tried the snacks I bought. I put away the food. I ate a pomegranate and listened to the first tapping audio for today. I fell asleep on the couch. Chris came home from work. He was tired and not feeling well. He ate supper and we watched one episode of Merlin before he went to bed early. I posted the new sewing project to the community Facebook page. I stayed up to listened to the rest of the tapping audios and read e-mail. I watched a video on Muslims in Britain preaching extremist views. Then I posted to my blog, tired enough to go to bed.
* The convenience store sells shrink-wrapped chicken legs. On the second floor is an artisan market. *
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