Quarantine.

Oh, this is an exciting experience. It began Yesterday (wednesday) morning.
(this narrative is told in the first person, from Shannon)

First, I woke up sick. My throat hurt, I had a fever, the sweats and felt nauseated. They are so paranoid about Swine Flu here that they gave us all thermometers and have been making us report our health. So, when i woke up sick, I went to tell them. I really should NOT have done that. First they sent me to the health clinic on campus. (after having me, jamie and the man who walked up there put on a face masks). Then they brought me to hospital. Jamie can with me-thank god. I would have been in hysterics if he wasn't there. After 4 hours in the waiting room, the doctor told us it probably wasn't H1N1 and so he prescribed me this crazy concocotion of drugs (Augmenten, Tylenol, Xanax, and an Antihistamine). However, that wasn't good enough for our orientation leaders. They insisted on taking us to a second hospital for the flu test. So we get in a taxi, ride for an hour to this other hospital, take the $320 flu test, get the medicine "tamiflu" and head back. Still not good enough. Now I'm quarantined in a hotel. who knows how long. The man David, suggested that Jamie stay the night with me in the hotel, but i refused to let that happen. I figured if he stayed with me he'd get quarantined too. So, jamie went back to the university to plead my case and try to get me out. Not so lucky, as soon as he got back They quarantined him too. I'm particularly angry about that beacue there's no real reason for him to be quarantined. All week we have been in seperate rooms! ugh. he's quarantined at the universtity, which sucks that we are both alone, but i think it's good in the long run becuase he can get in contact with people for information. For example, last night they forgot to get me food, but becuase he could just go and find someone they ordered me some. It's a little nerve racking being here because I'm completely stranded. I can't call out, i can't talk to anyone becuase everyone speaks Korean and I haven't learned anything past "hello." However, looking on the bright side, there's a computer in the room so i can G.chat with jamie and have plenty of things to look at. I'll probably take this time to learn a little more korean. At Least the alphabet. Also, this hotel has a full size whirlpool in the bathroom and is quite swanky. When we came in the computer automatically boots up and started talking to me (in korean unfortunately). it's pretty interesting. everything is controlled by this one remote. The air conditioning, the TV, the lights. If only i knew what the korean words meant...it's ok. i can take the two second walk across the room to turn the lights off.
they let jamie come visit for an hour this morning and he brought lots of food which is nice. I was worried they'd forget me again, so i was saving my dinner from last night.

So, we have no idea what this means. We're not certain when we get out of here, we not certain if we can start work on monday. Heck we're not even sure if we can stay in the country!

If they send us home, maybe we'll just start our travels early? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

anyway, exciting little things we've discovered about Korea from our forray into the world for the Korean medical system:

people LOVE their cell phones. EVERYONE was using them. Our chaperone for the day was on his cell phone constantly and would regularly give it to the doctor/nurse to talk to the SMOE people. Even the doctors and nurses would pull their cell phones out and answer them during my examinations. It was funny though. They used them more like walkie talkies. Two words and then they'd hang up.

taxies are clean and fairly cheap. the cars are luxurious and 2 out of the three we rode in had fake turf in the back on the back on the floor. Very cute. Our taxi ride was an hour and was about $30. I don't ride taxi's often, but that seems pretty cheap-especially because tipping isn't very common in korea...although our second taxi driver demanded a tip becuase he heard our chaperone talking about swine flu on the phone. It was funny, i think as soon as he heard that he cracked the windows. Anyway, still only about $30 with tip.

Delivery food was neat. They brought it in a plastic picnic basket with real silverware and everything in glass containers. When you finish you just put the container back outside your door and they come back and collect it.

we'll keep you posted on our continued adventures (hopefully still from within Korea)!