Started feeling unwell on Sun afternoon. Thank God we're on our own Mon noon onwards... at least could do things at our own pace. We're so lack of sleep since the night we departed. On average, we could only manage to catch 4 hours of sleep every night due to the packed schedule. Which is why hubby & I never like to join package tour.. it's worse than working days.
Mon afternoon, we still went out and walked quite a bit. In fact, we again covered our whole afternoon's journey by foot. Initially we're a lil lost.. we didn't know where to head to. All the road signs in only Korean made it worse. Too bad I was sick.. otherwise I'd have completely enjoyed the cold cold weather with hubby. That's the only time I wished it could be warmer. After some distance, chanced upon a small eating place & had our lunch there.. delicious fried chicken. Got to know a very nice & helpful Korean, Mr Sung(?), who spoke excellent English as he studied in the US before. Thereafter to the nearby bank to change more money. Then Namdaemun Market. Went to Shinsegae Department Store at Myung Dong which was about 15mins from Namdaemun. Did marketing at their supermarket.. bought bread, butter, eggs, juice, instant noodles etc as I didn't have much appetite to feast on local food:( Hubby still preferred to walk back despite having to carry all by himself the items we bought & they're heavy. Took us about 25mins to reach the apartment.
That night, I ran quite high a fever again with a very bad cough. Made a call back to Singapore, to our travel insurance provider and its in-house doctor urged me to see a local doc immediately as from what I told her, she said I was having bronchitis. So we called the hotel's front desk, telling the staff I was sick and asked them to send for an emergency doctor. After a while, the front desk called us back saying it's not available & promised to send one the following morning at 10am. I insisted I wanted a doctor & she too insisted she didn't have one.
The next morning after 10am, no sign of doctor. So hubby called the front desk again. 10mins later, finally the doorbell rang. But it turned out to be someone delivering an adapter. Hubby then asked the reception about the doctor but that lady had no clue of what we're talking about. At that moment, I lost my patience. I took over the call & started shouting at her. I couldn't believe such a request as important as life threatening was not being marked in their record. I was breathless & coughing but still couldn't control myself from speaking at the top of my voice. I think the sentence "do you want me to die in your apartment??!!" scared her (that's if she could understand)... she kept apologising and then, asked me to spell out what I wanted. I nearly fainted. Only then we realised they had mistaken "A Doctor" as "Adapter"! We had mentioned "A Doctor" at least 10 times & without fail, they thought it's "Adapter" each time. Goodness... imagine if it's really a life-threatening situation??
Some minutes later, another staff called to apologise & said they had prepared the hotel transport to send me to the nearest clinic. He explained that the doctors in Seoul could not make house call.
A hotel staff, Thomas, went with us in case we needed an interpreter. It's quite a short distance to the nearest doctor who's actually an orthopaedist. Like what I was previous told, he diagnosed that I had acute bronchitis with a fever of 38.6°C (I wasn't even feeling that feverish then, so can you imagine how high my fever had gotten when I felt really unwell at night?) and gave me a jab of antibiotics on top of the medicine he prescribed. It's a pretty smooth process as the doc could speak pretty good English. Of course, he graduated from Harvard University! Thomas then brought us to the pharmacy a few doors away to purchase the medicine. We're told this is how it works in Seoul, the clinics usually don't provide medicine. Maybe that's the reason why they don't make house call?
We're back in the apartment in less than an hour. Took the medicine & rest while hubby did laundry. Only went out after 3pm to start my cosmetics shopping. Had Burger King for dinner. Surprisingly, I craved for fast food & western food during the few days when I was so sick. I shuddered at the thought of seaweed soup, hotpot, udon... Maybe I had too much Korean food before that:P Now I miss their Bibimbap! Hubby & I like it!
I think we'd made "an impression" at the hotel. Everyone seemed to know us. The next morning hubby called to enquire about the airport limo & the gentleman asked "how's your wife, sir?". Thought he's Thomas but nope, he wasn't. Another lady, Michelle, also called to apologise again and asked how's things. Hmm...
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