The day I broke my leg - Part II

Sometimes I think we take for granted the ability to do so many things in life without even knowing the mechanics of it - to swing your knees up and down at ease, to get out of bed in the morning, to straighten your knees out on the long couch, to stand with the legs bearing equal weight. After my ACL injury, I found out the hard way that just by breaking a ligament that I never even knew existed could cause me (and others) so much inconvenience and stress, even to do simple tasks that were going on in the back of my mind everyday. 

Let me recount some of the events that happened from the day of my injury to when I got discharged. 

Feb 2 (Thursday)

This was the day I fell down on the ski slope. At that moment I was relieved when the nurse at the first aid center told me that it looked like no bones had been broken.

Feb 3 (Friday)

The next morning my right leg had swollen to the size of a baseball, so I did not protest when my friend urged me to cut short my trip and return immediately to Busan to consult a doctor. 

The hospital I went to was Busan Korea Hospital at Daeyeon. After an X-ray determined that there was no bone fracture, the doctor assessed my injury by pulling and stretching it a bit, then using a syringe, he released the blood from my swollen knee. At that point the doctor still couldn't diagnose what was wrong, maybe a meniscus tear, and he advised me to get an MRI (medical resonance imaging) in order to get a clearer view of the tissue inside my knee. I was sent home with a splinter bandage to compress my swollen knee.  

I was not supposed to walk around much, but after the swelling had settled, my knee was actually feeling much better and I was soon limping around town because I had two friends who were visiting me in Busan that weekend~!

Feb 7 (Tuesday)

It was five days after and the swelling had subsided. I returned to Busan Korea Hospital for follow-up and this time I decided to get an MRI after getting a go-ahead from my university insurance agent. And since I am on the topic I would like to mention here that the Pukyong National University's Office of International Students' Affairs together with the university insurance agent did very little to help me out, seeing that it is their job and responsibility to help international students. Anyway, I had to switch to the insurance panel hospital Good Gang-an Hospital at Geumyeonsan in order to get direct claims. Under the university insurance scheme, my medical fees would be covered at 90% and I had to pay the remaining 10% myself. Also, I found out that I had to be hospitalized for the MRI in order to get a better insurance claim, which was communicated so inefficiently to me that I ended up getting so sad and frustrated and ended up in me throwing a big tantrum, flinging my crutches to the floor and shouting hysterically at the front-desk, hospital insurance liaison and the university insurance agent. :P 

Feb 9 (Thursday)

My MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was scheduled today. I had admitted myself to the hospital the day before and had to abstain from food and drink since midnight.

My lower half body was pushed into the tunnel. Luckily not the full body, as I was getting a bit nervous and claustrophobic from the sight of the narrow and sterile tunnel. I felt like I was in an episode of House M.D. The MRI technician gave me a pair of headphones (like those used in a shooting range) and told me... "very loud, like gunshot, pang! pang! pang!", which did nothing to help calm my nerves. As I lay there and the MRI scan started, hmmm, I realized that the sounds were not as loud as I thought. And then I fell asleep after like 2 minutes. :P The MRI scan lasted about 45 minutes.

Feb 10 (Friday)

The doctor came in the morning and confirmed my injury - acute complete rupture of ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and therefore would need to undergo knee surgery - arthroscopic ACL reconstruction with allograft tendon. Btw allograft means the tendon is taken from external sources and not using the hamstring harvested from my other good leg. A "less" painful process, but don't ask me where that allograft comes from! Maybe a dead guy, or maybe a dead pig... I dunno. I even dreamt that my allograft tendon came from a marsupial, probably an imported kangaroo tendon for all I know. :P

More to be continued... leaving you guys with a gruesome picture of ACL rupture:

http://faculty.washington.edu/mtuggy/kneeinfo.htm

The day I broke my leg.

I never thought that I would be spending my last days in Korea lying on a hospital bed. Looking at the bright February days pass me by outside the window. Missing all the fun I could have had traveling around Seoul with my solo girlfriend and later my brother and my hubby. Ticking off all the places I wish to visit in my final list like Everland and the Hello Kitty Cafe and Garosu-gil. 

Strangely even until now, after all the various feelings and thoughts have gone in and out of my head, it hasn't occurred to me any deep sense of regret why did I have to go Ski in the first place; just a faint resignation of the accident that had befallen me. Possibly because if time were to turn back I would have gone and done it again anyhow.   

It all happened on the Day of Feb 2. I was attending a conference in High 1 Resort at Kangwon-do Province where I was to present a poster on my thesis material. The point of importance about the conference was not really the presentation - it was more about visiting the snow-sloped grounds and wintry mountains and skiing! (I will blog again about the conference and the nice landscape later since the focus here is about how I broke my leg.)

So in the morning, I presented my poster at the conference venue. Then in the afternoon, our group went up to the ski slopes at High 1. I was excited and in good spirits and was so sure nothing bad would come out of it - after all, I had taken a beginner's lesson in skiing 3 years ago in Flagstaff, USA. After like 15 minutes of ski/walking around on flat ground, I rode the ski lift up the beginners' slope together with my friend. 

Then I started to ski downhill. No, actually after my friend started skiing off, I looked at his disappearing back and began to have second thoughts. I stood there for what must have felt like an eternity before mustering the courage (and hypnotizing myself) to take the leap. 

 Down I went........... whoosh......... going too fast I willed myself to fall to the side like I had learnt but suddenly the ski board on my right foot detached itself and flew up into mid-air, then suddenly crashed straight down onto my face as I watched in slow motion horror. On reflex I lifted both my arms to guard my face but my ski board still crashed into my upper jaw at full force and I could feel my whole mouth instantly bulge up with great pain. The next sensation I could feel was saltiness, so much saltiness in my mouth, I spitted out some blood onto the snow which, twisted as it may sound, looked like a rich and beautiful painting to me - bright red droplets on the white background of fluffy snow. 

I was in so much pain that I felt like crying, but no tears would come out. I sat there hugging myself, feeling helpless and lost among the dazzling white snowscape, while all the other obviously more experienced skiers came whooshing down effortlessly around me. I was terrified to get up and continue my journey, I think it was then that I KNEW something bad would probably befall me if I continued, but at that time, being stuck at the top of the slope, the only way I knew to exit this bad dream was to continue skiing downhill. So I summoned together the lesson about bravery that I had learnt after watching '127 Hours' not too long ago and re-attached the ski board onto my right foot and got up, all along being afraid that someone as experienced as me would come along and bang me right from the back. 

Then I attempted to ski downhill again. I fell for a couple more times, 2, 3, 4, 5... until I just about gave up and sat down in the snow. Cos it was too freaking tired and too freaking unachievable, you know... until a snow angel came along in the form of a ski patrol girl in red winter jacket. 

"Are you OK?", the Snow Angel asked.  

Not wanting to be a trouble to her/ stupidly trying to act strong, I shrugged off her help and tried to ski once more down the slope using the 'A' shape. That was when I went speedily down the slope, faster and faster, until I lost control of my speed and totally forgot to fall to the side, instead I did the stupid mistake of bending my knees in front and my back backwards until I suddenly heard something SNAP somewhere between my legs and the next thing I knew I was on my back and my legs crossed awkwardly on top of each other and I was groaning in pain............... 

The snow angel came again and this time it was a ready signal to Take. Me. Down. She used her walkie-talkie to call other ski patrol members and not long after, a sled appeared to carry me downhill. By then my pain had already subsided a little but I was not just about able to walk so the patrol guys strapped me to the sled and skiied me down to the first aid center.

At the first aid center the nurse said something in Korean which I mistook to be reassuring to the fact that I only had a temporary dislodgement or swelling, since she said that there seemed to be no bone fracture. She sprayed something on my knee then bandaged it, and gave me an ice pack for my swollen jaw.

After that I limped my way back to the resort, and at night limped myself to the KangwonLand Casino. And the next day limped all the way back for the bus ride back to Busan to go to a hospital for an X-ray scan... but that's another story to be continued. 

The Land of...

For the past month I have been giving some English tuition to my professor's daughter. Her English skills are quite good for an average Korean high school student cos she goes to a special language high school. So I try to give her more lessons on conversation. Although it's not a language exchange, but it's somewhat like a cultural exchange session when she tells me stories about Korean stuff and I tell her Malaysian ones.

That day I was curious about why Koreans like to wear white so much. When I first arrived here in spring I was shocked to see almost all the university students wearing white Converse or Nike or Adidas sneakers. White canvas Converse are the worst cos it feels like I'm reliving my primary-middle-high school nightmare in which I had to do the weekly routine of scrubbing my white canvas shoes and slicking white paint on to cover the gray stubborn stains that wouldn't come off. Nevertheless I still bought a pair of white canvas Converse sneakers here... just so I could fit in. In summer, people like to wear white shirts too. The best thing is...... for "red" or auspicious events (喜事) like wedding, New Year, we Chinese usually give out red packets. It is a taboo for us to give out white packets cos they symbolize unfortunate events (白事) like passing away, etc. But for auspicious events like wedding and New Year, the Koreans give out money in white color envelopes! God forbid that a Korean does such a faux pas in a Malaysian Chinese auspicious event!! :-S

Anyway, my student told me that Koreans pride in the colour white cos they are known historically as "the race clothed in white" or 白衣民族. Like when you see those period Korean dramas the men like to wear white swaths of cloth with a black top hat. Those are usually high ranking officials or scholars. I can imagine all the washing that their wives/mothers have to go through to keep the costumes dazzling white....... :-S

Hence, I feel like this is The Land of People Who Like To Wash Stuff (빨래 좋아하는 민족) cos apart from washing their white clothes, the other obvious thing that needs washing is the dozens of small dishes used to hold all the side food................. 

2011 Movies I Watched

Here is the list of titles I watched in 2011. List of 63! 14 more than 2010! Wowwwwwwwwww

• Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows
• Final Destination 5
• The Holiday
• Home Alone 1
• Mission Imposible 4: Ghost Protocol
• 法证先锋 III (HK drama)
• 天与地 （HK drama）
• 窃听风云 2
• Friends with Benefits
• Immortals
• 도가니 / The Crucible
• Last Night
• 美人心计 (China drama)
• 武侠
• Horrible Bosses
• 사랑한다 사랑하지않는다 / Come Rain Come Shine
• Ladda Land
• 김종욱 찾기 / Finding Kim Jong Wook
• 意外
• The Hangover II
• Going The Distance
• 谈情说案 (HK drama)
• Rise of Planet of the Apes
• 第二处女 (Japanese drama)
• Never Let Me Go
• Captain America ( First Avenger)
• Just Go With It
• Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part 2
• 犀利人妻 (Taiwan drama)
• CSI Season 11
• Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon
• Insidious
• The Lincoln Lawyer
• X-Men: First Class
• 49 일 (Korean drama)
• Pirates of the Carribean 4: On Stranger Tides
• Hello, Stranger (Thai)
• 5 Centimeters per Second (Jap anime)
• Fast & Furious 5: 4D
• No Strings Attached
• 非诚勿扰 II
• Thor
• 鱼跃在花见 (HK drama)
• Julie and Julia
• Red Riding Hood
• Desperate Housewives Season 7
• The Adjustment Bureau
• The Tourist
• Tangled
• The Ugly Truth
• House Season 6
• 만추 / Late Autumn
• Superhero movie
• Mr. & Mrs. I
• Van Helsing
• Secret Garden (Korean drama)
• 第 36 个故事 / Taipei Exchanges
• Love and Other Drugs
• The Town
• Wanted
• American Beauty
• The Social Network
• Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

New HDD!

After two years in Korea, I accumulated 100GB of photos. And another 200GB of movies, dramas, songs... etc. =_=''' My trusty beautiful 300GB Samsung ruby baby is not enough to store all my data (including years before...) So I had to buy a new portable one.

Simply bought one online based on recommendation from friend... Seagate 500GB portable HDD, price 99,500won. I actually wanted to buy Samsung cos it looks so beautiful... or Buffalo cos there's pink colour design... but my friend kept on saying Seagate better than Samsung blabla so what the heck I'm just gonna give this a try... I actually ordered in silver but they delivered it to me in black!!!!!!!!! *ANGRY* 

It comes with a USB3.0 cable and cable adapter which allows the device to be connected to Firewire 800 and eSATA. No idea how to use the other upgradable stuff, maybe hubby can find out a way to maximize its potential. =_=''' 

Arghhhhhhhhhhh if I could do it all over again I would get my Samsung baby a macho 500GB Samsung boyfriend... in piano black or pearl white! Hmm.. maybe I could use this Seagate device to store movies and plug into my TV at home... matching black........

After I bought my portable HDD, I formatted it using XP following instructions here:
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_format_and_partition_my_new_external_hard_disk.html

I personally feel that everything looks neater if I partition my HDD. But some of my friends said actually I need not do it, just make it into different folders. What do you think?

Busan Toboggan

From my last post, I mentioned that me and my friends are getting desperate for it to snow in Busan, as winter season is almost over. By chance I saw in Busan Haps that a toboggan slope has opened in Busan (artificial snow, of course!) so we decided to head there for some fun.

Location: Hwa Myeong Waterfront Park, Buk-Gu.

How to get there: Get off from Sujeong Station (Line 2) and walk towards the Hwamyeong Park near the Nakdong River. The toboggan slope is near the outdoor swimming pool. The park is fenced up for a longgggg way... shortcut is to enter the tunnel where the cars go. It is not easy to find... so be prepared to walk a lot!!!

Period: Jan 6-Feb 19, 2012.

Entrance fee: 4,000won for adult. 3000won for youths. 2000won for kids.

The toboggan slope

The line of people queuing to get the inflated toboggan tube. Although it seemed like many people, but the process was fast and we got to do around 8 rounds!

At the starting of the slope, there's an announcer who rattles of a long string of Korean words for people to put their hands and legs in the proper place... then Start!

Off we go down the slope!

Some of the children are decked out in the cutest winter beanies and ear muffs!!

View from the top:

After we finished playing at the toboggan slope we went to a flat ground and played with the sleds. Then they tortured me by pelting me with snow balls.

End of the day... it was fun!!

Walking on ice

Yesterday it was so cold till the fish pond on campus froze........... It was one of the coldest days this winter so far, in the range of 0 to -11 degrees Celcius. Although it still hasn't snowed yet. (Oh God, please let me see snow in Busan before I leave next month!)

A thin layer of ice had formed on the surface of the pond, although I was not sure how it would hold if I stepped on it. The frozen pond looked dirty and yellowish, an amber shade gleaming under the midday sun. I used my fist to knock it, it seemed as if it would hold. So I tentatively put one foot after another on the surface. Gasp! It actually held...

Walking on the ice now. It was quite scary as I kept hearing crackling sounds under my feet as I moved slowly forward. Although the pond is very shallow, I didn't want to risk falling in it and looking like a wet duck walking to the lunch hall.

Also, I wonder where all the fish have hidden, and whether they're freezing too, under there.

After many many false starts, I finally braved myself to walk to the big rock in the center of the pond. I used a small rock to chisel off a small block of ice surrounding the big rock where I stood. The ice surrounding that area is thinner and easier to crack. The ice layer was not very thick, maybe just as thick as my finger. But the wide area of frozen water made it possible to carry my weight.

Cool... at least I actually walked on the frozen pond on campus... my first time in my two years here! Haha... now I can go back with at least one more thing off my mind. *^^*

Celebrating CNY in Korea

This year is my first time to spend Chinese New Year away from family in Malaysia. 终于尝到了留学生在农历新年期间身处国外的感受。Frankly, the feeling is not that bad. Feeling kinda liberated from all the hustle-bustle going on back in Malaysia. Don't have to do anything special, or put on any face to please anyone. I can enjoy my holiday in peace and quiet, sleeping till the sun comes up. Don't even need to buy any new clothes if I don't want to. But I guess this gonna be the first and last time I get to spend CNY this way.

I guess many people might be interested to know... Do Koreans celebrate CNY? How do they celebrate it? The answer is: yes and no. CNY in Korea, or the Korean New Year 설날 (seollal), is like a non-event, compared to us Malaysian Chinese. Sure, there is the obligatory family reunion breakfast/ lunch, visiting relatives, giving money packets to children, and the Seoul-Busan highway jam, but the similarity kinda stops there. 

This is because in Korea most people celebrate the start of the New Year on January 1st, and seollal is treated more like a cultural family affair than a celebration to herald in the new year. There are no cheerful CNY songs blasting everywhere, no red and gold bling decorations everywhere, nobody goes out to shop for new CNY clothes, nobody makes and sells CNY cookies and biscuits, no restaurants booked full for reunion dinner. What they have is only 2-3 days of holiday, peace and quiet. During seollal, the Koreans visit their ancestral homes or the house of the first uncle. All the wives in the extended family will gather together to cook the big meal, which is usually the big breakfast held after the "praying to the ancestors' ritual" 제사 (che sa). I had the chance to try some special seollal meal which consisted of fried food like shark meat, big octopus meat (the special ones!), shrimp, and red potato. Also another type of special seollal food is rice cakes in soup 떡국 (tteokguk) which I haven't tried yet but seriously doubt its taste. :P 

Ah... so as a conclusion, the Korean New Year is of a much low-key affair compared to what we have. That's why we Malaysian Chinese here in Korea are always complaining how we don't feel any "CNY mood" here. Luckily for us, some of my friends here made a grand housewarming/ CNY reunion dinner on 年29! 

This is all the food for the reunion dinner.. mixed vege, mushroom chicken, deep fried shrimp, tomato beef stew, ginger spring onion fish, deep fried crabsticks! It's not food comparable to what our moms make but we made it ourselves so YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!! Hehe...  

And all of us gathered at Sarah's house to eat the grand meal. With some other international friends like Korean, Japanese, Papua New Guinea, Mongolian, African... etc. And after the dinner it was what Chinese do best... the gambling den :P

The Korean greeting for the New Year is: 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (seh heh puk mani paduseyo) which translates as "May the New Year bring you much Prosperity".

So... 새해 복 많이 받으세요!!!
Happy CNY!!! and Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!