Mom and Gangwon-do Weekend 2박3일 Part 1

I first need to say that mom is doing a little bit better, but it looks like she will be having surgery this week sometime. I just got off the phone with my father and they have a couple more doctors that are supposed to drop by the hospital room before they schedule anything. I did feel bad about having a great time in Gangwon-do while my mom was hurting, but knowing her she would be pissed if she heard that we didn't have a good time on her account. I am so proud of my sister, who is a nurse in New Orleans, who has been taking such good care of her and making sure that her nurses do what they are supposed to do. My father and brothers have also been in and out checking on and taking care of mom as well. JJ and I are both pretty worried, but hopefully she will be making a full recovery soon. Love ya and praying for you mom!

Day 1

Troy and Joanne picked me up from school on Friday at 10pm and we drove straight to my house and got JJ and our luggage. We then started our way to Gangwon-do. We did have to make a few pit stops. Joanne is pregnant, so it was nice to be able to get out of the car every hour or so. We drove for hours through the winding road and every time we reached a city we all thought that our pension would be located there, but we continued and at times our navigation system sent us through backroads that would make Mississippi proud. We finally made it to our pension in Jeongseon(정선) at about 1:45 am and were greeted by the owner who was super nice. We checked into our room, which was plain, but served us fine, and then headed out to the casino that was about 15minutes away. The weather was definetly cooler in Gangwon-do. I had to grab my jacket as soon as I got out of the car. It was so nice to also be able to look up and see stars in the sky with no haze!
I took this on our second night after way too much soju hence the blurriness

Korean Casinos! No Fun!(and I won money)

We got to the casino and the first thing we noticed was how crowded it was for such a late hour. We finally found a parking spot and walked to the casino. We tried to go in, but found out we had to register and pay our taxes to enter the casino. Luckily, I had thought ahead and had brought my passport instead of just using my Korean id. Foreigners are not required to the pay the entrance tax of 5,000 won.(Yeah--Baby). Having received a ticket to enter the casino, we were allowed to go in, but only after going through the X-ray machine and the Swine Flu camera(temperature detector). I have never seen a casino this crowded before. People were stacked up 3 and 4 deep at the blackjack tables. Other people were taking whole rows of slot machines. There was so much that was so different than from what I expected. People would walk away from machines with a couple hundred dollars worth of credit while they went to the bathroom/took a break. I kept wondering how much of a problem they had with people stealing other's credit. There were so many times that I almost played some other person's machine. Other people would save their machine by putting a 1000 won note in the slot for change. I could have easily made money by just taking the notes that were sticking out of the coin slots. Other people were playing 4-5 slots. It took us forever to find a machine and when we found a couple; we didn't want to leave. We played for about 30-45 minutes and JJ and I ended up winning about 240,000 won(about $200). The placed was filled with zombies. Not your usual casino/drunk zombies, but it looked like some of the players had been playing for days.

Our pension owner later told us that foreigners usually don't like it and that most Korean people go to really try to make money and not to have fun. We joked that we could probably have gotten a good deal on a car at one of the local pawnshops that are open 24 hours a day. We were all hungry and there was no way that we were going to pay 8,000 won for some bread that was available at the casino. We went to a local kimbap restaurant that was pretty decent and the first one that I have ever seen that sold soju. We made it back to the pension around 4 and crashed out.

Day 2 and 3 to come later with tons more pictures.....