new contact

My right-side contact lens, the one that got lost a little while back, developed a rip on its edge. The rip was no more than two millimeters deep, but it was enough to cause some minor-but-annoying irritation. Luckily, the building I work in has an eyewear shop on its first floor, so it was just a matter of galumphing sweatily downstairs, explaining my problem to the guy in the store, then asking whether he sold lenses singly. I didn't want to be forced to buy a new pair of lenses for the full W60,000 to W70,000 price. The guy said he sold single lenses, and he asked how long I'd been wearing my current pair. I told him it had been about three months, so my current lenses were comparatively fresh. I gave my visual-acuity rating (-4.5), and he found a replacement lens for me rather quickly. He was kind enough to charge me only W30,000 for the single lens, and he gave me a lens case (yet another one!) and two small, 120-ml bottles of saline solution. The entire transaction took barely five minutes, and that's how eye care works in Korea. No lengthy, expensive, and mostly useless eye tests; no three-day wait for lenses. You're in and out—done and done. Simple. Easy.