Reintegration

It took just over two years but I’ve finally made my clean break from Asia. Leaving behind my little world of like-minded transient friends, a mediocre music scene, Hite hangovers and of course my chubby, video game loving students.

Over the past five weeks I’ve slowly been reintegrating myself into the west. It’s been bumpy but I’ve come along way. I remember to tip people now. Rather I should say, people have openly reminded me they needed to be tipped. Regretfully, the hair stylist who I had an appointment with on my first day back certainly will not be excited to see me in the waiting room in a few weeks.

I also now manage to get in and out of the super market in less than an hour. The bright lights, the vast open lanes, the fruit, oh the fruit. My concept of time and space was lost for the first few visits. I’d find myself having just spent twenty minutes in the wine aisle marveling. Simply marveling. The cheese aisle, whew, if they had samples to sustain me I might not have ever returned home.

There still, however, remains to be one thing that I haven’t fully acclimated myself to – strangers, even an arms length away, saying “excuse me” in passing. In Korea that is simply not how it’s done. Push or be pushed. No apology necessary. Now I have to remind myself with little thoughtful phrases like, “How would you feel to get elbowed in the chest?” or “Shouldn’t you let the old woman go first”. And yet I still fight the urge to push people out of the way on the L platform and knock into people on the street. Perhaps this could be hinting at a deeper aggression issue…I’ll look into it.

Aside from these western cultural short comings I have been making progress in other areas. I'm gradually accepting the fact people can come visit me - on a whim even. It's no longer an eighteen hour flight that will set them back a month's salary. In fact, I actually just picked someone up and drove them back to O’Hare international airport. Up until now I’ve only been driven there or been picked up. It feels strange but I think I could get used to it.

And although India or Thailand would be much more pleasant climates to spend my days loafing around in before I get a job, I’m very content to be home. Happy even. I guess that’s until the questionable sleeping pills I bought in Vietnam run out or until I decide to actually open my bank statements. But as of right now life post Asia isn’t so bad. Not so bad at all.

Proud to be an American

This is why I support the troops. God Bless America! 

A Korean Wedding

I just did the count, and over the years I’ve been to eight weddings. This past weekend I went to my ninth wedding and it took the cake for the best wedding I’ve ever been to. But keep in mind, by best I mean, most awkward, strangest, and fastest.

The wedding was between a good friend of my boyfriend Jake’s, Jason, who is from Louisiana and Ju-hee, the Korean woman he has been with for threeish years.

The ceremony was held in a typical wedding venue in Korea, a wedding hall. Even though a large amount of the population is Catholic or Protestant, weddings are rarely held in churches. And due to the sheer size of the population of Seoul, there are so few places to be able to hold all the weddings that take place. Thus they built these massive halls that take care of the whole thing- wham, bam- thank you ma’am style.  

The room where the ceremony took place was like a fun house. The room was complete with disco style lights, flat-screen tvs, dry-ice machines, confetti,  flowers galore, fake gold walls, and 20 staff members with suits and head pieces.  When we walked in they were playing “With You” by Chris Brown and showing slideshows of the couple on all the flat screen tvs. The whole center aisle was raised up, fake gold, and was lined with smoke machines that were put into full force when Ju-hee walked down the aisle.

For the most part though the ceremony followed a western track, but it was done with such an alarming speed. It felt like the entire ceremony was done for pictorial purposes only. Walk down the aisle(with dry ice of course), click, click, hold hands at the alter, click, click, put on the rings, click, click, listen to a song, click, click, walk down the aisle, click, click. The wedding hall ran like a well oiled machine with staff members in black suits and micro-phone head pieces swarming the couple, and making sure every picture was taken but zero time was wasted- queue the confetti, queue to disco lights, queue the throwing of the paper airplanes (yep, instead of rice they throw colorful paper airplanes) and bam we’re out of here.

 The most alarming thing of the whole ceremony was the audience. At no point during the ceremony was there silence- people were answering their cell phones, walking around, talking to their friends. They even allow people to wander in to the back of the room to watch the wedding even if they weren’t invited (they were by far the loudest). It was a far cry from a heartfelt, respectful wedding.

After the ceremony everyone went upstairs where they had an enormous banquet set up. I think the number of people at the wedding mysteriously doubled for the banquet portion of the night. The couple, aside from cutting a cake was not even present at the reception. In fact they had to change quickly and go through another whole ceremony in traditional Korean attire. In total Ju-hee actually made 4 outfit changes throughout the evening… imagine that cost!

Overall it was great fun but equally as bizarre. I most certainly have no plans of getting married in Korea. 

Not a very good photo but it shows the very well lit room and the remnants of the first blast of confetti on the couple still stuck in the chandelier. 

Doris and I doing are classic pose in our wedding garb. 

The massive blast of confetti that came out of two trumpets when the couple was walking back down the aisle.

Gyeongju Get-a-way

Two weekends ago Jake and I took a weekend get-a-way trip to a southern city of SK called Gyeoungju. It was the capital of the Shilla Kingdom and has some pretty awesome history.  We wandered around the ancient tombs of the Shilla kings and the old temples of the area.  Overall it was a well needed break from Seoul- fresh air, relaxing atmosphere, and beautiful scenery. Here are a few pics…

I decided it would only be appropriate to go lay on one of the tombs although there were signs everywhere saying, "Do not disrespect the dead by climbing on their tombs. " 
A nice pose in front of Anapji Pond. 

This was taken at Daereungwon park where there are 23 royal tombs.

Cherry Blossoms just faded away in Gyeongju but out came these other gorgeous pink flowers. They were everywhere. They covered the entire side of a mountain we walked up. 

This little boy was the entertainment at Bulgoksa Temple. I think he was maybe 7 and sounded like a cross between a yodeler and a opera singer. He also had yellow jeans and cowboy boots on. 

Part of Bulgoksa Temple. It was nestled up in the mountains and surrounded by pine trees. Lovely. 
Pond at Bulgoksa

 

 

Marian! Rice! Unite!

As some of you may know, Alex Polzin was one of my best pals since my freshman year of high school and we have maintained a close friendship over the years. And he just moved to korea!! Unfortuntely he isn’t in Seoul, he’s a few hours outside on the opposite coast, however we have hung out twice and we are making more plans for taking some summer trips together. It’s soooo nice to see a face from home  for both of us!

Cherry Blossoms!

Seoul is not a very nature friendly city and one can be pretty hard pressed to actually find a park with any form of grass in it or more than a handful of streets. So when Cherry blossom time of year comes everyone flocks to an area of Seoul really close to my house called Yeouido. They have a massive two festival which is just jam packed of people with bands, food, etc. Jake and I went for a walk around and it really was beautiful.

Yeouido 

They had gorgeous flower displays all over the place.

Jake always seems to find friends everywhere we go!

 

Yea! Work!

My apologies for not updating in a few weeks- I'm a bad girl. 

But the bad girl has good news! I FINALLY have some extra cash rolling in! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't in bad shape before, but when you look at the current exchange rate from Korean Won to USD, it's a fright to behold. The exchange rate has steadily grown worse for me ever since I got here (almost 7 months ago!!!!). 

So I'm battling the rate by teaching nursery school kiddos. I really lucked out; on a whim, my friend asked if I could take over a job for her, and I jumped at the chance. Turns out that the job is only 4 blocks from my apartment and is a wonderful place to work!  I teach kids between the ages of 3 and 5 ,western age, for three mornings a week, essentially singing songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" for two hours a day. 

I mentioned, western age, because Koreans have an incredibly bizarre way of calculating their age. At birth they are 1 year old, and at the western new year, Jan 1st, they gain an additional year. Thus my birthday was December 5th, so I turned 22 in western age and am still 22 now. But in Korea I turned 23 on December 5th and after the new year I turned 24. So I'm 24 Korean age (why could this not have happened when I was under 21?!?) This age idea never seizes to befuddle me. 

So now that I wipe snotty noses and re-tie pony tails three mornings a week I'm a content woman. I have long days, but it's better than sitting behind a desk so I really can't complain to much. 

Valentine's Day.. awww

Since Valentine's day fell on Saturday, Jake and I decided to get out of the city and do a bit of skiing/snowboarding.  Prior to this weekend away I  had really thought that Korea was known for some good skiing places. Clearly I was mislead, because when we showed up to the third most popular skiing place in the country, it looked like we were standing at the foot of Crystal mountain, Boyne Highlands, or maybe even Blue Mountain in Ontario. It was pathetic. 

That being said, the people watching was far, far better than anywhere in the mid-west. It was like a fashion parade. The coolest things being the oversized, bright sweatshirts that all guys my age had, and the animal hats that half the Koreans had regardless of age or gender. 

Here are a few pics:

Although the snow wasn't the best, nor was the "mountain", we ended up having a great time. My favorite thing of the weekend was when Jake got all worked up because he insisted we race, and without too much effort... not to brag.. haha....  I beat his little British bum. When we got down to the bottom of the hill I had to hear, "you bugger, clearly you won because you have poles and you could push off!" Uh huh..... hahahaha

Hold on to your organs... here we go

Here are my reflections on the philippines, Manila especially, post trip....

Due to my lack of knowledge about the Philippines, Wikitravel became my travel information guru when I was initially thinking about heading there for my Lunar Holiday. If you look up cities on Wikitravel they always have a "Stay Safe" tab to clue you in on the dangers of the city (They update it frequently, so the format for Seoul and Manila changed signifcantly since I originally looked in December). Seoul's is almost comical, it warns foreigners about taxi drivers taking you on an extended cab ride so the ride costs more than it should, and about U.S. Military boys creeping on girls at clubs. Manila's was a whole different ball game. The warnings ranged between contracting severe food poisoning, contracting TB, getting mugged at knife point, getting pick-pocketed, and - my favorite- getting drugged at bar, getting raped then having your kidneys stolen. The later clearly being the most frightening!!! They also put a post script after that saying, don't bother going to the police because the police are getting paid off by the criminals. Hah!!! 

On to the trip: Needless to say, after those tips  I decided to get in and out of Manila as quickly and painlessly as possible. It worked well on the way down- we flew into Manila then directly back out on an inter-island flight to Boracay. On the way back, however, we had a day lay over in the city. We ended up getting on a red eye that night so we didn't have to spend the night in Manila...whew... but we did have to hang out in the city for roughly 12 hours. 

Having said that, I wish only good things for the poor Filipino woman working in the Korean Air office at the Manila airport. I was tired, crabby, and, well, a royal bitch when I found out we couldn't get on any other flights except the red eye. We had left Boracay at 4 that morning and were exhausted. The thought of killing time, underslept and clueless, in a city that warned against rape and kidney stealing was to much for me to handle. But she was a gem and let us keep our luggage in her office and gave us a play-by-play itinary of things to do in the city. She even wrote down what cab costs should be between the different points so we wouldn't get ripped off. 

So armed with my travel book on the Philippines and Miss Korean Air's instructions, we headed out.

 First stop: Intramuros(Inside the Walls), the old Spanish settlement set up by Jesuit Missionaries in the 1800s. It is the most recommended place to go in Manila for history but we were not prepared for what we were going to see.... a destroyed historical gem, disturbing in it's levels of poverty, frightening in it's levels of crime, and a pathetic display of what colonization can do to a country. The spanish had built one of the last constructed walled-in cities in the modern world. It was once stunning, but after the U.S. occupation, WWII, and the Japanese occupation of the city, it was destroyed with no money or preservation societies to restore it to it's former glory. Having said that, the former "glory" was not glory for the Filipinos, they were not allowed in Intramuros except as workers. So in the 1970s when they received complete control over the area, they ran whatever was left of it into the ground. There are a few preserved buildings- clearly preserved to attract tourist revenue however. 

A few facts I found out while there and after some research back at home:

- Manila has the highest population density of any major city in the world. It dwarfs massive cites such as Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo, Mexico City, etc. 

-The Philippines is absolutely considered a third world country. 

-Manila was the second most damaged city in WWII after Warsaw. 

We spent over half the day wandering around this area. Here are a few pics:

This is a row of old jail cells built into the wall of the city that has now been turned into a row of little cafes. I ate some yummy pork adobo there and people watched. 

This is a little taste of the restored and the bombed. 

The main method of travel in Intramuros, the Tricycle. 

This was taken across the street from the Catholic Archdiocese of Manila. 

Coca-cola has a minimal presence is third world countries.   

Crazy "Jeepneys" that they have been driving since WWII and are one of the main forms of public transportation throughout the city. 

STARBUCKS! Ok normally I would not be to excited to see a starbucks in a historical area capitalizing on all the tourists, but not that day. We had been across the street taking pictures of a bombed out building when we heard screaming from behind us. There was a full fledge street fight going on about 10 yards from us where about 5 men where throwing bricks and rocks at each other. Keep in mind this is 10 am. The starbucks was half a block away, and in my western mind, looked like Mecca. More importantly, there was an guard at the door with a machine gun. This we found out was not just because it was a western chain, it was the standard at probably 75% of the business establishments we say. 

Second stop: The Mall of Asia. Welcome to the west. It was like being in a mall in suburban Detroit. I couldn't believe the contradiction. 

We had loads of time to kill still so we decided to see a movie, Australia.... now there's a flic to only see if you have to kill time! After that we decided to get pedicures and massages because we felt that after being massaged everyday in Boracay, we could stand a bit more. 

The spa place made us really feel the cultural differences between Asia and the West. Here I had come to the Philippines to get nice and dark and yet, every Filipino wants get get whiter. The menu of things you could have done at the spa included:

-Quick bleaching

-Whitening masks

-Whitening scrubs

-Bleach/Whitening capsules

You could have these done for your legs, arms, face, whole body, back, chest, you name it. 

The day ended up being very eye opening. It is a city I never want to visit again. But it is a city and a country that needs to find it's feet and I'm grateful that I got to experience it. 

BORACAY!!!!

I'm writing this note safe, alive, with my kidneys still in my body and still in possesion of my passport. Praise the Lord.

I just finished a 8 day trip to the Philippines for my winter vacation with one of my best girlfriends, Kelli . It was well needed after four weeks of winter intensive courses and well worth the heighted prices for the Chinese Lunar New Year. I feel like a new woman; tan, relaxed, and with a new appreciation for regular automobiles.

Here are a few pics on the island, Boracay:

Blake ended up really wanting to come to the Philippines too so he tagged along with Kelli and I most of the week. He took us on motorbike ride around the island.... I seriously did not think we would get off un-mamed.

The main form of transport over land on Boracay, the motorbike Tricycle.

The last night's sunset! Gorgeous!!

We chartered a sailboat for the afternoon. It was heavenly! We sailed around the island, went snorkling, and finished by watching the sunset over White Beach.

Ahhhhhh.... a late afternoon San Miguel.

How to win over Ajumas:

Two weeks ago I walked onto the subway and noticed a severly hunchbacked elderly woman (Ajuma) trying to reach a newspaper on the rack above her. Without thinking I reached up and snatched it for her then continued standing in that area waiting for my stop. She was with another Ajuma pal of hers and for the next 10 mins I couldn't help but notice them staring at me and chit chatting. I allowed myself a little glance over and smile, because I figured they were saying something about what a nice Waeguk I was for helping them get the newspaper. Maybe they were but instead of thanking me they had something else in mind. The waved me over in the awkward korean hand wave and proceeded to pick off the hair from under my armpits. Apparently I had shed and due to static cling it had collected under my airpits(attractive). They didn't know any english so their next bet was clearly to clean me....now would this ever happen in another country??

My main Brit

This is another presentation of the absolute unforgiveness of the camera when it comes to taking pictures of me. But to introdue, this is Jake, my best Brit mate who I spend ample ample ample amount of time with. He is lovely-he's from the real Birmingham, not the "Sham" of Michigan, he has a sense of humor that could make even the shrewest person chuckle, a killer wit, an uncanny ability to read me like a book and a weakness for me and my dancing obsession. I don't know what I would do without him...he might really enjoy reading that....

Skating Adventure

For a friend's birthday last week we decided to hit up the outdoor ice rink in central Seoul. I figured it would be packed, but I didn't really realize HOW packed. We got there at 4 ish to lace up and we're given passes to come back in three hours- the next possible time they could fit us on the ice. So like mature adults we decided to go to a bar and get our blood flowing a different way. And as one could guess, drinking for three hours only added to the ridiculousness of the outing.

Eventually we made our way back and collected our ice skates, all of which were about two sizes off what they should have been. The rental personnel asked us if we had gloves and socks, because if not we would have to rent them. Renting gloves?..... that just doesn't seem sanitary. Once on the ice we realized that the skates had probably not been sharpened since they were purchased years back. So with the alcohol coursing through our veins, the absolute inability to stand on unsharpened skates, and with half a million small Korean children running into our legs on their unsharpened skates, we attempted to skate. No one wiped out-miraculously- but from the picture you can tell I was hanging on by a thread. Quite the afternoon.

What's wrong with your face?

What I've had to be convinced over the past four months is in Korea bluntness is not meant to be mean it is supposed to be a way to express concern for friends and co-workers. The frankness in combination with the language barrier, however, is something that has to be taken with a large lick of salt and a thick skin.

About two months ago one of my bosses needed to take a picture of me for an ID card. For two days she came into my classroom, looked at me, and actually refused to take my picture......... The same boss took a picture of my friend Paul when he was growing out his beard for his ID card and when he got it back the picture was a picture she had photoshopped out of a group photo taken a month before when he was clean shaven.

In the past week, especially, I've had to daily prepare myself for the onslaught of comments from my Korean staff as soon as I get to work. Since last Wednesday I have had the flu. (I was so sick I had to hang up my party dress and drag out the NyQuil and Gatorade on new years eve!Bummer, I know.) So the comments have been free flowing. Comments such as, "What's wrong with your face Dan-e-yell?", "Are you sick? You look terrible?" or the classic "You look really tired."

So the question is...plain rudeness? or true concern? I'm still in need of more convincing for the later.

My 22nd!

My lovely Irish girlfriend, Rachel, and I dancing our bums off later that night. 

Joy, the little girl next to me in the purple, bought me a birthday cake!! The whole day the kids were giddy and I got countless little notes and small little presents. It made it really fun and special. 

Christmas Shopping!

That flash of Blonde is Rachel on our Saturday shopping trip to Myeong-Dong. It was one of the worst decisions of my life to go there on the Saturday before Christmas. It was like a moving sea of black hair. 

A pretty fall moment

Yellow ginkgo leaves littered the ground of Seoul this fall and made everyday bright. 

A trip to the jjimjilbang

Rachel, Afsheen(the new teacher taking Diana's place) and I ventured to a Jjimjilbang last week for a casual soak. And we got oh so much more. I wish I had pictures of this place, but as it stands, taking pictures of unsuspecting naked elderly women is frowned upon in most societies. 

I'll explain: Jjimjilbangs are like upscale spas that only cost 6,000 won to get in (under $5) and then extra if you want certain special treatments. They separate you between men and women and give you a uniform(Korea loves their uniforms), a locker key, and a towel. The uniform looked like a little kids Karate uniform thus we decided to forgo it and be truly korean with the au naturel look. 

So essentially we went in, stripped down and stuck all of our stuff in our lockers. Although all of us were non-korean, none of the women batted an eye at our appearances. I can not same the same for myself, however. I was openly staring at people for the entire rest of the time we were there. To much flesh to try and be aloof about. 

The place is like a deluxe dream bath house. They have all kinds of different hot tubes, including a really cool green tea one, saunas, showers, pools, massaging water -jet pools, etc. But they also have rows and rows of individual vanities which have counters, sinks, removable shower heads, soap, exfoliating scrub, and lotions. So you go soak, scrub up and go home. 

After an hour of being there we finally decided to check out this one sectioned off corner of the spa. This is where I can safely say I almost got kicked out of the spa for laughing. For 15,000 won you can have two or three little korean women clad in black lacy bra and panties exfoliate you from top to bottom and in just about every crevice you think you might have. Not only does this look hilarious being done it is just a hilarious concept of multiple women, old enough to be your grandmothers, scrubbing you down like you were 5 years old again. 

And because I'm me, I think have to go get it done this week as a special Korean birthday treat. How can I resist old women in black lacy undergarments scrubbing me??? I mean can life really get more awkward?

Notes on November

We started a new term on Monday and with it we got a mass of new students. My school highly suggests students choose an English name for class purposes. I'm still not convinced this is for the students "immersion benefit" as it seems more for the school's reputation;  their native English teachers are not butchering the Korean names of their students. However, most kids choose their own name before they come to class. If they don't, we are allowed to choose one for them. Sadly I have only given out two and both have been pretty weak. One was my brother's name, Drew, and the other was Doug (aka, Doug Funny). 

But Monday I had a student without on English name on my roster and I got oddly excited. The thought of naming someone gives me a little thrill. So when I got to his name on the attendance chart I had my sheet of potential names in hand and was ready to start firing them off. He beat me to the punch however, and proudly stated that he was going to be named "Potter". At first I thought he said, "Peter" and I wanted to scream because I already had about 6 Peters in other classes. But he calmly repeated himself again, "Potter". He was about 7 years old and had decided to not name himself "Harry" but rather the surname "Potter" and was completely convinced that he had named himself appropriately. It was one of those shining moments of defiance and pride in a little kid's life and despite it I laughed to myself for the next hour every time I called on his proud little soul. 

--------

In the after math of Obama's win in the states, black people in Korea have become the new blondes. They are few and far between here, with the majority of them Africans who sell purses on the street in Itaewon. Thus Koreans didn't necessarily have a good view of them until now. In the past few weeks however, even old Korean men and women who can not even pronounce the english word "hello" have learned the name "Obama" and the word "President". It is incredible how many times people will see me and ask "meegouk saram?" which means "American person?" and when I nod they say "Obama President!!!" and give an often golden toothed grin coupled with a double thumbs up. And now everytime my students see a  picture  of a black person in one of my lessons in unison they yell, "teacher it's OBAMA!!" The attitude toward the race of black people has done a drastic shift here and it feels really cool to be at the epicenter of a change like that in a foreign country. 

-------

I have been hanging out with a fair amount of Brits in recent weeks and I guess from movies and some previous traveling I felt like I was pretty accustomed to the majority of their lingo. But as it stands I have laughed harder at some of their terms or maybe simply at the nonchalant way they have been expressed, than I ever had before. Terms such as "gangrape" to mean something is a rip-off,  "cunt", "tosser", and "wanker" all used like the word "jerk" in the states , and of course the term "pissed" for when they are really drunk. Thus making conversations eternally entertaining and wildly inappropriate. 

Halloween at CDI

A few pics from Halloween at school. It was a great day altogether- I bribed the kids with spider rings and candy I brought from the states with me to wear costumes and it worked. My classes were the most dressed up. I made a halloween trivia game for them to play and they loved it.