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.