I Know I Can't Really Complain, But...

It's cold here. Since this is my third winter here, I'm sure this is the third blog post I've written saying similar things, but Busan winters can blow me. I know y'all back home have been enduring much, much worse weather and temperatures than I can even imagine, but it's all relative, right?

But, now that most of your weather back in the homeland is pretty much back to normal, we're again on par. The average winter temperatures here and the temperatures in West Virginia are roughly the same, except here it's sunny and clear every single day, coupled with very windy conditions from being on the coast, making it feel about 20 degrees colder than it actually says. Plus I have a 20-25 minute walk to work, which makes for a very unpleasant portion of my day. Americans live a very sedentary lifestyle, walking only from your house door to your car door to your work door. If I have to go anywhere within a 1-2 km radius, I walk; which is nice, except in the winter. I'm very jealous of the fact that you guys only have to be out in the cold for very brief periods of time. And once I'm at school, the cold doesn't stop there. The hallways and bathrooms are not heated, and the classrooms and offices only mildly so (along with children who are allergic to keeping doors shut), leaving me in a constant state of shivering from December to March.

So, yes, most of the United States was buried under snow and arctic winds were ravaging the country for a week or so, but generally speaking, you weren't really out in it for very long. You had warm houses and cars (and hallways and bathrooms) to at least shelter you from the frigidness. I am in no way minimizing your suffering. Trust me, I know it was really serious and I'm glad I wasn't there to experience it. Just saying, be glad it was only a week of extreme cold and not nearly four months of dressing like Randy from A Christmas Story to walk to work, then swaddling yourself in a blanket in your office huddled around your coffee cup refusing to go pee because the bathroom is an igloo. I am very, very glad this will be my last winter in this city. Unless, for some unknown reason, we move to St. Paul, I'm sticking to the southern half of the US forever so I don't have to deal with a long winter season ever again.




Here's a nice picture of some clear water in a warm, remote, tropical locale to take your mind off winter.

Perhentian Besar, Malaysia