Some Fireworks & A Little Game of Thrones

There isn't much I can say about the Busan Fireworks Festival other than it's the greatest fireworks spectacle I've ever witnessed. I've been waiting months to see again after my first round last year. It's an hour of fireworks of gargantuan proportions all timed and set to music, leaving you wondering hooooow!??! (Al's answer: Computers. Way to ruin the magic, AL!) This year they had some Celine Dion, Adele and Coldplay thrown in there, much to the delight of the foreigners. Something like two million people watch them with, I swear, a million of those packed on Gwangalli beach like sardines. Al and I went down at 3:00 to lay claim to an area of sand. It's entirely necessary to go that early or you won't get a spot; some people even camped out the night before! They start lighting up the sky at 8:00 sharp, and once past a certain time, around 7:30, you cannot move anywhere. Literally. If you are on the beach you are in the best position because people can only sit so close, but if you're stuck standing out on the street you won't be able to go anywhere until they are finished. You are skin to skin in every direction. Gina, bless her, was late as usual and didn't make it onto the beach so she was stuck out on the street squished on all sides by Koreans, and the one behind her, in her words, "had his hand up my crack for fifty minutes".

Al and I laid down three blankets and hung out until everyone showed up, all of them with much thanks for saving spots on the beach for them. I was happy to do it, the fireworks are worth it! I actually got much better pictures last year, my phone was low on battery and then eventually died in the middle of it this time. Bummer. But for the full effect, watch the videos at the bottom!

Every millimeter of this sand is packed with people

After we all oohed and ahhed and marveled at how they manage to put on such a great show, we all parted ways for a few hours and Al and I went to Landon and Gina's to all get ready for HALLOWEEN!!!!

 I love, love, love Halloween. Perhaps it was my religious upbringing that prevented me from trick-or-treating as a child that makes me so fond of if now as an adult. Whatever the reasoning, I think it rivals Christmas as one of the greatest holidays of the year. In recent years, it's becoming more and more of an adult holiday as well which means that I still have lots of years of being able to dress up as whomever I please and look like a total idiot or a total slut once a year. 

This year, Al and I decided to go as Khal Drogo and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. If you haven't heard of it then you possibly have been living on another planet. It's a book series turned HBO smash. Early last week I went to the fabric market with a friend and got all my supplies to make Al's costume. I ordered my dress and Al's wig and beard online and my mom shipped it here right on time. Other than that, Al's is all handmade by yours truly. We walked down to the parties area of KSU and immediately Al was garnering lots of attention. I helped it along but he was the star. He took millions of pictures with strangers and everyone had something to say about our costumes. We entered the contest, I hope we win something! We'll find out later this week. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

Gonna Be A Long 10 Weeks

The past few weeks have been chock-full of holidays. In the last four weeks, I've had one five-day weekend, one four-day weekend, a Wednesday holiday off and a Typhoon Tuesday where I was sent home as soon as I arrived (what a waste of makeup). That's all lovely, but starting tomorrow we have an arduous stretch of TEN weeks with zero days off of school. I remember it last year and it's painful. The weather starts to suck and you have nothing to look forward to for two months. I feel like once we finally get on the other side of the new year I can really start counting down my time here.

The gradual cool down has begun. It's fabulous every day. The sun is hot, the shade is cool and it hangs around in the 70s. Beautiful! All the trees are still green; I've only seen one or two here and there that have only just started changing colors. You'd have to venture into the country or go hiking (gag) to fully see and appreciate the color changes so I'll just enjoy the few I see on my walk to work.

This past weekend was spent doing a whole lot of nothing, which I like. Last night I did go out for a bit to support a friend in her DJing venture, but I sneaked out early because I was feeling a bit blah. And my friend Gina (with whom I went to India and Japan) is in Paris this week. Al and her boyfriend Landon were out on a bender and I just wasn't feeling it. PJs it is! I'm sitting here on a gorgeous Sunday while Al naps away and I have yet to unpack from my Japan trip. Better get on it.



PS, we're slowly narrowing down our European itinerary! Stay tuned for when Al's new passport finally arrives and we can actually book our tickets.

Japan, You Are Make Me Happiness

Going to Japan is always a breath of fresh air. Apart from the year I lived there, I've gone back for short visits twice and each time I'm reminded how much I ache for it. Perhaps it's because people always want what they don't/can't have, but I really miss everything (mostly) about that place and in some ways it feels more like home than Korea.

Because I'm pretty lucky when it comes to my job, I had a four day weekend when everyone else only had Thursday off. Gina played hookie Friday and we had four days to spend in one of the greatest, weirdest, cutesy-est countries in the world.  Our flight left at 2:30 Thursday afternoon and as per her usual standards, she waltzed in at about 1:45. Luckily, the airport was dead empty and there were no lines anywhere, so we breezed on through. We flew to Osaka with Peach Airways, which is a new (?), fuchsia hued, budget airline over here...which is why we went to Japan in the first place: CHEAP.

Shuttle bus photo time

My excitement was subdued slightly during the bumpiest one hour flight of my life (Samantha factoid of the day: I hate flying) and as we were touching down the only thing running through my mind was I'm not safe until the plane slows down thanks a lot Korean Air. I really only had a few objectives for the next four days:

Goal #1: Arrive safely
Goal #2: Locate Lawson in KIX Arrivals Terminal to obtain a carton of Lipton Milk Tea.
Goal #3: Continue obtaining Lipton Milk Teas for the duration of the weekend

(I love Lipton Milk Teas. I think I have a few blog posts dedicated to them)

We got tickets for the express train to Namba and I was already feeling at ease. The sights, the smells, the cleanliness...all of it made me pine for this place that I once called home. Gina mused that maybe I feel so much affection for Japan because it was the first place I lived when I moved across the earth so it's sentimental in a way...but I don't think that's it. I really think it's because I feel like Japan is so much more superior to Korea in many, many ways, and those ways are what made me like it so much in the first place.

Our arrival to Namba station was met with major confusion, the first of many to come. First, Namba station is huge. Second, the exits aren't signposted very well. Third, HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS STATION!? We wandered around for probably 15 minutes before we found our way above ground and even then we had to turn on Gina's data so we could get a map for our hotel. Looking at the map and hotel location looked easy peasy until we were stuck underground and just had to pick an exit, not knowing exactly where it would lead. I've actually been to Osaka before, it all seemed vaguely familiar, just not familiar enough to get us where we needed to go in good time.

We eventually got our bearings, checked into our hotel and went exploring around Dotonbori (spending lots of time at Forever 21) where had our first Japanese meal of the trip. I also had forgotten my flat iron (ugh!) so we headed to Don Quixote (ドン・キホーテ)  a store unlike any other. Gina so accurately described it as "the lovechild between a carnie fun house and Spencer's". It's like seven floors of anything and everything you could ever need in your life; I have no idea how inventory is done. It's all crammed into tiny spaces that you can barely get through. Alcohol? Pajamas? Cough drops? Soy sauce? Vibrator? Costumes? Cell phone cover? Milk? Jeans? Sheets? Lava lamp? Flat iron? It's there. One could easily get lost just sifting through it all.

Not my photo. Googled it. 

The rest of the night was just meandering around Namba.

Dinner time! 

Udon and cucumber and eel rolls

The next day we ventured to Osaka Castle (not without needing a map of the train station just to navigate it. Lost again!), a place I've always wanted to see and one of the most famous castles in Japan. It's enormous and magnificent. It happened to be field trip day for a variety of elementary schools when we went and therefore were surrounded by adorable children, some in the famous yellow hats worn by kids that Al and I would refer to as "ducky hats".

These kids were so good in english and so sweet!

I love that some are sneaking the peace sign because they knew I was taking their picture

Japan castles > Korea ones

They are much better behaved than Korean kids, I've said this from the beginning!

We headed back to Namba/Shinsaibashi to do some damage to our Yen, of which I didn't have much to begin with. We wandered down the machi (covered shopping streets) popping in and out of stores, then ended up back at Forever 21 to make sure we didn't miss anything. We went back to the hotel, gathered our bags (now much heavier with F21 merch) and went to catch our evening train to Kyoto. Since we were staying in a hostel there, the latest check in time was 10pm so we left Namba accordingly to ensure we arrived on time. It seems either Gina and I are at a loss as to how train/subway stations work or Osaka's railway system is just so complicated that it takes a MENSA genius to figure it out. The train map is easy enough and hyperdia.com (Japan-wide train timetable) is accurate, so why oh why is it so hard to execute?

We went to the supposed station, made it to Osaka station with enough ease to then be told we needed to be on a different train line than what hyperdia told me because I don't know why. She gave us directions to the other line which had all of one sign directing the way, so we were going down flights of stairs that lead us nowhere and through tunnels and around corners until we finally made our way. Once there, we stared at the map above the ticket machines trying to decide even which machine to use because they were different colors. I guess we looked perplexed enough because a wonderfully helpful woman with a cute kid came to our rescue and told us which way to go in her near perfect English. We get on the train with two hours until our window of check in time closes. Not too shabby, sure, we'll make it! All the cool kids sit in the booths so I made sure we were first in line to grab one and off we went.

The directions to the hostel are in my email and I have screen shots of multiple maps and this leads us into a false sense of security...because we get lost again in Kyoto. Unlike Osaka, we actually get out of the station fine after asking which bus we need to take. It drops us off and I check the directions: "Go back the way the bus came, turn right at first corner and walk straight 5 minutes." Sounds easy, yes? Well we did that but there was no sign of a guesthouse or even much civilization as far as I could tell. We eventually figured out that we took the bus coming from the opposite direction as we needed, so we crossed the road to the other bus stop and did the directions from there. Lost again. By this time it was past 10pm and we were getting worried. We took that "first corner" as indicated even though it was a weird switch-back kind of corner. Walked down a quiet street with a bunch of houses and along comes a woman with, again, perfect English asking if she could help. She directed us to a general area where we needed to go and after a stop at another hostel where a very nice Scottish man let us use the in-house computer to find a map, we arrived at Gojo Guesthouse at approximately 10:30 with the owners still up waiting for us, thank God.

That was my first and last stay at a hostel. I appreciate them and everything, but never again. For some reason, the other girls in our room were already in bed in the dark (booooring) so I had to use my phone flashlight to make my futon and whisper quietly. That's the only bad part about them I guess. If we had a private room I might have a better view on them, but having to be quiet and respect the other people staying in the same room as you is no fun whatsoever. We realized that the only food we had had all day was a coffee and egg pastry thing from Starbucks earlier in the day so we went on a food finding adventure, leading us to a 7/11 where I got a rice ball (omg, how I miss convenience store rice balls. It's like fried rice rolled up sticky so it's hand held. Hellooooo deliciousness), a custard cream bread and a chu-hi. Lovely dinner.

We had exactly one day in Kyoto and we wanted to do it right and hit the major attractions. We started by walking up to the area Gion, which is traditional and there's a lot going on. You can tell there's a lot put on for the tourists but it's still really nice. We went into some shops and set out to find some ramen for lunch, one of my top five favorite foods. Usually ramen joints are found down smaller back roads and this main tourism route was providing us with squat, so we settled for some kind of okonomiyaki saucy omelet (sort of) dish filled with god knows what. Gion was pretty nice, but nighttime is when it really comes alive with geishas so we will head back that night.

Gion street

Chinese girls in the traditional geisha dress

Main shopping street area...this one's for the tourists

We headed next to Fushimi Inari, one of the most recognizable areas/shrines of Kyoto and probably Japan. This was Gina's #1 and mine was the bamboo forest so we made those two the priority. The subway here was easy to navigate and the shrine was simple to find, to much relief.

These paper chains are a symbol of Japan. The cranes were started by a little girl who was a victim of Hiroshima

It was starting to wear into the evening so we got the train to the other side of Kyoto, switching in Kyoto Station and getting slightly lost because things aren't signposted well. We made to the area of Arashiyama where the bamboo forest awaits us. It's a vast sprawling of nothing but bamboo, some several stories high, with a pathway through it. I think it's some kind of park. (Gina has much better pictures that I do. I don't have copies yet)

It was getting too dark in that bamboo labyrinth to keep going so we found a way out and went back to Gion to have some dinner and find some geishas. We finally found a ramen joint, something I was looking forward to ever since I booked the tickets. Heaven.

One of the greatest meals in the world

Next on the itinerary: Geisha Hunting. We turned down one of the traditional streets and found a gaggle of people waiting outside of what looked like a restaurant. There was an expectant taxi cab running with the trunk open. We asked a few people and no one seemed to know what we were all standing there for other than, "we heard there might be geishas in there". As Al says, "nothing draws a crowd like a crowd". We joined in the waiting and I decided that after all this anticipation, I was going to be greatly disappointed if this turns out to be anything other than geishas or Justin Bieber. The restaurant man kept coming out and waving everyone off but the mob only continued to grow. We weren't let down! It wasn't Biebs, unfortunately (even though he was in Japan at the time), but a group of women in kimonos came out and paparazzi lights went off. Boring. But then, lo and behold, a few geishas scurried quickly out of the restaurant! People snapped a few pictures and off they went. After the horde dispersed, Gina and I decided to wait around. Again, a few more dashed around the corner and like the horrible people we are, we chased them down like a Lion on an antelope. My pictures and videos turned out horrible because 1. My camera sucks 2. I was running 3. It was dark.

After all the excitement and invading the geishas' privacy, we decided to grab some chu-his and Kirin and sit by the river. Apart from the families or older couples, I realized I rarely saw any foreigners, especially those our age. Because of this, I'm guessing, we were automatic magnets for Japanese men's attention. We weren't sitting down 15 minutes when two of them came and started with the usual, "Hello. Where are you from?" Internally rolling my eyes, we answered their questions and politely turned them down multiple times for going to get drinks. Then, because a lot of Asians have a hard time catching onto social cues, they persisted asking us questions even though the air was extremely awkward. The more talkative one had these things to say: "I love American girls" "My girlfriend is not like American girls" "Have you cheated before?" "When I go Los Angeles, I go strip club, I love it" "All American girls shave down, do you?" "American girls are aggressive when they have f*ck, I like this, my girlfriend does not do this". And on and on the awkwardness continued until they eventually left.

The second group to approach us was a gaggle of five, one of whom lived in Boston for three years so his English was near perfect. He would do the translating for the others, wanting us to go get drinks (always on them) and again, we politely turned them down. But the strange thing is, as I mentioned before, Asians sometimes (usually?) have a hard time catching on social cues. I'm not exactly sure why. But Boston guy immediately could sense that we did not want to go with them and stayed for short chit chat for only five minutes or so. Then with a smile and a nice meeting you, they were off. I know because he's spent significant time outside of Japan, learning about how foreigners deal with social situations, he's caught on to things like girls saying "no thanks" and moving on, unlike the others who can't grasp the hint that we desperately want them stop asking about our shaving habits and to kindly leave us be. Asian guys love cute, girlish girls with silly laughs and Hello Kitty adorned cell phones because that's the media over here. Anything cute. So as Gina and I are laughing out of extreme embarrassment when Guy #1 was talking about strip clubs and his girlfriend's hairy nether regions, he probably took it as us being cute and laughing with him because apparently talking about such things with strangers is perfectly acceptable here. Moving on.

Our third suitor was alone and smashed. Beyond smashed. And knew ten words of English. He really wouldn't leave and kept up his string of three sentences over and over and over and over for roughly 30 minutes. "You like Japanese?" "I am happiness!" My personal favorite: "Where you live?" "Korea" "Oh, I no like Korea!!" Gina and I were the ones to finally leave this time. Nightly night, strange men, we're off to bed.

After a brief stop at a playground to play on the swings, we headed back to the hostel to get our last night's sleep in before we left for the airport the following morning. Again, all the girls were already asleep, so we quietly crawled into the futons.

The next morning, we asked the front desk lady which bus to take to get to Kyoto Station. She gave us simple directions and sent us on our way. HA! She also failed to mention which side of the road to be on, so we got on the wrong bus headed in the opposite direction. Our minutes counting down to boarding time were ticking away fast. We eventually got on the right bus, got to Kyoto Station and bought tickets for the express bus to the airport with no more than six minutes to spare to run to the train before it leaves us behind. It was maybe an hour and a half to KIX, but then we had to take a shuttle to Terminal 2. After checking in later than we wanted, there was an announcement saying that the check in counters would be closing in 10 minutes for the Busan flight. If we would have missed that train in Kyoto, which we nearly did, we would have missed our flight. :::sweating:::

I don't know why I feel like Japan is so much more superior to Korea, but there were a lot of things I encountered or remembered about it that, in my mind, makes it a much better place. One example, people are much more patient. Koreans are constantly in a hurry to go nowhere. Always honking, always shoving each other to get in and out of the subway, it's chaos. In Japan, I was shocked to see that everyone actually waited for each person to come out of the train before attempting to enter. I don't think I heard a car horn for the entire four days. They don't drive like maniacs. Koreans also seem to have a very strange walking pattern that is always getting in the way of your own. You try to pass, they absentmindedly block you, you go the other way, same thing happens. No one was ever in my way there. Walking was easy and leisurely. A friend once said about Korea, "You'd think the way people walk would be universal." Not the case.

I also much prefer Japanese food. Everything Koreans eat is pickled or smothered in some kind of spicy sauce. It's all sooo sweet, even garlic bread is sweet. I'm sure they would find Japanese food more bland because it lacks fire and/or sugar, but that's what I love about it. Noodles and rice dishes are to die for.

Everything, and I mean everything, is much more beautiful. Even in the huge city centers, it's aesthetically pleasing. It's so clean! Korea is full of nothing but squared concrete buildings with no character and garbage absolutely everywhere you turn. It's not Korea's fault it had to build and build fast because they were brought into modernism so quickly, but it proves to be a stain in my vision because of it. Not to say that there aren't beautiful places in Korea, there are, they just have to be hunted down. Japan has a shrine/temple/castle everywhere you look, and if there are free space between buildings there seems to be smaller shrines which seem to simply brighten up the city. The big cities are also more than just ugly apartment buildings. Korea seems to have all these "skyscrapers" but then at second look they are just apartment building conglomerates. Japan at least has retained it's culture and history in it's architecture and that makes it all that much more beautiful to look at.

Japanese people are so much more fashionable than Koreans! There is like 30% of Korean women that wear something other than leggings and giant t-shirts and yes, that small percent looks nice. But every single Japanese man and woman looks fabulous. Their fashion is farther advanced than the rest of the world in their own weird little way and I love it. All the guys have weird haircuts and all the women are wearing something that makes you go wtf? They also have a strange obsession with false eyelashes that I had forgotten about.

Japan as a whole is much more uptight than Korea, though, which is probably the reason for their outlandish appearances. Korean culture gives people just enough freedom and leeway to where they don't feel the need to dye their hair multiple colors and wear combat boots with tutus. Japan keeps people so tightly controlled that during non-work hours people go crazy because individuality is reeled in there.

All this isn't to say that there aren't nice things about Korea, I just much, much prefer Japan.

Japan, I love you. You have a special place in my heart and I still can't really pinpoint why other than I could eat ramen every day for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. Here's a photo tour of all things pretty and Japanese.

Alleyway 

Just a regular old building

These are the smaller shrine things that are around every corner

Walkway to a train station. I'm guessing they exist for no other reason than to just be pretty. 

Vending machines every 10 feet...I miss these as much as the food. 

That was probably my last trip to Japan, maybe ever. Unless Al and I have a layover there on our way out of here I don't know if we'll ever be back. I'm glad I got one last hoorah.

Halloween & A Trip to the Hospital

Last week Al and I were informed that we have to go get another medical check done at the hospital. While this may seem routine enough, we know very well simply going to get a medical check is just the tip of the iceberg with a very large and complex story behind it as to why this needs to be done.

Before teaching here, one must get a medical check to ensure you aren't bringing in some kind of scary foreign disease into their utopia. From what I understand, this only needs to be done annually if working for a public school under the Ministry of Education...not Al and I. Since we did our check when we first arrived nearly two years ago, there is no reason this should be happening.

Let me sum up working for a Hagwon (Korean private school): Imagine, if you will, the company you work for is untrustworthy, unorganized, ill-prepared for anything, money hungry, uncaring, disrespectful and the boss is constantly doing things that are generally illegal i.e. squandering your pension. Those kinds of companies are rampant in this this lovely country and are better known as Hagwons. Teaching here is just a roll of the dice. You may or may not get a good school and it will probably be some varying degree of shady no matter where you teach.

With all that being said, after Al told me this had to be done he also told me that about a month after we did our first test, a former Korean coworker told Al that they needed to be redone for some reason. Well, they never were and so it's just now come to the attention of our school owner. I'm guessing someone in immigration caught on to this error just now and told our boss that it needs done pronto. The reasoning they gave Al was that a foreigner in Busan was caught with drugs so now all the schools have to re-test their employees.

What?

1. We're not stupid. 2. If that was the case there is no need for a full medical check. 3. Why are the other two foreign teachers in the office not coming? 3. Why, oh why, are you in such a rush to get us to the hospital?

Basically the owner told us this huge lie (that we can see straight through) to cover for his mistake a very, very long time ago. One thing to know about Koreans is that there will never ever be an admission of guilt. They generally refuse to take any responsibility in anything that was obviously their fault, this just being one of the bazillions of cases we've run across while living here. Oh well. We know the real reason, so now...Medical Check #2!

There are hospitals and clinics all over the place. When you think "hospital" don't imagine the mega hospitals like we have at home. Here, the hospitals are very small but they have all the basic necessities. We go in with a Korean teacher from Al's school and get down to business. Vision and hearing tests, weight (not too shabby) and height, chest x-ray, blood and pee test. The pee test is different and seemingly much more unhygienic than at home. They give me a cup (no paper bag or anything) and send me down the hall. I pee...in a squatter mind you...and then put my hand over the top of the cup because I'm very uncomfortable walking down a hallway with a dixie cup of my own piss. I walk back into the room and they indicate I set it down on a table...a table that has multiple other cups containing various shades of yellow liquid just sitting there. JUST SITTING THERE, out in the open, no lids, just asking to be knocked over.

As I'm trying not to barf, it's time for my blood test, which is in the same room as the pee cups. The chair I'm sitting in is directly beside the pee cup table. So far this is a fantastic day. She rolls my sleeve up and I'm sweating to death because I hate needles and the pain that comes with getting blood drawn. She sticks me, I whimper and turn my head and wait. Apparently I'm so nervous that nothing is happening so she has to stick me again in my hand to try and get more blood. Great. I come out looking like some kind of heroin addict with all these pricks in my arm.

The Korean teacher with us pays the probably $10 all that cost with Mr. Song's credit card and off we went. It wasn't the greatest start to a Friday.



HALLOWEEN IS COMING

I love Halloween! Al and I are usually always people from pop culture and this year is no exception. Yesterday we ordered my costume and some components of his. This year...we will be...DUM DUM DUM...Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. It's going to turn out pretty rad, I think. I need to find a toy dragon to attach to my shoulder and I'm good to go. We have to make a lot of Al's but we ordered him a wig and a long beard to shape into Drogo's. I wanted to be Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus but he said no one here would know who we are...bummmmmerrrrrrr. Here's to October 31! Can't wait!

It's That Time Of Year Again

Autumn is usually a pretty nice time wherever you are. The temperatures become bearable again! It's time to put a fall wreath on the front door, set some kind of gourd out on the stoop as decoration, hear the crunch of leaves underfoot, throw on a cute scarf and go grab a pumpkin spice latte all while enjoying the wonderful cool smell of the air that accompanies September and October.

...Wait! What are all these things again?? Oh, right, they don't happen in my neck of the woods. My facebook is overflowing with friends and acquaintances going on and on about how fabulous fall is and building fires and sitting on their porch with a blanket and pictures of them sipping on said pumpkin spice latte. I don't even particularly like pumpkin spice lattes, but to know I could get one if I really wanted one would make the season transition here much more pleasant. (I prefer those whatchamacallits from Starbucks that taste like liquid apple pie.) Living in this somewhat smelly, concrete hole makes me miss good old America even more this time of year. Fall isn't even my favorite season, I'm a summer girl, but for some reason everything about fall just screams...HOME. Everywhere you look there are signs of autumn and the upcoming holidays. Bails of hay here, wagons of pumpkins there, cartoon turkeys hanging in that window...none of that exists here. The only smidgen I get is on my way to work there are a few blocks of trees that turn pretty colors. I suppose I could venture out to the countryside one afternoon, but it's not like I would get the full impact of an American autumn. Here in a few weeks, I'll just sigh and slap on my tights and wait for my mom's annual Thanksgiving-themed box to come so I can get a little bit of a feel for home. But, I keep reminding myself that this is the last time I'll be away for major holidays, so appreciate what time I have left here and next fall? I'll be sitting on a porch in my own blanket watching the leaves change, and that, my friends, is something I'm majorly anticipating.

This time of year is also the time for colds and I have a doozy as I type this. Early last week I felt that tickle in my throat indicating something was coming on and so a few days later I had a pretty good cold. I felt much better over Chuseok (Korean holiday that gave us a five day weekend this year) and so I decided to go out with everyone on Saturday night. Well, I think I was just very unlucky and picked up something else while my immune system was on the fritz because by Sunday night, I was dead sick and felt 1000x worse than I did just a few days prior with the first cold. Usually a long night out means I'm in constant contact with a large cloud of smoke wherever I am. Not being a smoker, the next morning usually has me hacking and coughing while my poor lungs try and recover from what I involuntarily did to them. This is what I thought was wrong come Sunday afternoon when my chest was on fire, so we went on to the beach anyway and I had a pretty good day despite my feeling sicker by the hour. By the time we left the beach I was going downhill and downhill fast, resulting in another, and worse, full blown cold. After a five day weekend, going to back work very sick Monday morning was not fun and on top of that Mondays are my full, busy days. Today, Tuesday, I'm feeling much better and from now on I plan on basically drowning myself in those Korean vitamin C miracle drinks and trying as hard as possible not to come in close contact with those walking petri dishes known as elementary school children.

Other than that, things are the same old same old around here. Gina and I are going to Japan next week because...well, because we can...so that will be a nice getaway. Still just enjoying the last bit of warmth before the biting Busan winter air hits!

xx

Apparently I Have Some Motherly Instincts Afterall

I walk into my office like any other day on Wednesday and I wasn't in my chair for 60 seconds when one of my kindergarten kids, Charlie, comes straight to me and says, "Teacher!" I swivel around, he opens his mouth indicating I look inside and it's filled with blood. My first thought is obviously to get him some help, but the second thing to cross my mind is that this kid who is bleeding considerably from somewhere in his mouth can speak about 10 words of English that may or may not include things like "cow" and "sunny", neither of which would help in this situation.

This small office contains myself and five or six other Koreans normally, three of whom are present and only one of whom is a fellow English teacher. I let out an audible gasp, steer him over to Korean #1 (incidentally the one who has been mentioned in my previous post) and say, "His mouth is filled with blood!" hoping she could, you know, speak to him in his native tongue to help him out. All she does is squeal, throw her hands over her face, lean away from us and say, "No, no no no no". Fail. I turn him around to Korean #2 and she also throws her hands over her face while gasping and leans away.

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!??!

Something inside me like, snaps. All my focus goes to poor Charlie. He's obviously not getting any help from someone who can actually speak to him, so I grab my bottle of water from my desk and lead him over to the sink that is located in our office. Because I can't properly give him directions on what to do, I demonstrate drinking some water, swishing it around and spitting it into the sink. He does it three times while I'm patting his poor little 7 year old back. I lean down to him, say, "open" (this word he knows!) and I see that he has a huge gash cut into his cheek and I'm guessing he fell and bit it. The Koreans are nearly ignoring everything that is happening here, seemingly not even caring. I took him back over to my desk and I sat down in my chair so I was at his eye level and shrugged my shoulders trying to ask how? He made a hand motion that looked like falling so my guess was right.

You know those cheap kid tissues with prints on them that you can get in little packs around the holidays? Those tissues suck and are thick and stiff and just hurt your nose further if you're sick and need to blow it. Luckily my mom, who wonderfully sends me a care package nearly every month, likes to throw completely random things in the bottom of the boxes, things she may or may not have had laying around her house for years. One of these things she sent last Halloween was a pack of those horrible tissues, emblazoned with smiling pumpkins. I took them to school last fall figuring you'd never know when you'd need a tissue and whaddya know, I have a bleeding child that could use a thick, cardboard tissue. I dug it out, wadded him up two pieces and showed him to put it in the back of his mouth, gave him the other as a spare and sent him on his way.

When he left, Korean #1 was like, "Oh, Sam, I'm sorry I just don't like blood." Ummmmmmmmm, what? There is a bleeding child in here and you can do nothing to help him but shriek in horror at him? I was more than slightly appalled at their behavior, if you can imagine. But then I thought, why did he come straight to me and not to a Korean? Maybe he knows that's how they would react and he would get no help so he thought he'd try Sam Teacher? Whatever his reasoning for coming directly to me, I'm thankful I was there to help him.

Dreams: Shattered

If you know me well, you will know that my life goals don't include lofty things like making my first million in my 30s, publishing a book or meeting Oprah. I have goals I want to achieve yes (none of them too specific or planned), but 90% of them, at least the ones of which I have a clear view, are travel-related.

My main priority before I die....wait for it...is to spend some vacation time in an overwater bungalow somewhere on earth, preferably Bora Bora, Moorea or the Maldives. For the geographically challenged, Bora Bora and Moorea are in the South Pacific and the Maldives are located just west of the southern tip of India. Basically they are on opposite sides of the planet.

You know that Islands calendar you have hanging in your office? There's a good chance it has a lot of Maldives photos.

Al and I will be finished teaching, permanently, March 31. I've been sort of frantic about all the travelling opportunities I am going to be losing once back in America and if it were up to me I'd spend every last penny we have on trying to see as many places as possible before heading home. But because that's, you know, not the brightest idea, we decided we are going to head home via Europe and travel around there for a month using, much to Al's half delight, half dismay, only some of our savings.

Because scouring the internet for travel deals seems to make me happier than most things, I decided to put in Seoul-Male (Maldives capital) to see how much it would cost to add a dream location stopover on our way to London. My logic going into this was sound: It's close, it's on the way, why not! Yes, I know the Maldives are one of the most expensive vacation destinations on earth...who cares. So when the results showed that it was only $350 to fly there (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) it sent my travel planning into overdrive and I immediately delved into major Maldives research. After about two weeks of major reading, emailing travel agents and pretty much exhausting the internet for prices and information, I found some really amazing deals for packages. I found some with water bungalows for 4 nights or beach front 3 nights/water bungalow 1 night. Both of these, including flight there, came to under $3,000. That is a STEAL for the Maldives, especially when all the rest of our vacations have cost that much anyway. Even a vacation to Myrtle is going to run you into the thousands. So to me, this is well worth the expense. So then it's time to bring the final numbers to Al.

Al is vacation cheap. He's not really cheap in real life, he will easily spend a few hundred just on a night out with everyone here, but when it comes to vacations, it doesn't matter how badly he would want to go, all he sees are dollar signs flying out the windows. Really, I think it's because he doesn't have something to show for it when the money is paid. If he's going out, he pays money, he gets a beer, he pays money, he gets a karaoke room, he pays money, he gets something. But travel, you shell out a lot of money for flights and hotels and experiences, not things that he can physically hold and see he paid all this money for. I am the exact opposite, so there were a few disagreements on this subject. I did some final number crunching and realized that if we did the Maldives, we could only do one or two cities in Europe. Now I was the one questioning things. Was I willing to give up a lot of Europe travel for time in the Maldives? Was I willing to give it up and not stay in an overwater bungalow and just have a fab vacation on one of the most beautiful beaches on earth? Yes, that will do. So then I spent another week doing more research on how cheap it would be to go to the Maldives cutting out the water bungalow. Disappointment was an understatement, but my desire to step foot in this island nation and see those beaches for myself took over. Found a resort for $1300, with food! Score! But with flights to there and then to London adds a lot more cost...ugh. I give up. If we did both places and did them right (ie overwater AND more than two Europe cities), it would probably cost upwards of $10,000. I could easily tell myself that it's completely worth it, but not when we have to buy two cars and have expenses when we arrive in the US. Impossible. 

I am sitting here writing this now after many days of not being able to think or even say aloud that we can't go to the Maldives. I made the suckiest, most disappointing, heartbreaking decision of my life. But then...I realized...because we're not going to the Maldives I get to see more of Europe. It's not my dream trade-off, but I'll definitely take it. I could label this something like WAHH WAHHHH, Cry Cry, #teachingabroadproblems, I get to go to Europe instead of the Maldives cry cry cry. I realize this and I also know how lucky I am, don't get me wrong. But like I said in the beginning, if you know me well, you will know how much an overwater bungalow means to me and you will also know how much I'm giving up. 

So now I'm in the constant pursuit of European deals. We are really close to narrowing down our itinerary and I'm hoping to get our tickets there booked within the next week or two. We are definitely doing London, Paris and Marrakech (not Europe, it's Africa, I know, but it's super cheap to get there and Morocco? YEAH!). We would like to do Amsterdam and Iceland and Al wants to play St. Andrews golf in Scotland. We also plan to rent a car and drive around France (wineries!) so all those will be add-ons depending on how much he's willing to spend. 

I'm just anxious to actually be booking our last flight out of Asia. Lots of weird emotions about that. 

I'll keep everybody in the travel loop! 

Korea Cool Down

Busan is no longer the inferno it has been for the last month. Once September hit, it was like someone snapped their fingers and BAM it's super comfortable outside. It felt very drastic and instantaneous, but I really feel like it was just the timing of that insane heatwave; it just happened to clear out at the very end of August. It's finally comfortably in the low 80s every day and the nights are finally getting down into the low 70s, which means we can open our windows instead of having the air conditioner exhausting itself 24/7. All of August I don't think there was a single night when it even got INTO the 70s; 80 degrees at night is very, very uncomfortable.

The seasons here are dictated by month and not by the weather. For example, "beach season" is from July 1-August 31, no earlier, no later. Outside of those dates, whether stifling hot outside or not, the beach is nearly deserted, keeping the expats happy and satisfied at not being crammed on the sand like sardines. I'm sure this Sunday will be another toasty, empty beach day despite that it's September.

On the school front, things have changed a bit. The teachers consist of one foreigner (myself) and three Korean teachers. I worked with the same three Korean teachers for well over a year, and it's here recently that they have all left, replaced by new faces, those of which all speak very good English, thankfully. I now have seniority at Avalon: Nammun Edition. One of the new teachers, who shall remain nameless, sometimes likes to treat me like I have no idea what I'm doing despite me having a year+ on her. She also has spent significant time outside of Korea living and travelling, meaning she doesn't think exactly like her Korean counterparts do. She's a bit conniving, sneaky and somewhat lazy, doing as little as possible and always trying to get out of things by making the other teachers think that it's the best way. But lady, I know what you're doing, the others might not, but I do, because I do the same things. I'm not dumb. For instance, new books arrived this week. The kindergartners usually take the first 15 minutes of class writing their names and all their information on the covers of those books because they're 6 years old and slow. That's 15 minutes of chilling and not teaching. I'm sure she knows this and tries telling me not to worry about doing their names on Monday and that she would take care of it on her class. I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! So I say, "No, really, I've been doing this every two months for a very long time, I've got it." So then she gives me one of those looks like awwww maaaann and I continue on my way to class where the kids happily spend 15 minutes writing all over their books while I enjoy those minutes of not having to teach them the new, nearly impossible lesson: the difference between "fl-" and "fr-" blend sounds. Good luck teaching that to small children 1. Whose language does not even have an "f" sound and 2. Who cannot differentiate the difference between "r" and "l" anyway.

...but she's a nice lady, really.


As I finish this up, it's slightly drizzly and hovering around 71 at 11:30am. I still refuse to put on a pair of pants to go outside. I've worn nothing but skirts, dresses and shorts for the better part of four months and putting on pants means that I'm giving into the fact that WINTER IS COMING. (a little GOT reference for your day.) Nope, no pants today.

Korean Heat Wave & A Friend Returns

While some of you in other parts of the world were enjoying cool, fall-like evening temperatures and sitting around bonfires over the last few weeks, I have been enduring Korea's hottest summer in like 100 years. A heatwave gripped northeast Asia for weeks on end and killed a bunch of people (maybe because they refused to turn on their air conditioning...but that's a different blog post). It was probably three straight weeks, every single day that the actual temperatures reached the high 90s with the "feels like" temperatures consistently hovering around 103-105. And really, the "feels like" temperatures are what matters anyway.

I have a 25 minute walk to work every day. Luckily a lot of the heat wave took place during my 9am-2:30 schedule so my walk to school was alright but coming home was miserable. Once I opened the school doors to leave it was like a wall of 105 degree heat smacked me in the face, causing me to break into a full on sweat in under 20 seconds. Then I had to walk home in it. My school finally got some sense (shocker) and allowed us to keep the air conditioning on constantly, although a few of the meanest old lady sticklers in the place told me to keep it on 28 degrees (that's near 80F) to conserve energy.

Conserving energy, HA! Korea put the entire country on some kind of energy saving alert, warning everyone there would be blackouts if they used their air con too much. Whatever. South Korea has only been a part of the "advanced" world since their war in the 1950s and it has been dragged into modernism kicking and screaming ever since. It's only been recently that it's been given some sort of spotlight as a new and exciting tourist destination (skip it), about its food (avoid unless you like pickled seaweed and fermented cabbage) and about its people being fashion forward (all they wear are sweatpants and giant tshirts). Perhaps PSY was the one to get that spotlight on Korea and good for him, but believe me, this place is a backward, immensely in debt, illogically thinking society full of people who care about nothing other than themselves and the small bubble surrounding them. Call me cynical, call me jaded for having been here too long, call me straight up mean for saying things like that, but as a general rule, it's true. This energy saving thing, for instance. Korea, how are you going to prove that you have a legitimate place in this world as an amazing, innovative place if you can't even handle high temperatures? And don't even get me started on not flushing the toilet paper because "the pipes can't handle it". I understand when I go to third-world countries that the toilet situation might not be the best, but if I can flush my toilet paper in India...I mean come on. I don't like walking into every bathroom and seeing a trashcan full of poop and blood covered paper. So Korea, if you want the world to take you seriously, you probably shouldn't announce that there will be blackouts if the temperatures reach 100, especially when it's probably not true anyway (i.e. fandeath).


ABHAY RETURNETH!


A very good friend of ours left many moons ago and has now returned to this glorious place. He had planned on coming back when he left, we were all just waiting around for his return. He did the usual SE Asia travels, a visit home and then hopped back on a plane to endure another year of teaching. Since Al and I have now been here for a year and eight months (wow) we've seen many come and go, but it's hard when some of your closest leave. A very, very best friend of ours will be leaving just in a few shorts weeks and I truly don't know what we're going to do or what it's going to be like without him. His presence is a constant in nearly everything we do and everywhere we go and then WHAM BAM, he'll be gone. A coworker of Al's will be leaving next week as well. After they're gone, I think Al and I are the next to go in April.

A friend Brett and I surprised Abhay at the airport and it was so cute. I feel that our (now) very small group of friends is somewhat back to "normal" now that he's here, missing only a few faces. We celebrated his coming back this past weekend. Brandon (the BFF leaving soon) and some other friends played a show at a place in KSU and everyone was there. As I sat there listening to them play music, I looked around the room at all these people (some that I've known since arriving in Korea) who have become my friends and family. I glanced at each one of these individuals, each one from a different corner of the earth, all here in this one place, and grew somewhat emotional at the thought that this is all temporary. It's temporary for every single one of us. We are all so very, very different yet we all share one same attribute: a thirst for travel. 99% of us aren't here to hone the English vocabulary of Koreans, we are here for some quick cash and a chance to see the world. When I say that these people are my friends and family, I mean that in every sense. None of us have family here; we become each other's family. Whatever brought all those people there in that room here to Korea, whether running from something, trying to find something or plain out boredom, we are all in it together. Seeing Abhay again makes me fully understand the depths that these friendships run. We haven't been friends since elementary school or high school, we've only all known each other for usually, a year or less. But once here, we are all united under one large tent of sorts, because we are all the same. People come and go and that will never change, but neither will some of the relationships I've built here.

These last two posts have been about friendships...I think it's because I'm realizing that my time here is running short. Eight more months. It may seem like an eternity to some of you (in some ways, it does) but I'm realizing that I can't take one day here for granted. Al and I have started talking and somewhat planning for what we're doing immediately after we leave (our vacation before heading home permanently) so I think that's what has me a bit sentimental.

Eight. More. Months.

Friendships = Work

After teaching for as long as I have, some would say that it seems like "only yesterday" they were leaving their hometown to come do this because time passes so quickly. It's true, time seems to accelerate to warp speed when one is in a constant state of travel/fun/no responsibility, but I think personally, that has something to do with why I feel like it was decades ago that I left instead of "only yesterday". 

To me, it seems like I've been doing this forever. I came over when I was 24 and I feel like a completely different person now than when I was 24. I've learned a lot. I've seen a lot. One does a lot of growing in the few years between 24 and 27, especially when I've done as much as I have and chose the life I did for those few years. Before moving here, I obviously knew I'd be leaving my family and friends indefinitely. But before even moving here I had moved away from them after I got married in 2008 (literally directly after my wedding!). So really, I've been seeing my friends and family on, the first two years, a 3-4 times a year basis to now once a year for the past five years. Apart from that short stint at home between Japan and Korea...I've really not seen very much of the people I love most. 

I'm very lucky to say that I've had the same best friends since middle school. One of them has held that title since 6th grade. I'm not talking regular friendships here where it's all very infantile and running about town saying everyone is your best friend and drama and whatever. These are girls that could very well be my sisters and our friendship is strong and solid. The only thing I felt when moving away from them was extreme sadness at not seeing them; never once did I worry about the state of our friendship. I go visit them, I go back to whatever country in which I'm living, I go visit them, I go back...and on and on it's been going for five long years and it never feels any different or awkward when we're finally together again...

...That is until they moved in together this past spring.

When I went back to the US for a visit in February/March, I knew that they were getting an apartment together, I just didn't realize how much that would impact my feelings. When I went to Pittsburgh, I helped them move stuff into this amazing new space that was theirs...no me included. Yes, I have this husband guy that hangs around and he and I have an apartment but seeing that they were living the single life in this fab city together made me nothing but jealous. I wasn't yearning to be single, I was craving this intimate time with them where they would grow their own friendship without me. All of a sudden while sitting in their living room, I had a near breakdown. I told them the semi-truth, but brushed it off casually all while throwing in some other reasons as to why I was upset to take the spotlight off me. This was, after all, their exciting moving day. (And selflessness is something I've always had to work on)

After leaving the US to come back to Korea again, I saw a constant string of Instagrams and status updates on all the things they were doing together. I felt very stuck. And very afraid. Time went by and I built up a lot of anger and jealousy towards them both without either one ever suspecting a thing. One day, I posted a picture on the facebook wall of one of them, a hilariously vulgar picture, that was immediately deleted by her. I didn't get a message saying, "omg I'm friends with coworkers! Had to delete!" or anything...just delete and ignore. Now this, of course, may sound very silly and juvenile to you the reader, and writing it now seems slightly that way, too. But after all the bitterness, whether irrational or not, I had built up in the previous months, this just set me over the edge upset and I let her know. She was obviously taken aback and probably hurt by my irate message, but the floodgates opened and I finally let her know how I had been feeling for so long. She wanted to skype it out, but I was actually so embarrassed by how I had been feeling that I couldn't even face her. My school schedule changed pretty soon after that and we never got to talk about it, although she was concerned and wanted to. I eventually told myself that I needed a serious attitude change and I've since come to some realizations:

1. Friendships, no matter how solid, take work. You always have to be there and take initiative if things start to turn south. Friendships are exactly like relationships with a boyfriend or girlfriend, minus getting naked. (unless you're into that sort of thing..?) If you don't work on them and keep them fresh and healthy, you will slowly start drifting apart, losing touch and you become strangers. Thankfully, that hasn't and won't happen.

2. You can't let things brew. I didn't let either one of them know how I was completely feeling so that they could reassure me that I was being very silly. I don't know why, either. We are all very close, but I was just so jealous that I just couldn't even do it. Big mistake.

3. We're getting older (ugh). Friendships will take on many challenges throughout the years, but I think the biggest one is all of us growing older. We get married, have children, move away...but in this case, I was the one who moved away and they were the ones still together, therefore making me seethe with envy. The older we get, the more we have to work on this relationship we have to make sure it stays solid, no matter how old we are or where any of us live. Also the older we get, the more we have going on...i.e. less time for friends. That is the last thing you, I or anyone reading this should let happen. Always make time for your friends, even if it's only a text. 

4. Finally, after majorly checking myself, I realized that our friendship isn't going anywhere. As I mentioned before, each time we're together again it's as if we were never apart. The main thing I feared was that they would be moving forward with their friendship while I was over here, just slowly watching the friend strings that hold us together across the globe slowly fade off and break with no way of remedying it because, well, I'm all the way over here. I didn't focus on the fact that things never change when we're together or when we skype or talk. It's always the same. Just because they moved in together doesn't mean that I am some outsider (as I very, very much felt like), it just means that we will be biding our time until I return home, while in the process, making sure we all talk regularly and check up on one another. Everyone needs to make a move to make sure they check up on the other. 

Yes, they will be building a different kind of friendship without me, but that in no way means that I will be forgotten about. I have a different type of relationship with each of them individually, just as they have one together. I just have to keep telling myself that I'm okay, so are they, they haven't disregarded me and nor will they. Things are just fine and they will remain that way...as long as she doesn't delete more pictures I send her. <3 div="" nbsp="">

Dedicated to C & J