On The Second Day

I suppose I'll start this tale with the night prior, starting with a 5 and a half hour bus ride from Seoul to Changwon.

Trying to make small talk with the few white men I saw who were bound to speak English, I met a guy from South Africa teaching English in Masan. He we pretty cool, so we exchanged info and agreed to keep in touch. We really only talked at the bus stop (which looked strangely like a boardwalk pier) because bus time was time for sleeping. I tried resting, but realized that I should have bought something at the bus station because I was starving. A Korean man must have noticed this because he shoved a paper bag under my nose and said "try. try. try." I attempted to refuse, but he wouldn't have it. I took the contents of his bag and fished a small fried ball out of it and handed the bag back to the man dutifully. Again he would not accept, so I took "try" to mean "go ahead and eat the rest of them," so I popped the little fried ball into my mouth. It turned out to be some sort of red bean paste coated in fried batter, and it was pretty delicious. I shot the guy a smile and thumbs up and said "good" which made him very pleased.

As insignificant a gesture as that probably seemed, it turned my whole mood around and I started feeling like good things were coming while i was munching on the fried goodies. The teacher I was replacing would later inform me what an important gesture that actually was. He told me that food is a very significant part of Korean culture. Instead of asking you "How are you?" they ask "Have you eaten?" which I kind of prefer because no one really cares how you're doing when they ask anyway, so they might as well check and make sure you're well fed.

I arrived in Changwon with my South African friend, Enrique a few minutes early and we stood at the bus station baffled abotu what to do next. His director showed up shortly after and she was able to call my director for me and help her locate me. My director drove me to the apartment to drop off my luggage but the guy I was taking over for was still sleeping there, so I was to spend the night in a hotel room.

For all of your porn watching needs...

This is the headboard...

Let me just tell you...this hotel room was something else. I climb the stairs to my room and notice cards with scantily clad girls at the foot of one flight, but don't think anything of it. I walk in to the room and notice very nice decor with a box of tissues next to the bed and mirrored surfaces everywhere. I even had a desktop computer to log onto for brief internet access. After a little time online, I switch on the big screen TV and it goes straight to Korean porn. Suddenly this all begins adding up and I realize I'm in an escort motel. This makes me a little unnerved to lie down in the bed, but when I do lie down I realize the mattress is hard as a rock.

This is the ceiling...

I also didn't have my phone, so I barely slept that night. I kept dozing off for what felt like hours then freaking out that I'd oversleep so I'd jolt awake and realize only 10 minutes had past. This happened quite a few times over the course of the night.

The next morning, my director picks me up and drives me to the school to meet another teacher named Patrick. We bonded pretty quickly realizing we had similar backgrounds, goals and interests. We took Des (the prior instructor) to the bus terminal but ended up getting lost walking back and when we hailed a cab, the cabby couldn't understand where we wanted to go. We asked some very nice Korean couple for directions to where we wanted to go, but they offered to drive us over there instead. I honestly can never get used to Korean driving. It's some sort of crazy, every man for himself, vehicular brawl where a lot of money seems to be wasted on traffic lights that no one obeys.

The couple take us to Pat's GnB campus and it turns out to be the original one I interviewed for. Min and Mrs.Park spoke terrific English and were a great help to me. Min helped me prepare for teaching a lesson on  Monday even though I didn't work for her campus. We talked about taking a trip to Busan and going surfing soon.

It made me really happy that I'd found a new friend, but immediately upon return to my apartment became a source of melancholy. Pat had gotten lucky to be a part of an involved campus that works with him to make sure everything is smooth. My director hasn't even told me what days I'll be working what classes or what curriculum I'm teaching Monday. This all mounted exponentially as I realized my bathroom has no sink, the bed here is also hard as a rock, I can't work the A/C, and apparently WiFi exists everywhere in Korea but in my apartment. The real killer though is how fucking lonely it is to come back to an empty apartment alone in a foreign country.

Homesickness hit me really hard and suddenly I can't imagine living in this place for an entire year. I start tearing up like a bitch and missing all the things I really took for granted. I can't even read the goddamn buttons on my TV remote. Everything just feels futile. After Skyping Alexis and ranting on here, I feel a bit better, but the loneliness still permeates my apartment. Hopefully things will get better.
I wish I could rent out the bedroom since I'm not even using it. Koreans must either have terrible back problems, or the most perfect posture ever with how stiff that bed is.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day! See you then!

Touched Down In The Land Of The....

...Well it certainly isn't the Delta Blues....I'll have to find a Korean word that rhymes so I can improv my Karaoke seshes that are bound to come.

So this is it. I've landed. Foreign Soil. Alone.

Seriously, everything feels more lonesome when you...well...do it alone. We were on the plane and the food cart came by (I was starving...it only comes by every 4 hours-ish.) and suddenly, next thing I know, it skipped me. I think in that moment I truly understood what loneliness feels like. It feels a lot like hunger. I panicked, but managed to get the only American stewardess (with an annoying voice like a 13-year-old) to help me out.

I am so far outside of my comfort zone. lol. I was expecting Korea to be a lot like Japan and that is not the case at all. Seoul is more like an Asian New York City than a Tokyo from what I can tell so far. People just kind of bum-rush escalators and shove through lines and I just get caught up in a whirlwind of bewilderment. I've had like 30 people come up to me asking me if I need a Taxi, but on the positive side, they were all willing to give me directions to the bus stop instead of insisting I take their cab.

I tried asking some girls to help me make a phone call and they just gave me a weird look and were like "uh....no" (or whatever the Korean version of that is.) And I REALLY needed to find a phone to call my director so she would know when to pick me up from the bus station.

I'm having difficulty getting in touch with my director and I have to relay everything though my recruiter, which makes me wonder how our first meeting will go in 6 hours when we speak to each other for the first time. Don't really know what to expect, but it's not off to a super confidence-boosting start. Especially as I'm dragging this luggage everywhere trying to orient myself.

I think I overpacked...and now I'm paying for it. I'm really not sure how I'm supposed to take 4 bags onto a bus by myself, but I'm sure I'll look like an idiot trying.
I really need to shower. 2 hour trip to detroit + 13 hour trip to Seoul + 6 hour bus ride = I need a fucking shower SO badly.

Now the question is what to do this weekend before I start working. I should obviously get acclimated to my surroundings, but it would be nice to have a friendly (English-speaking) face around to sooth my anxieties. Maybe I'll try getting on a bus to Busan to visit Lais. I could really use the familiarity right about now. Or I can just...you know...play PS3. That's a nice dose of familiarity.

But what I REALLY need....is a phone.

Packing for a Year...Korea, Here I come!

In 56 hours, I will be onboard a plane to Changwon, South Korea to go teach English for a year. I am so nervous/excited/absolutely terrified, I just want to be on the plane right now so I stop hyperventilating.

As you're packing you begin to think about the little things that you take for granted and really make or break your survival. Like: Should I bring a palette of razorblades? Do I need to bring towels? Am I allowed to bring my video game collection? Trust me...that last one is a big one for me since I blog about videogames for thepowblock.com and probably would die without them (I have a condition).

Luckily, thanks to sites like www.adventureteaching.com I learned that towels and bedsheets are worth more than gold and Koreans don't wear deodorant. So we're packing plenty of all that good stuff.

I also fucking love clothes and books, so it was really painful to have to choose what to take. I never thought I could condense my life into 2 suitcases (and my carry-ons), but with some help from my master-packing stepmom, I was able to make it happen. I'm pretty sure once I open those suitcases, I'll never be able to get everything back, but we'll cross that bridge in a year.

This blog is more for me than for you (because my memory is terrible), but by all means feel free to follow along. Hopefully, once I safely touch down, I'll be able to give regular updates about life over in Korea and what it's like to be an American in a foreign country they have absolutely no knowledge of.

Will I be able to make it through TSA AND Customs with my PS3? Will I successfully bridge the language barrier with my students? Will I be able to live without a dryer in my apartment and get used to having a toilet in my shower? Stay tuned. It can only get wilder from here, folks.