As I write this I am sitting on an airplane bound for Portland, Oregon, for the weekend, so that I can attend the impending nuptials of my dear friend Jimmy Smith. I have already spent the last 15 hours travelling and I have another 9 to go. I will be spending as much time travelling as I will at my actual destination. I am currently hungry and exhausted, but the beverage cart is on the way and with any luck a beer and a glass of water will help me solve at least one of those issues. So, what brought me to this current endeavor…
It all started last February or January or whenever it was that I visited the States. I’d just re-contracted in South Korea and as such was given two weeks off. I took the first week to go to Vietnam, and used the second week to go to the US. While I was there visiting Jimmy asked me to be the best man in his wedding. After everything Jimmy and I have been through together there was no way I could or would say no to such a request. Unfortunately the wedding was going to occur in October, a month devoid of anything even closely resembling a holiday in South Korea.
When I got back to Korea and got ready to start my second year teaching English I went to my new Co-teacher and asked if I could have the days off. She said yes, which surprised me since I was expecting to have to put up a fight. Alas, luck appeared to be on my side. So I went about business as usual and started looking for tickets. Until a week later when the same co-teacher informed me that, as it turned out, I could not, in fact, have those days off. Upon learning this information I reacted by carefully applying some very choice expletives and getting pissed off at Korea in general. (Side note: my beer has arrived and with it… peanuts. Life has taken an unexpected turn for the better.)
I was not faced with a difficult series of decisions. My options were as follows: 1. Tell Jimmy I couldn’t get the time off work and thereby skip out on my best friend’s wedding and the honor of being his best man. 2. Buy tickets anyway and then try to use sick days. 3. By tickets and threaten to quit if they didn’t let me have the days off. 4. Throw my pride out the window, get down on my knees and beg.
After much careful consideration I concluded that skipping the wedding wasn’t even an option. I would rather quit my job than miss the wedding. Calling in sick seemed like a last resort. I was talked out of threatening to quit by cooler heads than mine. And so, with Jimmy Smith on my mind, I went back to my co-teacher, and begged.
This time I explained things better. First of all, Korean weddings are weird as shit. In a Korean wedding there is no wedding party. The ceremony is relatively unimportant. People come and go as they please, children wrestle in the aisle and occasionally there are strobe lights and fog machines. So culturally speaking there’s a huge difference between a Korean asking to go to a Korean wedding, and a Westerner asking to go to a wedding to be the best man for his friend. I explained these differences and I explained that being someone’s best man was a huge honor in our culture and blah blah blah. Then I pulled out the big gun. By this point I had been working at the same school for well over a year. I knew the English Center inside and out. And I had never missed a day of work. In my contract I have 11 sick days per year. And I had, and still never have, used a single one. I’ve been a very good, very diligent teacher for them. I was asking for this as a favor.
Two days later my co came back to me and informed that our principle, having heard my plight, granted me the days off. So I bought my tickets and here I am, cruising between Tokyo and Portland while sipping on a Heineken and typing out this story to put on my blog. We’ll see how the trip goes. My hunger is now slightly abated, and upon finishing this beer I imagine I will be sleepy enough to pass out for a while… Or not, the food cart just passed, which means dinner/lunch is coming. So I’ll wait for that, THEN go to sleep.
What else can I say to bring you up to speed on things in Korea…? Let’s see, I was asked to re-contract for a 3rd year the other day. I’ve been given until October 31st to decide. I was pretty on the fence about it. I really didn’t know what I should do. I find myself terrified of being unemployed given the current economic climate in the US and the rest of the world. I also KNOW that I don’t want to go back to America. Not yet at least. Korea offers security and comfort. Buuuuuuuuut, I have to ask myself, when I left for Korea, was it comfort and security I was after? The answer is very much no. I went in search of new experience and adventure. Korea was supposed to be the first step in what would be the grand adventure of my life. I fear that perhaps I had/have lost sight of that. And I am very afraid that if I stay another year I’ll lose sight of that forever. So, given that, I think I have to move on. As Matt Smith through Kerouac so kindly reminded me, ‘The road is life’. I have to keep moving forward. I can’t let myself get bogged down in a comfortable situation because it is secure. Life’s too short.
On a lighter note, I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team and have been playing that a lot. It’s been really good for me. It’s really helping me get back in shape and has given me the motivation to kick certain bad habits. Our team is awesome… not skill wise, but it’s overall level of awesomeness is through the roof. As far as skill goes we are terrible. 0-9 so far. But we have a lot of fun.
In September I finally completed a long time goal of mine. I live near the place where the sun first rises in South Korea. So I can regularly go and see the earliest sunrises in the country. Well, I decided some time ago that I wanted to watch the sunrise on my side of the country, then travel to the other side of the country to watch the sunset all in the same day. So when I had a three day weekend and some motivation I went. The Sunrise was phenomenal, but the sunset left something to be desired, might try to do it again before I leave if the weather looks like it’ll be better. Time’ll tell.
Well, food just got here, so I’m going to leave this post at that. I’ll try to write again soon to let you all know how everything ends up working out. Hope everyone reading this is well.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Better Late than Never
Well, it’s been well over a year since the last time I wrote anything. So obviously way too much has happened since then to write down here. So I guess I’ll try to remember the highlights and go from there.
1. My first trip to Cambodia. In August of 2010 I went on my first vacation during my time in Korea. For my first trip I went to Cambodia to visit Meghan. I flew in to Siem Reap and spent ten days hanging out and sightseeing. I went to Angkor Wat, and a number of places around Battambang. I also had the opportunity to visit Meg at her site and see where she’s been living. All in all it was a pretty great trip. Cambodia was a great country to visit. I really enjoyed my time in outside of Siem Reap the most though. It was just too touristy there. Before I went I bought a new camera, and so I took a ton of pictures while I was there. Here are the links to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.674853416440.2261790.25903479&l=4023b31e20&type=1
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.675184048850.2262083.25903479&l=17056d7692&type=1
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.675191783350.2262092.25903479&l=2308dedea4&type=1
2. Travelling around Korea. During September 2010 I went on a trip around Korea by myself. I had a week off for Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving. So I used the time to go for an adventure. I’d originally wanted to go to the Islands that litter the South West of the country. Unfortunately, when I got there I discovered that the Ferry system was a major pain in the ass. So instead I opted to climb a small mountain in the city of Mokpo to watch the sunset. The next day I took a bus to Wolchulsan National Park. Wolchulsan (Wolchul Mountain) is a big chunk of rock coming out of nowhere. It’s surrounded by flat rice paddies in all directions. So it’s a pretty spectacular sight. I camped (if you can call it that) there a couple of nights and climbed the mountain before heading back to Ulsan.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.680053515400.2278629.25903479&l=796104cd92&type=1
3. Christmas in Cambodia. For Christmas that same year I went back to Cambodia to visit Meg, but this time Olivia had come from the States to celebrate Christmas with us. I was only able to get there late in the evening on Christmas Day because of work. I could only stay a week this time around, but it was great. This time we went to Phnom Penh and Sihanookville. I didn’t much care of Phnom Penh. The beach was fun though. Exactly what I needed during the Korean winter.
A brief note on weather in South Korea. Summer in Korea is pretty terrible for someone from the Pacific Northwest. First of all, it’s hot, really hot. Second, it’s humid, really humid. Lastly it rains almost every day. Now, rain isn’t exactly something that is troubling for me. Growing up in Western Oregon and Washington acclimatized me to precipitation. However, this is not like Pacific Northwest rain. When it rains in Washington it usually cools things down quite a bit. Here it does no such thing. It stays just as hot outside, but it gets more humid, muggier and grosser. The air feels heavy and wearing a rain jacket is impossible. The only option is an umbrella. So that’s the summer. Winter is the exact opposite in every way. It’s bitterly cold and dry. During summer I constantly sweat, during winter my skin dries out and cracks. Almost every day is sunny, but it’s too cold outside to enjoy. During the previous winter, the water in the river in Namchang was frozen solid for two months. The only reason it didn’t stay frozen was that all the water eventually just dried up and disappeared until spring. I didn’t even know ice COULD dry up.
4. Vietnam and America. I decided to stay in Korea for a second year. So as part of my re-signing bonus I was given two weeks of paid vacation to visit home. Knowing that I would go stir crazy if I tried to go back to America for two weeks I decided to spend a week of that in Vietnam. So, I went to Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau with my friend Hannah. It was a really good time. It differed from most of my travel experiences in that it was cheap enough to stay in a nice hotel/resort for a few days. There we lived the good life of fancy dinners while watching the sun set at night, and sitting by the pool drinking cocktails and wine during the day. Not a bad change of pace.
From Vietnam I flew back to Seoul, spent 6 hours in the airport, and then caught a flight to Seattle to visit the States for the first time in a year. This was great also. I’d missed my family and my friends a lot. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to see my parent, some of my extended family and my friends down in Portland. And I got to eat and drink. There are things that you miss when living in another country. Things that someone who has never lived abroad can’t really appreciate missing. Things like cheese, Mexican food, pizza pockets, frozen burritos, pizza rolls, Gatorade that isn’t yellow, Swiss rolls, butterfingers, and most importantly good beer. And so I feasted and did everything I could to try and regain the pounds I’d lost while subsisting on a diet of healthy Korean food.
While I was there my best friend Jimmy asked me to be his best man in his wedding in October. I was honored and very happy. But also worried because I knew it would be difficult to get the time off of work. Fortunately, after much gravelling and begging I was given the days off, so I’ll be back for a weekend in October.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.727961592230.2308909.25903479&l=ddef25fecb&type=1
5. Mongolia. This past August I decided to go to Mongolia for my vacation. This proved to be one of the best decision I’ve made during my time here. Mongolia was in incredible. I went with my buddy Jeremy. We had one goal when we got there, get to the Gobi desert. We arrived early on a Sunday morning, three hours later than planned thanks to a storm that kept us stuck on the runway in Beijing. We got to the guesthouse/tour agency that we had decided to go through around 7am, and by 9am we had a trip to the Gobi booked for the next day and a trip to Terelj National Park booked for that day. The next eight days were spent in a rapid, whirlwind tour of Central and Southern Mongolia. The National Park was gorgeous. The trip to the Gobi found us spending 6 to 8 hours a day in a van that would have been perfect suited to taking the family to soccer practice, but was in no condition to handle the “roads” of Mongolia. When I say road I of course mean dirt paths so bumpy and full of potholes and washboard that I’m amazed I didn’t lose a filling. Needless to say, the van broke down four times. First we punctured the oil drum and had to jerry rig a patch to keep enough oil in to get us to a town two days away. Then the wheels went out of alignment. Then the breaks went out while go down the other side of a mountain range. Then, just to top it all off, the front bumper fell off. It was an adventure. Every night we slept in Ger camps (Yurts) and ate a variety of Mongolian foods. Most notably we ate camel and drank fermented horse milk. While not as bad as one might think, and maybe even kind of tasty, it did wreak havoc on my intestines… for about two weeks after I got back. During the time I suffered an ear infection, food poisoning, and the aforementioned horse milk inspired bowel issues. Despite the countless hours in the bumpy van, the break downs and the various maladies, it was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on. Mongolia can best be described as vast and empty. We spent time in places where the population density was one person per three kilometers. It’s a country where horses outnumber people. Where you can drive all day and never pass another vehicle and the only sign of human beings is a Ger off in the distance. A place where distance itself is impossible to judge because there’s just nothing to put it into perspective. To say the least it redefined a lot of my previous views on the world. I truly hope I can go back there again someday.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.849394534640.2338216.25903479&l=a50132f654&type=1
6. Saying goodbye. This is something that you do a lot while living here. Every six months or so someone is either coming or going. Sometimes more frequently that. Since most people only come here for a year there is a constant flux of incoming and outgoing. My friend Patrick put it this way, the worse thing about living in Korea is that you meet so many amazing people and then they leave. Since I’ve been here for over a year and a half now I have made some great friends, and I have seen some great friends leave. You share amazing experiences with people here, and then you watch them go, or if you’re leaving, you watch them stay. It can be very difficult sometimes. I just said goodbye to two of my best friends a couple of weeks ago. Only time will tell if I’ll get to see either again someday. Being here is like being in College, but on a much larger scale. People come are thrust together in a new situation from all over the place, and when they finish the move on. It’s one of the defining characteristics of being an expat.
I think that just about brings the big things up to date. So, what comes next? I honestly have no idea. I know that I’m not ready to move back to America. Not even close. It’s nothing against my home country (which I love) or my friends and family there (whom I love). It’s just that I like this. I like this lifestyle. I like being surrounded by people who look different than I do and speak a different language. I feel like this lifestyle fits me. It’s an adventure. And I’m not ready for it to end. Also, chances are if I moved back to America I wouldn’t be able to find a job anyway.
So, my immediate plans are as follows. Visit the states for a weekend in October for Jimmy’s wedding. In December I’ll have another vacation, I’m thinking Malaysia. My contract finishes at the end of February. As tempting as it is to stay in Namchang, where it’s comfortable and I know how to do everything, I feel like I have to move on. I left America looking for adventure and new things. If I stay where I am much longer it will defeat that purpose. So, where to next. I don’t know yet. Somewhere else in Korea? Somewhere else in East Asia? The Middle East? Some time off to travel in South America? I don’t know yet. I’ll start looking at new jobs options soon. I know I want to keep teaching English and I know I want to do it abroad. Other than that, I guess we’ll see.
1. My first trip to Cambodia. In August of 2010 I went on my first vacation during my time in Korea. For my first trip I went to Cambodia to visit Meghan. I flew in to Siem Reap and spent ten days hanging out and sightseeing. I went to Angkor Wat, and a number of places around Battambang. I also had the opportunity to visit Meg at her site and see where she’s been living. All in all it was a pretty great trip. Cambodia was a great country to visit. I really enjoyed my time in outside of Siem Reap the most though. It was just too touristy there. Before I went I bought a new camera, and so I took a ton of pictures while I was there. Here are the links to see them.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.674853416440.2261790.25903479&l=4023b31e20&type=1
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.675184048850.2262083.25903479&l=17056d7692&type=1
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.675191783350.2262092.25903479&l=2308dedea4&type=1
2. Travelling around Korea. During September 2010 I went on a trip around Korea by myself. I had a week off for Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving. So I used the time to go for an adventure. I’d originally wanted to go to the Islands that litter the South West of the country. Unfortunately, when I got there I discovered that the Ferry system was a major pain in the ass. So instead I opted to climb a small mountain in the city of Mokpo to watch the sunset. The next day I took a bus to Wolchulsan National Park. Wolchulsan (Wolchul Mountain) is a big chunk of rock coming out of nowhere. It’s surrounded by flat rice paddies in all directions. So it’s a pretty spectacular sight. I camped (if you can call it that) there a couple of nights and climbed the mountain before heading back to Ulsan.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.680053515400.2278629.25903479&l=796104cd92&type=1
3. Christmas in Cambodia. For Christmas that same year I went back to Cambodia to visit Meg, but this time Olivia had come from the States to celebrate Christmas with us. I was only able to get there late in the evening on Christmas Day because of work. I could only stay a week this time around, but it was great. This time we went to Phnom Penh and Sihanookville. I didn’t much care of Phnom Penh. The beach was fun though. Exactly what I needed during the Korean winter.
A brief note on weather in South Korea. Summer in Korea is pretty terrible for someone from the Pacific Northwest. First of all, it’s hot, really hot. Second, it’s humid, really humid. Lastly it rains almost every day. Now, rain isn’t exactly something that is troubling for me. Growing up in Western Oregon and Washington acclimatized me to precipitation. However, this is not like Pacific Northwest rain. When it rains in Washington it usually cools things down quite a bit. Here it does no such thing. It stays just as hot outside, but it gets more humid, muggier and grosser. The air feels heavy and wearing a rain jacket is impossible. The only option is an umbrella. So that’s the summer. Winter is the exact opposite in every way. It’s bitterly cold and dry. During summer I constantly sweat, during winter my skin dries out and cracks. Almost every day is sunny, but it’s too cold outside to enjoy. During the previous winter, the water in the river in Namchang was frozen solid for two months. The only reason it didn’t stay frozen was that all the water eventually just dried up and disappeared until spring. I didn’t even know ice COULD dry up.
4. Vietnam and America. I decided to stay in Korea for a second year. So as part of my re-signing bonus I was given two weeks of paid vacation to visit home. Knowing that I would go stir crazy if I tried to go back to America for two weeks I decided to spend a week of that in Vietnam. So, I went to Ho Chi Minh City and Vung Tau with my friend Hannah. It was a really good time. It differed from most of my travel experiences in that it was cheap enough to stay in a nice hotel/resort for a few days. There we lived the good life of fancy dinners while watching the sun set at night, and sitting by the pool drinking cocktails and wine during the day. Not a bad change of pace.
From Vietnam I flew back to Seoul, spent 6 hours in the airport, and then caught a flight to Seattle to visit the States for the first time in a year. This was great also. I’d missed my family and my friends a lot. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to see my parent, some of my extended family and my friends down in Portland. And I got to eat and drink. There are things that you miss when living in another country. Things that someone who has never lived abroad can’t really appreciate missing. Things like cheese, Mexican food, pizza pockets, frozen burritos, pizza rolls, Gatorade that isn’t yellow, Swiss rolls, butterfingers, and most importantly good beer. And so I feasted and did everything I could to try and regain the pounds I’d lost while subsisting on a diet of healthy Korean food.
While I was there my best friend Jimmy asked me to be his best man in his wedding in October. I was honored and very happy. But also worried because I knew it would be difficult to get the time off of work. Fortunately, after much gravelling and begging I was given the days off, so I’ll be back for a weekend in October.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.727961592230.2308909.25903479&l=ddef25fecb&type=1
5. Mongolia. This past August I decided to go to Mongolia for my vacation. This proved to be one of the best decision I’ve made during my time here. Mongolia was in incredible. I went with my buddy Jeremy. We had one goal when we got there, get to the Gobi desert. We arrived early on a Sunday morning, three hours later than planned thanks to a storm that kept us stuck on the runway in Beijing. We got to the guesthouse/tour agency that we had decided to go through around 7am, and by 9am we had a trip to the Gobi booked for the next day and a trip to Terelj National Park booked for that day. The next eight days were spent in a rapid, whirlwind tour of Central and Southern Mongolia. The National Park was gorgeous. The trip to the Gobi found us spending 6 to 8 hours a day in a van that would have been perfect suited to taking the family to soccer practice, but was in no condition to handle the “roads” of Mongolia. When I say road I of course mean dirt paths so bumpy and full of potholes and washboard that I’m amazed I didn’t lose a filling. Needless to say, the van broke down four times. First we punctured the oil drum and had to jerry rig a patch to keep enough oil in to get us to a town two days away. Then the wheels went out of alignment. Then the breaks went out while go down the other side of a mountain range. Then, just to top it all off, the front bumper fell off. It was an adventure. Every night we slept in Ger camps (Yurts) and ate a variety of Mongolian foods. Most notably we ate camel and drank fermented horse milk. While not as bad as one might think, and maybe even kind of tasty, it did wreak havoc on my intestines… for about two weeks after I got back. During the time I suffered an ear infection, food poisoning, and the aforementioned horse milk inspired bowel issues. Despite the countless hours in the bumpy van, the break downs and the various maladies, it was probably the best trip I’ve ever been on. Mongolia can best be described as vast and empty. We spent time in places where the population density was one person per three kilometers. It’s a country where horses outnumber people. Where you can drive all day and never pass another vehicle and the only sign of human beings is a Ger off in the distance. A place where distance itself is impossible to judge because there’s just nothing to put it into perspective. To say the least it redefined a lot of my previous views on the world. I truly hope I can go back there again someday.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.849394534640.2338216.25903479&l=a50132f654&type=1
6. Saying goodbye. This is something that you do a lot while living here. Every six months or so someone is either coming or going. Sometimes more frequently that. Since most people only come here for a year there is a constant flux of incoming and outgoing. My friend Patrick put it this way, the worse thing about living in Korea is that you meet so many amazing people and then they leave. Since I’ve been here for over a year and a half now I have made some great friends, and I have seen some great friends leave. You share amazing experiences with people here, and then you watch them go, or if you’re leaving, you watch them stay. It can be very difficult sometimes. I just said goodbye to two of my best friends a couple of weeks ago. Only time will tell if I’ll get to see either again someday. Being here is like being in College, but on a much larger scale. People come are thrust together in a new situation from all over the place, and when they finish the move on. It’s one of the defining characteristics of being an expat.
I think that just about brings the big things up to date. So, what comes next? I honestly have no idea. I know that I’m not ready to move back to America. Not even close. It’s nothing against my home country (which I love) or my friends and family there (whom I love). It’s just that I like this. I like this lifestyle. I like being surrounded by people who look different than I do and speak a different language. I feel like this lifestyle fits me. It’s an adventure. And I’m not ready for it to end. Also, chances are if I moved back to America I wouldn’t be able to find a job anyway.
So, my immediate plans are as follows. Visit the states for a weekend in October for Jimmy’s wedding. In December I’ll have another vacation, I’m thinking Malaysia. My contract finishes at the end of February. As tempting as it is to stay in Namchang, where it’s comfortable and I know how to do everything, I feel like I have to move on. I left America looking for adventure and new things. If I stay where I am much longer it will defeat that purpose. So, where to next. I don’t know yet. Somewhere else in Korea? Somewhere else in East Asia? The Middle East? Some time off to travel in South America? I don’t know yet. I’ll start looking at new jobs options soon. I know I want to keep teaching English and I know I want to do it abroad. Other than that, I guess we’ll see.
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