Well gang, I have arrived in Korea and just woke up to my third full day here. It’s funny but every morning I wake up and think I am in a Latin American country. My ninth floor window faces into a courtyard with a myriad of windows looking into mine (no curtains yet) and the morning disorientation makes me think I hear Spanish in the morning!!!
The days leading up to my departure were somber, tense, and tearful. I didn’t want to leave the comforts of my home and give up simple luxuries like going to the local Starbucks where they know my high maintenance order of a cold soy white mocha with no ice but put in a hot cup, finding the products I like at Target, being able to find shoes to feet my gargantuan and sweaty feet, and having the luxury of a cell phone to call my galpals to talk about my latest romantic escapade.
After a tearful goodbye with my father I sullenly walked into the airport with a heavy heart. The weight of my decision started to come crashing down as a major reality check. Two years?! Who moves away out of the country for that amount of time? I still in my heart of hearts feel like I am only moving away for three months and I will get to travel the whole time. But it dawned on me I am moving across the world to teach students five days a week, grade endless amounts of papers, and struggle right alongside with the students over present progressive participles. Ironically that thought brought great comfort. Not everything was going to be THAT drastically different. Kids will be kids, and I will be their teacher.
In spite of the anxiety of leaving the States the anticipation had started to wear thin. I was ready to get going and plant my feet up on the footrest of the airplane. After flying through Chicago and Dublin (I MUST go visit that country someday!!) and I was more than elated to arrive in Europe. I told a dear friend once I was “sick” of Europe, but I have spent enough time away and it felt so good to be back.
I spent my time in Switzerland having endless girl talks with my mom, sister, and one of my best friends from college, traveling to the Swiss cities Bern and Thun, having fondue with some old coworkers and my old boss, spending nights drinking litchi beer up at my favorite bar called the Top Pub (one particular night drinking A LOT of wine, grapefruit beer, and flaming sambuca shots), and going on sunny bike rides through the mountains. Most of all I spent time NOT thinking about my big move and just enjoying my family and friends.
Well, that's not exactly true. OF COURSE I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE BIG MOVE. Have you ever heard of the iceberg theory? I saw a poster at the dentist office once that explained the analogy that many people only see the tip of the iceberg, but so much more lies beneath. Eventually the time came to actually discuss and ruminate on my reasons for going. In a tearful discussion with my friend Stephanie I told her my iceberg theory of going overseas. One-tenth of the reasons revolved around the cliché answer of wanting to go on an adventure. Many other reasons lie beneath the tip of the iceberg: getting to see Christianity alive and thriving somewhere other than stoic Lutheran waves of Minnesota, experience the opportunity to teach at an elite academic school outside of America, meet expats of Western descent that want to live outside of their countries, seeing other neighboring countries and get stamps on my passport, craft my writing skills about adventures, continue the personal focus that started this past year of getting to know myself more, and finally, the chance to meet as many interesting people as possible.
All of these reasons lie beneath the tip of the iceberg.
Those reasons stuck with me on the way to the airport. After a tearful goodbye with my mom and my sister, I was off on a 22-hour flight journey. I flew from Geneva to Qatar and spent a four hour layover in Doha. I have to admit I was a bit nervous flying in that region of the world, but I was astounded to see so many nationalities in one setting! The Doha airport is very transient and I had a wonderful time sipping on iced coffee and people watching. I hopped on another place to Shanghai, then FINALLY to Korea. I felt a bit jetlagged when the representatives from my school came to pick me up. I fell in and out of sleep until we arrived in Daejeon. I had not prepared myself for culture shock at all. As I entered upon a city I immediately felt it was cross between a mini-L.A and Vegas, except everything was in Korean. Lights flickered everywhere at a frenzied pace that would whisk anyone back to Times Square. Korea has raging humidity in the summer and I was dripping with sweat as I took the elevator up to my ninth floor apartment that reeked of kimchee and who knows else.
Welcome home?!?
The first day was awful, or at least the morning was awful. I hated Korea. It was hot, sticky, and NO ONE SPOKE ENGLISH. It took us over an over to find a bank. How silly we must have looked walking around aimlessly with our guidebooks asking everyone on the street for directions. All those poor Koreans looked at us in confusion, smiled politely and bowed, but just went on their way. Kirstin, my roommate, and I looked wide-eyed in disbelief at each other. What had we done? Did we really want to do this to ourselves? Nevertheless, we made it to the bank! Somehow as the day progressed it got much better. A nap, dinner with a lovely couple from the school, two more fans put in our apartment, and a trip to the Homeplus store to buy household goods somehow made me feel much better.
We even managed to make a friend our first night! Some girl walked up to me and said in broken English “YOU ARE TALL!” For the next ten minutes Kirstin and I went back and forth with this girl named Hyun Je (not sure how to pronounce the name) and eventually exchanged email addresses with her. Our first Korean friend! She agreed to teach us Korean in exchange for some English lessons. It has put a permagrin on my face over the last few days. Slowly but surely we have managed to work our way around the city and communicate with people. We made friends with the neighbor kids that practice a kendo stick dance routine on the roof opposite our apartment. We even chatted with the pizza guy down the street and took our first taxi ride around the city!
Today is our last “free day” before school orientation starts. It has been nice to get the place in order by spending ten hours ironing clothes, watching whatever English channels we can get, and walking more around our neighborhood. I hope my pictures download properly. If not check out my facebook account. An-yangee-keseyo!!! (Goodbye in Korean!)
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