A Perfect Day

As I always say, disasters make for the best adventures. This morning, my friend, Jacqui, and I had plans to meet up with some coworkers to go to a famous palace here in Seoul. Jacqui and I met up successfully but we were already running late and we underestimated how long it would take us to get there. I’d accidentally left my phone at home, she didn’t have our friends’ numbers (plus her phone was dying) and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone to help us get in touch with them. After five minutes of waiting at our meeting spot, we realized that, not only were we half an hour late, but that we were at the wrong subway exit. We sprinted back into the metro and came out the other side still hopeful but we were much too late. The laughter never ended but I was sure that our coworkers would never invite us anywhere again after that. We decided to get coffee (and as a bonus, while inside Dunkin Donuts, we got to witness two old, old men yelling at each other and preparing for a physical fight). After that, we went into the palace and, almost as soon as we got inside, we ran into our friends so it all worked out perfectly! They thought it was funny that we were so dumb (and to add on to that, my camera battery died after the second picture I took). The palace buildings were beautiful and the whole place was covered with trees changing colors. It was amazing (and a side note: I can’t explain how obsessed I am with this weather)!! Afterwards, we walked around the little town, got interviewed on camera (I don’t know what it was for) about Free Trade Coffee, so I got to represent for my favorite country, Mexico, and then we had some delicious Korean food together!

            Now it’s time for another day at the best job in the world and it will be followed by a full night of salsa and bachata with some of the best people I’ve met here. Life honestly couldn’t get any better. I can’t really express how happy I am in words so *SQUEEEEEAL!!!!*

The Importance Of Reading Carefully

Since the moment I got to my gate at the airport, I’ve been making new friends. The first person I met was a girl from the States named Bridget who was going to spend a few months in another part of Korea. We chatted for a while on the way here and talked about possibly visiting each other before she left the country. I started planning my trip to see her a couple of months ago and I invited my friend and ex-roomie from Italy, Jooyeon, to join me…or so I thought. We had an ongoing conversation for about three weeks, discussing the details of the trip and talking about how excited we were to go. I also told her about a mutual friend’s (from Italy) birthday party that weekend and, only when she asked me, “Who’s Ryan?” did I realize that I’d been talking to the wrong Jooyeon the whole time. I had inadvertently invited Jooyeon’s friend, Jooyeon, that I met the night I got here and had only ever talked to in real life for about five minutes. Dumb.

I eventually fessed up to accidentally inviting her and then two days later realized I couldn’t go anyway so the whole thing was really unnecessary.

Then yesterday morning, that very same Bridget was online and I don’t know what is wrong with me that I don’t EVER read last names anymore but I mistook her for my friend Bridget from home and sent her a facebook chat that said “sluttt.” I apologized as soon as I realized who it was but it was fine…she thought it was funny. Seriously though, I either need to not friend people on facebook that I don’t know very well or I need to learn to read. Side note: Bridget (from the plane) is actually coming to visit me next weekend so it all worked out! :)

If I had 1,000 won ($1) for every time I failed…

1. A few weeks ago, my friend was starting to come down with a cold so I went all motherly on her and popped her full of zinc, echinacea, vitamin C, and multivitamins. I didn’t realize, however, that it is very important to eat when you take zinc. If not, you will immediately start to feel nauseas and, if you are my friend, you will throw up everything you’ve eaten in the past two days. When she started vomiting, I turned on “Bartender” by T-Pain nice and loudly (it was the first thing that came up on my itunes) because I know how embarrassing it can be for someone to hear you be sick. I, of course, apologized afterwards for making her puke…and I apologized for DJing her vomiting episode as well because, looking back, I realized that it must’ve seemed a little insensitive to blast such a song while she felt so crappy. I’m surprised she didn’t get up and punch me in the face once she regained her strength.

2. This past weekend, another friend and I ordered rice cakes which, in Korea, means thick, delicious noodles made from rice and covered in a spicy sauce. They’re slippery and a little bit difficult for me to pick up no matter what, but they were given to us in a plastic bag and we were supposed to eat them with chopsticks (and did I mention we were riding in a taxi?). I felt more uncoordinated than Bambi when he learns to walk and my friend had to do all but feed them to me. Anyway, since I only got some of it on the back seat of that poor man's cab, I consider it a semi-successful failure.

3. A few days ago, one of my students failed to do his homework. He is a new student but he’s smart and knew how to do it so there was really no excuse. I gave him homework detention just like we teachers are supposed to. Then, however, he started to cry and he’s so freaking cute that I just couldn’t handle it. Even though we’re supposed to be super strict about detention, I took it away. On top of that, I really wanted to give him a hug but I knew that’d be taking it too far. I failed big time that day at being a strict teacher. Oops.

4. I’m not the only one, though! Since the bug exterminator came to my house, I’ve killed more bugs than ever. I’m now leaving them dead on the floor so that when I make him come back to spray again, he can see that he, too, failed.

The Handyman Can (even at the most inconvenient times)

I can’t decide what I think about customer service type things in this country. Things get done here (much unlike when I lived in Italy) but in very strange ways.

I recently requested that my apartment be sprayed for bugs because I’ve had some nasty little roach things in here. In the U.S., that would mean that I'd schedule a time for the roach man to come spray. This morning, however, someone unexpectedly knocked on my door so I decided not to answer; I can’t see outside without opening the door and I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand whoever it was anyway. After a few knocks though, they just came in! It was the “handyman” from our school (who has the spare key to my apartment) and the bug spray guy! Thank god they didn’t come in 10 minutes later because I would’ve been in the shower with the bathroom door open and that wouldn't have been pretty. It annoyed me that they came without telling me ahead of time but at least they were there to fulfill my request. They finally left and I was able to shower. Ten seconds after I got out though, I heard them knocking AGAIN and that time I really wasn’t dressed. I ignored them because they were annoying me but it didn’t matter – they had a key. So they started to come back in, saying something about signing a contract and I made them wait outside until was dressed. They came back in to sign some paper that didn’t require my signature (I couldn’t read it anyway) so they might as well have done it outside and slipped it under my door. They sat on my kitchen floor to sign it because my table had stuff all over it…again, I wasn’t expecting company. It’s weird to me that that kind of thing doesn’t bother people here. They could tell I was annoyed and they felt bad about it. They apologized and everything but seriously...call next time and ask if it's okay. It's not that hard.

To add to it all, I just killed a freaking bug. I’m so confused…but this is the beauty of adapting to a culture with a completely different way of thinking.

Side note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my amazing sister, Erin!! She turns 26 today and I love her so much!!! :D Hope you have a great day and an awesome year chiquita!!

I'm Becoming Korean!

Why? Well...

1. I got my first paycheck!!

I’m officially bringin in the won, but I’m still rarely fully successful when I try to spend it. Besides being stingy, I have trouble buying things here because I don’t speak Korean. Today I went to the market to buy a few things but I ended up with 6 peaches, 7 bananas and 10 freaking yams because when I tried to ask for less than that, they thought I was talking about the price. The fact that I can only eat peaches, bananas and yams for the next week will be my motivation to practice harder in the free Korean classes that I just started taking on Saturdays!

2. I successfully steamed vegetables!

I’ve never really been able to cook but I’ve been living on my own for a while now so I’ve learned some ways to feed myself. Until now, I’d mostly been getting enough vegetables by roasting them in the oven, or microwaving frozen veggies. Here, though, I don’t have an oven or a microwave so I had to resort to steaming them, which I had never done before. I know it’s easy to normal people but I'd never done it before so I had some issues. Today was my third try and the first time it really worked so I'm pretty proud of my steamy little self ( and p.s...the yams are good so it’s fine that I ended up with ten this morning.)

3. I drank Soju (Korean liquor) outside of a convenient store.

For some reason, sitting at little tables and drinking outside of convenient stores is big here, so my friend and I decided to try it. As weird as I thought it was before I tried it, it was actually a really good time! It’s like a bar in that you can just sit and relax and chat with a friend, but you don’t have to pay a ton of money for drinks. It’s actually a pretty genius idea. I didn’t get so hammered that I had to have another adult carry me home so I’m not totally a Korean adult, but I’m doing my best.

My Weird Life Gets Weirder

The thing that scares me about agreeing to live somewhere for more than just a few months is that I might get completely used to my surroundings and then get bored. Well, the longer I live in Seoul, the weirder it gets so I’m finally confident that I’ll be able to stay here as long as it takes me to pay back my school loans.

WEIRD: I suppose this could happen anywhere but I’ve been to quite a few different cities and Seoul is the first place that this ever happened to me. Some dude followed me for almost half an hour last night as I was trying to walk home. Ignoring him didn’t work so I pretended I didn’t understand English and I answered everything he said in Spanish so he’d give up and go away. Instead, he used charades and loud, slow English to explain that he wanted to get drinks with me. I smiled and told him in Spanish to please f off but he didn’t quite. He continued following me from across the street and, every once in a while, he crossed back to my side to ask me for my number or something stupid. He eventually took off running up ahead of me and stood in a dark little alleyway (ironically, the one I live in but I really hope he didn’t actually know that) and then stood there and watched me walk by. I obviously wasn’t going to go home while he was standing right there, so I went to my friend’s house and made sure he didn’t see where I went once I turned the corner. The weirdest part was that he didn’t seem the stalker type. He was around my age, well-dressed, and didn’t appear to be under the influence of anything. Seriously though…so annoying.

WEIRDER: I’ve said before that the traffic here is nuts but today it hit a whole new level. I literally saw a girl get hit by a car. We were walking on a tiny little street FILLED with people and I don’t understand why cars ever try to drive through there at all but, every few minutes, one does and they’re in everyone’s way. They go pretty slowly but they don’t really stop so it’s mostly on the pedestrians to get off the road in time. Well, this one tiny little Korean girl in stilettos didn’t do her job well enough (the eyes in the back of her head must’ve be out of order) because a car hit her from behind. She slid a little but somehow didn’t fall over (I guess because he hit her pretty slowly and her arm was linked with her friend’s). The sound of her high heel sliding on the pavement was disgusting and she ended sort of sitting on the car for a second. The girl looked a little stunned as she moved off to the side of the street and the car pulled up and rolled down the window to apologize quickly before driving off. Everyone around stared for a second and then kept walking as if nothing had ever happened. It was like experiencing a flash mob where something ridiculous happens for just a moment and then things go immediately back to normal and you’re not sure if it happened in real life or if you just imagined it. So weird. (P.S. The pun in the first line was really not intended...I realized it when I was reading over this.)

WEIRDEST: There is a hospital near my house that I go by often and there are always patients hobbling around just outside the door…gowns, crutches and all…smoking and hanging out. That’s strange enough on it’s own but the other day I saw the craziest thing. I was on an extremely busy street, walking to the grocery store (very, very, very far from the hospital) and I passed a man who was walking around, dressed in his hospital gown, pulling his IV pole along with him. Seriously…when I was in the hospital, visitors had to sanitize their hands before coming anywhere near me. I can’t imagine the size of the bricks nurses would’ve shit had I tried to walk outside with my IV pole still connected…and that man was at least a mile away from any healthcare facility. He was with his wife but…I mean…I just don’t get how that’s allowed. SO WEIRD.

With situations as random as these waiting for me around every corner in Seoul, how could I ever get bored? :)