Countdown- Nine weeks to go..

It is cold today. Really quite cold indeed. The last week that my mum was here a couple of weeks ago it was getting colder in the evenings but it heated up again the following week. Last week was really tricky weather- that it to say that it was lovely and warm when I was heading to work and cold on the way out- a bugger to dress for all in all. But I was still wearing my sandals. But on Monday I had to dig out a pair of runners- 'proper shoes' - and socks just to stop my feet getting cold on the way to work let alone on the way home. Guess that Autumn is well and truly here and that Winter is just a hop, skip and a jump away.

I should have known it would be getting cold soon as there has been two very obvious signs of the decline of summer:

1. Tim has started wearing his suit for work again and
2. the kids have started wearing their jackets in class.

Now, while the first one is funny enough for those that didn't know Tim last winter the second one is really odd. Once winter starts fully the Koreans will be wearing their coats all of the time- classrooms full of jacket wearing kids, restaurants full of adults clad in their winter finest. And just me with the heater on trying to stay warm in a cardigan or fleece top. Once that heater is on you would think that the kids would get hot enough to take those jackets off but no- they just sit and get hot. Not that the heaters are out yet. But I am looking forward to one of my favourite Korean winter things- the under floor heating. I am not sure if I sung the praises of that loud enough last winter. It is great and the reason that Korea homes have no carpets. The entire floor is heated like a huge radiator which means that clothes can be hung on an airer anywhere in the room and they will get the benefit of the heat without blocking it from me. Most people will completely forsake what little use they do make of their furniture and move onto the floor full time. I, for one, will be popping a thin cushion next to the sofa and enjoying a warm bottom. All I have to remember is the valuable lesson that I learnt last year- don't leave chocolate in your bag if you intend to leave your bag on your heated floor for any length of time at all!

Korea feels very different in the cold. It even smells really different. The hagwon smells like it did when I first got here back in December in ways that I can't really describe but which can trick me occasionally into believing that I am newly arrived. Which is why it is weird when everything seems so familiar.

In fact it is odd altogether really that Mokpo looks so normal to me now. The traditional houses complete with kimchi pots on the roof or top of the gate look as familiar to me as the estate where my mother lives in England. I can read the signs much quicker than I used to (remember that they are all in Korean or bad English) though I still don't know what most of them mean. I even find myself wondering why people are staring at me sometime then I see my reflection in a shop window and remember that I look really different from the average inhabitant of this city.

It will be very odd to get back to Western society and not be the centre of attention though it will be nice not to have shop staff laugh hysterically just because I am speaking English. I am not looking forward to teenagers back home though- they scare me whereas here I am usually just asked where I am from by a bunch of giggling boys rather than worried that one of them might make off with my handbag (well, small backpack as I have never really seen the fun in a handbag- purse to all you North American types reading this). Will life still be fun when the very act of ordering beer isn't fraught with danger? I was in a local bar with my friends over here once when it took FIVE bar staff to take our order- despite the vocab to order beer being the first thing that I learnt in Korean (I am not daft and certainly know where my priorities lie!).
I can only guess what it will be like to go home and all the things which I grew up with seeming so odd to me. My friends and family had better brace themselves for an onslaught of questions about how things work in the UK (and what has been happening in Eastenders for the last year). I want to go straight to the Fish and Chip shop and get me a large portion of proper chips- with salt and vinegar and ketchup and garlic mayo- which should keep me going until I make it to the Chinese for some sweet and sour chicken balls and chicken chow mein! I am looking forward to it but if anyone knows of a Korean restaurant in London please let me know since I am sure that it is only a matter of time until I start craving Sam Gyup Sal again!
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the start of the countdown!- 11 weeks to go!

So, after all these months of counting how may weeks I have been away it is time to change tactics and start counting how many weeks I have got left until the end of my contract.

Therefore, this is Week 11, next week will be Week 10, etc etc until Christmas Week which will be Week 1- the last week of my contract (remember back to all the hellish worrying and all round panicking that became so much part of Christmas for me and close friends and family last year? I do remember worrying a lot but sitting here in Korea 10 months on and I confused as to what I was so worried about!) I'll let you know what my future plans are as soon as there are few enough of them in my head for me to be able to see them clearly! That is to say that I have a new thought pretty much every time I breathe in and another one by the time I breathe out again. Yes, I really am that confused and excited about what to do next. Let's face it, in eighteen months time I will be joining my brother in the land of 30 year olds and while I know that that is a long way from being any where near past it it is a landmark of sorts and bound to lead to all that introverted 'what have I done with my life?', 'what am I doing with my life?', 'will I EVER get a boyfriend??????' etc etc. Don't worry though, I am not about to inflict that kind of thinking on you right now. Instead I thought that I would share some more immediate worries about my short term future with you- that is leaving Korea and returning to a Western society.

Changes that have happened to my thinking since I got here became more obvious when my mother was here. I had to question things that I had started to take for granted.

Mother: Why are those dogs' ears blue?
Me: Because they dye them, of course, doesn't everyone????

I am so used to taking my shoes off when I enter that house and only putting them back on again as I get to the doorstep to leave (yes, mum, points awarded for taking your shoes off at the doorstep are definitely deducted when you later pick the shoes up, carry them through the house so you can sit on the bed to put them back on again and then walk all the way back through the house with your shoes on!) that when I watch 'Friends' it is all I can do to stop myself yelling out at the TV- 'Ross, Rachel, who cares whose baby it is- just take your bloody shoes off for goodness sake!' as they casually stroll in as if unaware of their shod status- or as if it doesn't matter! Which leads onto my problem- back home IT DOESN'T!

So are my friends and family going to get really mad at me as they all stand backed up on the doorstep as I stand just inside the door taking my shoes off before they can enter the house too? Will people think that I am a little crazy when I can't stop myself giving little bows when entering and leaving somewhere? What will my local pub bar staff make of me when I sit at my table with my hand in the air yelling 'yogi-yo!!!' and waiting for them to come running to take my order? Or, once I have realised that I must go to the bar to get served (as if they are doing US a favour!) will they giggle as I hand over the money two-handed? Will I die of thirst as I sit with an empty glass in front of me because I am waiting for someone to do the polite thing and fill it for me? And, on the off chance that someone takes pity on me and does pour me a drink, will they get perturbed when I then try and wrestle the bottle out of their hands in order to return the favour? How long will it take me to stop staring at 'foreigners' who will not even be considered foreign back home? Or to stop talking about people in loud voices on the assumption that they can't understand me?

When I was in Australia a few years ago, my friend Sarah came to visit after a year teaching in Thailand. All she kept saying was 'they are soooo tall!!' and 'they can all speak English!' before running to the nearest Thai restaurant for a taste of 'home'. Sarah, I think that I am beginning to understand how you felt!
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Mum's the word...

At the end of last week, I found myself catching the midnight bus on a Friday to get to Seoul in time to pick my mum up from the airport. Easy enough - or is it really?

I was just getting ready to go to the pub for a few jars before getting the 5:30am bus to Seoul (well, maybe a little more than a few jars then...) when I thought that I should check what time the old dear was landing...TWO HOURS BEFORE I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS!
The last bus leaves Mokpo at 11:40(ish) and they start to run around 5am. AND I had to meet her at 10am - not enough time to fit in five and a half hours of quality bus time if I caught the first bus and way too much time at various bus terminals and other places for the desperately lonely if I got the last one the night before. Picturing the look on the old dear's face if she walked through the gates to see a load of Koreans and no daughter I decided that I had to bite the bullet and get the first one.

So off I went. I didn't drink anything on the way after the last time when I had to get together all of my Korean phrases and ask urgently when we would be stopping for the toilet break! So we arrived at 4:40am thoroughly in need of some liquid. All was shut in the bus terminal but Korea is always ready with a can vending machine when you need one - I love this country! The airport buses don't start running between the centre of Seoul and Incheon airport (a 50 minute trip) until after five so I put my head down for a while on a bench. Just a short nap as I was woken up by a policeman at 5am as it is apparently OK to look like a homeless tramp before 5am but completely unacceptable after. Sat there groggily for a bit before seeing a driver get on the bus I needed so I ran after him and off we went to the airport.

After my experience at the bus terminal I thought it was safest not to try catching some zzz's at the airport, so I strolled around for about four hours, had pizza for breakfast when the restaurants opened, checked the World Cup store (yes, they are still open all over the country) to see if there was anything at all that I hadn't bought yet, and resisted the temptation to finish the collection. Finally managed to sleep about twenty minutes before the old lady was due to land but was woken up five minutes later by an ajumma. And again five minutes after that and by the third time I just gave up. I can only imagine that I kept falling onto her shoulder as I drifted into sleep as she didn't look too happy at all.

Mum's flight came in early and the one before it came in late so I guess that we caught the best deal - much better than the poor folk coming from Uzbekistan (sic) who all looked a little confused as they finally arrived in the arrivals lounge. Mum had hold ups getting through to me and we had a joyful reunion with the pair of us looking like we hadn't slept for about a week. It worked out that I have left Mokpo for Seoul around the same time that the old dear had left Amsterdam after her stop off there so felt that I had an equal right to flaunt the bags under my eyes. We caught a bus to Itaewon and the Hamilton Hotel - relative luxury after the motels that I usually have bunked down in for the night - six to a room - in Itaewon. The old dear was a little vague and in need of sleep and who was I to argue with that? We both climbed gratefully into bed (though I was the only one who was overexcited that the beds had REAL sheets on them!) and slept until the evening.

The evening was also pretty quiet- just staying in Itaewon and wandering around finding out some tourist info for the next day's adventure. We had had plans to do the evening bus tour of the city on the first night but decided to save it until the next day. I took mum for dinner and quickly realised something- I was pretty much going to be in charge of the menu for the duration of her trip for several reasons- she doesn't know Korean food so she doesn't know what she would like and the main one being that she can't read Korean so the menu was completely incomprehensible to her. Makes sense and it did mean that I managed to fit in more than the usual amount of pizzas while she was there(!)

Sunday was a day of sightseeing. We got on the Seoul City Bus Tour that leaves from Itaewon and goes all around Seoul, stopping at all the major sights. There was a guide on the bus and also headsets that gave information about each of the stops. All in all we considered it to be a good way to get around Seoul. We saw a couple of palaces including the Gyeongbokgung one that I had been to a few weeks before with my mates from Ireland. It was beautiful all over again but a lot more crowded at weekends. Which was a shame as they have hanboks (traditional style dresses) that you can rent and take photos of yourselves poncing around the palace grounds looking like royalty (or something like that) which I had quite fancied doing but there were a few too many other people there to indulge in such silliness. It is a strange thing that I really don't mind being stared at (and in fact lap up the attention like there is no tomorrow) but every so often I get a bit shy, I don't know why that is. We met a girl from Denmark who thought that we were both Scandinavian and later we met an American family in the Seoul Tower who thought that we were Australian- is it any wonder that I get confused??? Of course, all the Koreans we met just assumed that we were American so some of the first words that mum learnt in Korean were those used to correct such assertions.

By the evening we were exhausted and headed to the train station to get the next train back to Mokpo which it turned out would be a two hour wait and standing room only. Very tempting but we decided to try the bus station instead. Another two hour wait but at least at the end of it we were able to relax into the comfort of a Kumho Express bus with its foot rest and reclining almost to horizontal seats. And we were on our way home- well, my home anyway!
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