Hello each and all,
Well, what is she up to this time? I am back in Korea and in a new city called Kangnung or Gangnung or Gangneung or Kangneung depending on how you feel that day and which street sign you are looking at. The confusing spelling is an indication that the Korean spelling contains a few letters which are difficult to translate and also difficult for the average young(ish) British lass to say- hence me having to scribble the name down in Korean every time I want to buy a bus ticket there and a complete inability to tell Korean people where I live- believe me, I tried several times today with no luck whatsoever! Not that I have been going around telling people where I live, of course, but I popped my head out of the safety of my apartment today and put myself on show for people to talk to and sigh about how handsome Beckham is with (I did kind of think that this would have worn off a bit after so long but nine times out of ten people still associate England with Beckham which I guess is better than us always associating Korea with canine cuisine. As a point of interest, the tenth person refers to the war in Iraq when hearing where I am from so there you go, there have been some changes since last year after all.).
But back to the beginning. I arrived back in Korea last weekend with only a short delay in Frankfurt due to the US military taking over half of the airport. The fact that this only led to an hour long delay altogether across both of my flights says something about German efficiency compared with the new safety procedure at Stansted (of taking your jacket off to have it x-rayed) leading to three hour long queues to get through to the departure lounge a month ago, I am sure. The flight was OK- it felt kind of comforting to be surrounded by so many Korean people after three months away- that is until the guy in the seat across the aisle from me (I took my usual position next to the window for the most amazing views across London on the way out of Heathrow) got out a Game boy. A game boy keying in fact, good for him to bring something to occupy himself I guess. That is until I realised that he had no intention whatsoever of turning off the music ever at all! Knowing that this could lead to almost permanent damage where I would find myself humming the Tetris tune for the next twelve months at least, I was very un-English and asked him to be quiet. He did. Right up until the point where I put my headphones on then he put the music back on. Determined not to listen to the music I turned up the volume and was left untouched by his evil music.
Until the lights had been turned off after the second movie and people were settling down to sleep and across the sound of fifty people snoring I could once more hear the electronic horror. This time I think that he realised I was serious and not just making polite conversation when I spoke to him- eight hours on a long haul flight with little leg room will certainly give me that mad lady you don’t want to mess with look!
Arriving at Incheon only one hour late would normally be classed as something of a triumph except that this day I had arranged to meet friends who would be leaving the meeting point about half an hour after I had arrived at the airport. But a few phone calls later and everything was sorted. I felt a sense of mild irritation at trying to get the correct bus to the bus terminal and knew that I was back in Korea- oh joy! A businessman helped me with my cases and off we went into Seoul. Weirdly enough, as I looked out of the window of the bus onto the landscape which had been so fascinating and foreign for me only fifteen months before when I had seen it for the first time, I felt a feeling of normality return which I had not felt since leaving Korea before Christmas. Maybe I have become institutionalised but I felt that I understood how Korea worked more than I did London. But this probably much more to do with the fact that I only understand, and expect to understand, about a hundredth of what goes on in Korea and feel that I should know what is going on in my home country. But somebody had changed all the Tube lines and added new stations and built loads of new buildings in London just to confuse me and it worked so well that I came back to Korea.
But back to the bus into Seoul. I made it to the terminal and my friends were there- one who was waiting for me, and had been as excited at the prospect of seeing me as I had been about being reunited with her, and one who had no idea that I was coming back that weekend. Yes, I felt like a princess again to be back with the people who had come to Seoul to see me off only three months before. We caught a taxi to Itaewon (where we had all spent my last weekend too) and found a motel for the night and went out for a walk (after a MUCH needed shower- I managed to have nearly the whole shower without breaking into the Tetris tune too- result!). Walking around Itaewon was weird and really gave me a feeling of never having been away at all- except that I was wearing different shoes, the only proof that I had to have left the country as girls here have feet roughly half the size of mine so there is no chance of getting shoes here.
Things got even weirder as we started bumping into people that I knew- inevitable really as they were all up for Paddy’s weekend which was also the reason that I chose to come back the weekend that I did but still strange.
A trip back to the motel and a short (ha ha!) nap and three bottles of lemon soju later (which my friends had kindly brought with them from Naju, all of us still bearing the scars of the fruitless search for the lemon stuff in Seoul back in December) and I was ready to face the world. We seemed to know people in every bar and it was great to meet up with the people from Mokpo again- some of whom I had never met in the first place such as my replacement (and I managed to resist the urge to spend the entire night asking how my little ones were- I contented myself with asking about a key few instead. And I was so proud to hear that one of our ‘babies’ from last year has now progressed to looking up rude words in the dictionary- the sweet feeling of success as a teacher!) We danced and drank and drank and danced until the wee small hours- around 7- and off to the food stalls that I have so missed for an egg toastie, truly nothing soaks up the soju as well as an egg toastie. And finally sleep. And sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And woke up in a panic the next day at roughly the time that I should have been on the bus to Kangung (or however it was spelt that day) but not so much of a panic that I wanted to lift my head off the pillow too fast. We missed the Paddy’s parade which is probably no bad thing as I was feeling the love so much from the night before that I probably would have thought that it had been organised in my honour anyway. But I was gratified to see many notices announcing the ‘St Patric’s (sic) Day Parade’ and with that Konglish my return to Korea was complete. The only thing left to do now was make it to my new home and meet the new little monsters.
The bus ride was OK- I slept a lot. The highway between Seoul and Gangnung basically seemed to just be a series of tunnels through mountain after mountain, somewhat robbing the passengers of the view but speeding up the journey by about eight hours. What little I did see of the countryside seemed to still be covered in snow. We reached the rest stop about half an hour before the conclusion of our journey- probably the first place flat enough to build one- and thirty minutes after that we cruised into the city where I was greeted and taken to my apartment and left. I only really took in the fact that I had a DOUBLE bed before I did the thing that I had been dying to do for the last three months- oh bliss, oh joy- I UNPACKED MY BAG!
The jetlag very kindly kept me awake between 3am and 7am and I was still fairly wrecked when I got up the next day. I had been warned that there was a problem with the water pressure up here on the heady heights of the fifth floor which is eventually going to lead to me moving down a few floors. But I had no idea that this problem was such that there isn’t enough pressure to get the water from the taps and all the way up the two feet of shower hose and back down onto my head. I gave in, filled the sink and washed out of that instead- as I will have to do every day for the next month. Fortunately, Korean bathrooms are designed to ensure that you don’t have to be careful about splashing water and if you could see the room after one of these bush baths you would believe that not only had the water been coming out of the showerhead but that I also taken time out to wash the walls and floor and ceiling while in there. It is not a big deal in a house where I have a DOUBLE BED! And I had even been clever enough to bring bed clothes with me this time (if you remember, Korean beds have duvets and mattresses but no covers which is just not comfortable or practical for us poor foreigners) and it was a great joy to get into bed the night before and snuggle down into the clean bed clothes and just roll over and over and sleep diagonally and other such things which I had been unable to do either in a single bed, on various settees or even air beds which had been my home for the last three months.
The week at school was also odd mostly because I kept expecting my students from last year to walk in at any point. I didn’t recognise or know these kids and I wanted MY little monsters back! But I have got a bit more used to them now and resist the urge to push them out of the classroom and wait for Cathy or Katy from Mokpo to show up. I am sure that they will grow on me like the mould in my old house last year. The school is pretty small with only three English teachers and only one foreigner (guess who!) but that does mean that it is quieter than my last place. I have now been here for a whole week and I only saw another foreigner for the first time today at the beach (more on that later) and we just exchanged hellos and left it at that.
And since today is a Saturday I went out to explore the area a bit and find the beach. Which I did pretty easily since it is less that 3km away and lovely and long and sandy. Somebody took my photo with his mobile phone which is a first for me and he showed it to me and I couldn’t help but notice that everything on his phone was in English whereas mine is all in Korean- doesn’t make sense to me! The beach is at Gyeongpo, a small town seemingly populated almost entirely by squid drying on washing lines and people selling film so that people can spend the day taking photos of their friends in front of various bits of the ocean. Just about 200 metres away from the beach is a lake which is also very nice. I had Korean food and a guy selling oranges out of the back of a truck gave me an orange and reminded me of what I love about living in Korea. That said, things are different here, people don’t stare at me and I miss it. I have done everything that I can do to show them that I am foreign, general poncing around being blonde for starters, coupled with wearing high heels so that I tower over most of the apartment blocks let alone people but it just doesn’t seem to work. What is their problem? Don’t they realise that I am different and therefore to be stared at continually? Like back home in Mokpo? In fact, the only person that wanted to ‘speak Englishee’ with me all day was from Seoul. It will take a bit of getting used to.
It is also strange to be in the same country as so many of my friends but still so far away from them. I think that it will take over seven hours to get down to Mokpo from here. But it has been nice to speak to them nearly every night on the phone. And I do love my new computer! Even though it isn’t connected to the internet yet. I went to a PC shop downtown to buy a Korean adaptor for it as the battery was fast running out. At first the guy took one look at my adaptor and said no. Then I asked him where and he made a few phone calls, went to anther shop down the street and eventually came back and took one out of a box by the door and sold it to me for about one pound fifty. And I was reminded at the lengths that some people will go to even if they don’t understand you and left the shop with a lovely warm glow.
I might as well come out and warn you now that you will be getting long emails for the next year now. Once my house is on-line there really will be no stopping me- plus the fact that I haven’t met any other foreigners really yet will just add to my need to communicate. But I will leave you now- assuming that you have made it this far. I hope that you appreciate the fact that I have spell checked this mail- having looked at some of the ones from last year I was shocked that I would send out that amount of curiously spelt words while having the gall to laugh at Korean spellings! But I will admit to turning off the grammar checker as it drives me nuts- what do I know about grammar? I am only an English teacher.
!
Take care and more news as and when it happens,
Love your faraway friend
Helen
Xxx
Well, what is she up to this time? I am back in Korea and in a new city called Kangnung or Gangnung or Gangneung or Kangneung depending on how you feel that day and which street sign you are looking at. The confusing spelling is an indication that the Korean spelling contains a few letters which are difficult to translate and also difficult for the average young(ish) British lass to say- hence me having to scribble the name down in Korean every time I want to buy a bus ticket there and a complete inability to tell Korean people where I live- believe me, I tried several times today with no luck whatsoever! Not that I have been going around telling people where I live, of course, but I popped my head out of the safety of my apartment today and put myself on show for people to talk to and sigh about how handsome Beckham is with (I did kind of think that this would have worn off a bit after so long but nine times out of ten people still associate England with Beckham which I guess is better than us always associating Korea with canine cuisine. As a point of interest, the tenth person refers to the war in Iraq when hearing where I am from so there you go, there have been some changes since last year after all.).
But back to the beginning. I arrived back in Korea last weekend with only a short delay in Frankfurt due to the US military taking over half of the airport. The fact that this only led to an hour long delay altogether across both of my flights says something about German efficiency compared with the new safety procedure at Stansted (of taking your jacket off to have it x-rayed) leading to three hour long queues to get through to the departure lounge a month ago, I am sure. The flight was OK- it felt kind of comforting to be surrounded by so many Korean people after three months away- that is until the guy in the seat across the aisle from me (I took my usual position next to the window for the most amazing views across London on the way out of Heathrow) got out a Game boy. A game boy keying in fact, good for him to bring something to occupy himself I guess. That is until I realised that he had no intention whatsoever of turning off the music ever at all! Knowing that this could lead to almost permanent damage where I would find myself humming the Tetris tune for the next twelve months at least, I was very un-English and asked him to be quiet. He did. Right up until the point where I put my headphones on then he put the music back on. Determined not to listen to the music I turned up the volume and was left untouched by his evil music.
Until the lights had been turned off after the second movie and people were settling down to sleep and across the sound of fifty people snoring I could once more hear the electronic horror. This time I think that he realised I was serious and not just making polite conversation when I spoke to him- eight hours on a long haul flight with little leg room will certainly give me that mad lady you don’t want to mess with look!
Arriving at Incheon only one hour late would normally be classed as something of a triumph except that this day I had arranged to meet friends who would be leaving the meeting point about half an hour after I had arrived at the airport. But a few phone calls later and everything was sorted. I felt a sense of mild irritation at trying to get the correct bus to the bus terminal and knew that I was back in Korea- oh joy! A businessman helped me with my cases and off we went into Seoul. Weirdly enough, as I looked out of the window of the bus onto the landscape which had been so fascinating and foreign for me only fifteen months before when I had seen it for the first time, I felt a feeling of normality return which I had not felt since leaving Korea before Christmas. Maybe I have become institutionalised but I felt that I understood how Korea worked more than I did London. But this probably much more to do with the fact that I only understand, and expect to understand, about a hundredth of what goes on in Korea and feel that I should know what is going on in my home country. But somebody had changed all the Tube lines and added new stations and built loads of new buildings in London just to confuse me and it worked so well that I came back to Korea.
But back to the bus into Seoul. I made it to the terminal and my friends were there- one who was waiting for me, and had been as excited at the prospect of seeing me as I had been about being reunited with her, and one who had no idea that I was coming back that weekend. Yes, I felt like a princess again to be back with the people who had come to Seoul to see me off only three months before. We caught a taxi to Itaewon (where we had all spent my last weekend too) and found a motel for the night and went out for a walk (after a MUCH needed shower- I managed to have nearly the whole shower without breaking into the Tetris tune too- result!). Walking around Itaewon was weird and really gave me a feeling of never having been away at all- except that I was wearing different shoes, the only proof that I had to have left the country as girls here have feet roughly half the size of mine so there is no chance of getting shoes here.
Things got even weirder as we started bumping into people that I knew- inevitable really as they were all up for Paddy’s weekend which was also the reason that I chose to come back the weekend that I did but still strange.
A trip back to the motel and a short (ha ha!) nap and three bottles of lemon soju later (which my friends had kindly brought with them from Naju, all of us still bearing the scars of the fruitless search for the lemon stuff in Seoul back in December) and I was ready to face the world. We seemed to know people in every bar and it was great to meet up with the people from Mokpo again- some of whom I had never met in the first place such as my replacement (and I managed to resist the urge to spend the entire night asking how my little ones were- I contented myself with asking about a key few instead. And I was so proud to hear that one of our ‘babies’ from last year has now progressed to looking up rude words in the dictionary- the sweet feeling of success as a teacher!) We danced and drank and drank and danced until the wee small hours- around 7- and off to the food stalls that I have so missed for an egg toastie, truly nothing soaks up the soju as well as an egg toastie. And finally sleep. And sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And woke up in a panic the next day at roughly the time that I should have been on the bus to Kangung (or however it was spelt that day) but not so much of a panic that I wanted to lift my head off the pillow too fast. We missed the Paddy’s parade which is probably no bad thing as I was feeling the love so much from the night before that I probably would have thought that it had been organised in my honour anyway. But I was gratified to see many notices announcing the ‘St Patric’s (sic) Day Parade’ and with that Konglish my return to Korea was complete. The only thing left to do now was make it to my new home and meet the new little monsters.
The bus ride was OK- I slept a lot. The highway between Seoul and Gangnung basically seemed to just be a series of tunnels through mountain after mountain, somewhat robbing the passengers of the view but speeding up the journey by about eight hours. What little I did see of the countryside seemed to still be covered in snow. We reached the rest stop about half an hour before the conclusion of our journey- probably the first place flat enough to build one- and thirty minutes after that we cruised into the city where I was greeted and taken to my apartment and left. I only really took in the fact that I had a DOUBLE bed before I did the thing that I had been dying to do for the last three months- oh bliss, oh joy- I UNPACKED MY BAG!
The jetlag very kindly kept me awake between 3am and 7am and I was still fairly wrecked when I got up the next day. I had been warned that there was a problem with the water pressure up here on the heady heights of the fifth floor which is eventually going to lead to me moving down a few floors. But I had no idea that this problem was such that there isn’t enough pressure to get the water from the taps and all the way up the two feet of shower hose and back down onto my head. I gave in, filled the sink and washed out of that instead- as I will have to do every day for the next month. Fortunately, Korean bathrooms are designed to ensure that you don’t have to be careful about splashing water and if you could see the room after one of these bush baths you would believe that not only had the water been coming out of the showerhead but that I also taken time out to wash the walls and floor and ceiling while in there. It is not a big deal in a house where I have a DOUBLE BED! And I had even been clever enough to bring bed clothes with me this time (if you remember, Korean beds have duvets and mattresses but no covers which is just not comfortable or practical for us poor foreigners) and it was a great joy to get into bed the night before and snuggle down into the clean bed clothes and just roll over and over and sleep diagonally and other such things which I had been unable to do either in a single bed, on various settees or even air beds which had been my home for the last three months.
The week at school was also odd mostly because I kept expecting my students from last year to walk in at any point. I didn’t recognise or know these kids and I wanted MY little monsters back! But I have got a bit more used to them now and resist the urge to push them out of the classroom and wait for Cathy or Katy from Mokpo to show up. I am sure that they will grow on me like the mould in my old house last year. The school is pretty small with only three English teachers and only one foreigner (guess who!) but that does mean that it is quieter than my last place. I have now been here for a whole week and I only saw another foreigner for the first time today at the beach (more on that later) and we just exchanged hellos and left it at that.
And since today is a Saturday I went out to explore the area a bit and find the beach. Which I did pretty easily since it is less that 3km away and lovely and long and sandy. Somebody took my photo with his mobile phone which is a first for me and he showed it to me and I couldn’t help but notice that everything on his phone was in English whereas mine is all in Korean- doesn’t make sense to me! The beach is at Gyeongpo, a small town seemingly populated almost entirely by squid drying on washing lines and people selling film so that people can spend the day taking photos of their friends in front of various bits of the ocean. Just about 200 metres away from the beach is a lake which is also very nice. I had Korean food and a guy selling oranges out of the back of a truck gave me an orange and reminded me of what I love about living in Korea. That said, things are different here, people don’t stare at me and I miss it. I have done everything that I can do to show them that I am foreign, general poncing around being blonde for starters, coupled with wearing high heels so that I tower over most of the apartment blocks let alone people but it just doesn’t seem to work. What is their problem? Don’t they realise that I am different and therefore to be stared at continually? Like back home in Mokpo? In fact, the only person that wanted to ‘speak Englishee’ with me all day was from Seoul. It will take a bit of getting used to.
It is also strange to be in the same country as so many of my friends but still so far away from them. I think that it will take over seven hours to get down to Mokpo from here. But it has been nice to speak to them nearly every night on the phone. And I do love my new computer! Even though it isn’t connected to the internet yet. I went to a PC shop downtown to buy a Korean adaptor for it as the battery was fast running out. At first the guy took one look at my adaptor and said no. Then I asked him where and he made a few phone calls, went to anther shop down the street and eventually came back and took one out of a box by the door and sold it to me for about one pound fifty. And I was reminded at the lengths that some people will go to even if they don’t understand you and left the shop with a lovely warm glow.
I might as well come out and warn you now that you will be getting long emails for the next year now. Once my house is on-line there really will be no stopping me- plus the fact that I haven’t met any other foreigners really yet will just add to my need to communicate. But I will leave you now- assuming that you have made it this far. I hope that you appreciate the fact that I have spell checked this mail- having looked at some of the ones from last year I was shocked that I would send out that amount of curiously spelt words while having the gall to laugh at Korean spellings! But I will admit to turning off the grammar checker as it drives me nuts- what do I know about grammar? I am only an English teacher.
!
Take care and more news as and when it happens,
Love your faraway friend
Helen
Xxx
posted by Helen @ 11:14 AM
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