Soccer, Seoul, and a Small World!

Anyeong Hayseyo (Hello)!

It's been a week since I arrived in Korea, and since stealing internet from an unsecured wireless network in my building, I have been able to talk to many of you via Skype, which has been SO nice. It makes me feel so good to see your faces and hear your voices. Oh, the wonders of technology! Those of you who I've talked to have been asking what I've been up to this week, so I thought I'd give an overview to you all who I haven't seen yet on Skype.

One first impression of Korea that surprised me is that there is a decent amount of English around. Names of businesses (especially ones aimed towards younger people like clubs, lingerie or make-up stores, Western style restaurants, etc) are in English. Also, the bus stops and bus line maps have English spellings which is SUPER helpful for me right now who can't recognize Korean characters. Also, I am the same height as other adults here, which is a new thing for me, hahaha. Finally I don't feel unusually short!

On Monday I laid low while Val was at school and when he got home we listened to music while I unpacked a little and talked about what we wanted to do during Chusuk, the holiday that Val was on break for. For dinner, we went to meet two of his students (who he is tutoring in English). "Rachel" and "Ryan" (they insist on going by their English names) are brother and sister, and Ryan's 11th birthday was last week so we took him and Rachel out for dinner at a place called Mister Pizza. Rachel is 13 and shy, but I tried to talk to her about music and Boys Over Flowers, the extremely popular Korean drama that I watched online during the summer. She liked watching it too so we talked about the characters and story...it was fun to be able to relate to her about something. Both Rachel and Ryan's English are excellent but they are shy about speaking!

Tuesday we went to HomePlus, the huge shopping center, to buy stuff for the apartment like shampoo, soap, food, towels, laundry detergent, etc. I was able to find some Western products here like Frosted Flakes, Pringles, Haggen-Daaz ice cream, Opti-Free contact solution and Pantene Pro-V brand shampoo. HomePlus has absolutely everything I'll ever need right there. It's 3 stories of food, electronics, house and bathroom supplies, a photo center, even clothing. For dinner we met Val's buddy Taylor, an ESL teacher from the MidWest for dinner at Suwon Station, the main travel hub in Suwon. This is not only the Suwon subway station and bus terminal, but also a huge shopping center also equipped with bars and Western restaurants like Baskin Robbins, KFC, and Outback Steakhouse. We ate at Outback. In Korea. It felt sort of silly. There were signs all over about the "Down Under" and stuff...I wonder if the people there really even know what that means.

Wednesday we traveled to Seoul with Val's friend from Korean class, Lina, who is from from Kazakhstan (next to Russia. I had to check the map because I didn't know!). She doesn't know much English but Val was our translator, speaking to her in Korean. We took the subway into Seoul, a 40 minute ride, then walked to Namsan Tower where we took the cable car and got great views of the entire city! The other highlight of the day was getting our portrait drawn at Namsan Tower. We sat for about 30 minutes while this man drew our portrait. It doesn't look exactly like us, but it's nice to have something that represents us that's now hanging in my apartment. Reactions to the portrait have been that Val looks like Usher, we both look Asian, and that the artist clearly spent more time on me than on Val. Hahaha. Oh well, I like it. It's nice. And the whole thing including the frame only cost us about $40. We returned to Suwon went out with some of Val's Cameroonian friends for a bit, then came home. It was a busy day!

Thursday we traveled to Ansan, a city about an hour away, for a soccer match between Cameroonians and folks from Southern and Eastern Africa in the area. The match was organized by the Multicultural Family Center, and Africans living all over Korea came to participate in or watch the game. Val played and helped the Cameroonian team dominate (they won 7-1) by scoring the big goal and assisting on a few others. He is a really excellent soccer player and he blew his teammates and opponents away....they had no idea how good he was! During the game I was chatting with other Cameroonians who had come to watch the match and found out that one of them currently lives in Elmira, NY and went to Med School at the University of Rochester. I was like WHAT?! How crazy is that. Here I was in Korea, talking to a Cameoonian about East Avenue, Strong Hospital, and the Clothesline Festival. It was insaneeee. After returning to Suwon we met Val's Korean Mom who took us out to dinner...at Outback. I didn't have the heart to tell her we went there already so we went. She said that since I just arrived I probably wasn't used to Korean food yet so she wanted me to eat something familiar. I appreciated that.

Friday, when I discovered my clandestine internet connection, I spent the morning when Val was at school Skyping with the fam and posting my previous blogpost. When Val got back we met his classmates for a delicious lunch. The only language they all speak is Korean, so I was totally out of the loop during lunch when they were all chatting. But I could tell by their expressions when I met them that they were delighted to meet me because apparently Val talks about me all the time in class. As we walked to lunch, one girl pried my & Val's hand apart and hooked her arm around mine and walked with me. She asked me in broken English if we could get coffee together sometime (she's from China), and I told her of course. She's sweet! It was during that lunch that I also met V's classmate Peter, a Korean-American who also studying here. He speaks English, obviously, so we talked a little and I found out that he's from Bergen County, NJ, the same place my girl Sarah is from. I asked him if he knew Sarah and later I asked Sarah if she knew him but they went to different high schools. Still, it's totally crazy. It's a small world after all.

Saturday Val & I headed to the Ajou University soccer field where he plays with a group of Koreans (old and young) every Saturday morning. It was fun to meet his teammates and watch him play again. All of Val's teammates kept telling me that Val is their best player and he totally was. I don't know squat about soccer but even I could tell that the others were amateurs compared to him. We were there allllll morning and a lot of the afternoon but it was a beautiful day so I just got to sit back in the sunshine and watch my boyfriend kick butt. 'Twas fun! The team ordered pizza after the games, then Val & I went back to my apartment and napped. We ate our Outback leftovers for dinner, then abandoned our plans to go out and stayed in to watch a movie instead. Yesterday I attended church with Val. The first service was in Korean and I learned through Va'ls translation that the priest, a woman, gave me a personal welcome during the service, and even mentioned me in the closing prayer thanking God that "our beautiful Melissa is with us today." It felt very nice and I felt so welcome. The church prepared a delicious lunch and then Val and his Korean Mom lead an English service. Val stood in front of everyone and spoke about the weeks' Bible verse. Despite the fact that I don't connect at all with Christianity, it was pretty incredible to watch Val stand up there and talk about it. He made some really beautiful comments and points that I could definitely relate to, and his passion for his faith really shown through. It was a special moment that I got to witness that.


I start work on Friday. During the past week whenever there has been down time (usually when Val is napping), I've been brainstorming about teaching, exploring resources online (of which there are a TON for ESL teachers), and have even started my lesson plan for Friday. I think we're going to play Two Truths and a Lie :). I'm getting nervous but also excited. I think it is going to be fun and I already enjoy making lesson plans and things. I will of course report once I've started. This week Val goes back to school so I imagine I will spend the majority of the time prepping for the first few lessons and visiting the school. Wish me luck!!

Love,
Mel

In Korea!

Dear friends,

Well, I’m in Korea! I’m writing from my apartment. Let me paint the picture for you: I’m sitting on my bed, eating dry frosted flakes and drinking milk out of the carton, because there are no spoons or cups yet. We got the Frosted Flakes from Val’s apartment and bought milk last night, but that is all there is right now. Hahaha.

Anyway, it is Monday, Sept. 20 but I'm posting today, the 24th, because I just found an unsecured wireless network. There is no official internet at my apartment yet so this might not last too long but I figured if I have internet I should post! Ok, back to the original post:

Val is at school now, until 1, and when he comes back we’ll stop by my school to say hello and then go shopping for food. We totally lucked out because the next 3 days are public holidays here so he doesn’t have school. I imagine we will spend those days getting the apartment spiffed up and stocked, meeting Val’s friends, and checking out some of the celebrations for the holidays.

Cool/ interesting things about the apartment: the door is SUPER high tech. First, the door to the building is a just glass door that slides opens with a key card that you hold up to a sensor, just like my ‘Berg ID card that I used to swipe into my buildings. As you ascend the stairs (I live on the 3rd floor), the lights in the hallway illuminate automatically when it senses people there. That means the lights are only on when there are people in the staircase—pretty cool and environmentally-friendly! I like that. The door to my apartment itself does not have a key, just a touch-screen keypad that lights up when you press a button on the outside. Once you punch in the code, it does this little sing-songy beeping pattern and unlocks. OH and the coolest part? When opening the door from the inside, you just press a button on the handle and the little lock physically turns by itself. After about 30 seconds it turns again, locking it. The sing-songy beeping happens then too. Sweet!

What is currently in the apartment is: a small cupboard for shoes at the door (in Korea it is customary to remove your shoes whenever you enter somebody’s home. Val jokes that in Korea you can never get away with wearing two different pairs of socks!), a bed and a closet in the bedroom. There’s also a washing machine, but no dryer. The bathroom doubles as the shower: there is just a toilet and a sink with a shower head-sprayer-thingy attached to the faucet, and a drain on the floor. To shower, you close the door and turn a dial on faucet to switch the water from the faucet to the sprayer, and shower like that. It’s somewhere between having a shower and not having a shower. We’ll see how that goes.

My flights went very smoothly. The long one was surprisingly comfortable. I flew Asiana airlines, a Korean airline that is very, well, Korean. Meaning very efficient, clean, and high-tech. The seats were very comfortable and the blankets and pillows provided were actually comfortable and big. I had a window seat next to just one person, which meant I only had one person to crawl over if I wanted to get up.

Now I imagine you are thinking “apartment, flight, yada yada yada….I want to hear about the much-anticipated reunion!” Ok, I tell you. ☺ After I went through immigration and got my luggage, I clumsily maneuvered my REALLY heavy luggage cart though the line to hand in my customs card. I walked into the lobby and spotted Val immediately (he’s not too hard to pick out of a crowd here!). He saw me too and we ran to the opening of the partition. Thank goodness those luggage carts stop as soon as you let go of them because otherwise it would have gone flying when I just let go of it and ran into his arms! We stood there hugging for a really long time, both us just saying “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” My first thought was that he smells exactly the same as he did before. And that he is about 1,000 times hotter in person than he is on the webcam. ☺
When we finally pulled away I kept saying, “you’re real!” and poking his face. We went outside and bought bus tickets and waiting for about 15 minutes for the bus to take us back to Suwon. The poking and hugging and kissing continued while we waited, along with the saying of many “I love you”’s and “wow it’s you”’s. It was about an hour bus ride, but we kept busy ☺. It feels pretty __________ to be with him again. Seriously, I can’t even think of an adjective that can accurately describe it. Just pure happiness, relief, and the sense of feeling complete again. Every time I close my eyes and open them again I can almost not believe what I’m seeing. When I look down and see my hand in his it feels like a dream. When I breathe in and smell his natural scent I feel like I’m in a trance. I feel sort star-struck in my own universe because I’ve spent all this time seeing him on a screen and dreaming (day and night) about him, wishing to see him. Now that I’ve seen him again in person I feel fluttery-hearted and almost embarrassed or timid. Like seeing this seemingly perfect, glorified person who was just 2-D before is now a real person who I can see with my own eyes and touch. It’s similar to how I imagine seeing a celebrity in person for the first time is. Like you can’t keep your eyes off of them and you are taking in the fact that they are real, in person.
There is a difference though, between star-stuck with a celebrity and how I feel. I think the general conclusion about seeing celebrities is disappointment. Sort of like, “oh, that’s it? (S)he is so…normal. There’s no white light beaming from somewhere behind them. (S)he looks like a regular person.” Personally I’ve never seen a celebrity in the flesh (minus a millisecond-long glance of Will Ferrel in L.A. at the Step Brothers premiere that happened to be taking place outside the restaurant I was eating at), so this might be completely off. Regardless, this was the opposite reaction for me seeing Val. He is so much better looking in person. And I don’t just mean that he is handsome, I mean that the way he looks at me is better, and it feels better looking at him. There is no camera as the middleman here. When he looks at me I can actually see him. It’s like in Avatar, when they say, “I see you.” For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure (or desire, I suppose) so see Avatar, when the Na’vi people in the film say, “I see you” to somebody, it doesn’t just mean “I can see you with my eyes.” It means “I see inside you, I understand you, I see you with my soul and my heart”. So yeah, our eyes meet it’s just that. No webcam, no computer screen, no 2-D, and certainly no oceans and continents in between. That “seeing” of one another can’t really happen like that when all of those factor in. So with them gone, I feel like my heart has opened up to receive all of his love and I can finally see him, and he can see me. Less words are required now, because everything we had to try to express in words when we were apart are replaced by the warm, fuzzy feeling that makes you heart grow bigger that I get when he looks at me and I at him. And that, my friends, is what love feels like.

After bringing my bags up to my apartment, we relaxed and I called my mom and the Korean recruiter to inform them that I had arrived. Soon it was 10:30pm and I was starving! We took a short bus ride to the Ajou University area because there were a lot restaurants open late there. V picked a restaurant and we ate beef and veggies. The style of restaurant is typical in Korea and Val had talked about eating like this so I was excited to try it. At each table there is a part cut out of the middle and a stove kind of thing placed inside. There are hot coals underneath. The waiter brings over the ingredients (very thinly sliced beef, mushrooms, sliced garlic clove, and onion) and puts it on the fire and it cooks right there. They give us tongs to flip the beef and scissors to cut it. So the meat cooked right there along with the onions, slices of garlic, and mushrooms and we tended to the food on the fire ourselves. When it’s done we get rice and lettuce leaves and you’re supposed to mix it all together and wrap it in the leaf and eat it. As we ate, Val coached me on using the flat, metal chopsticks (definitely harder to use than the round wooden or plastic ones) and helped me with basic Korean phrases like thank you, hello, and the Korean equivalent of “bon appetite!”, which translates into “eat a lot.” We ate and reveled in the fact that we were there together, and it was all real. Things like “oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m pouring water for you and you’re going to drink it right here!” and “Yay, I can kiss you if I want to because you’re here!” After our meal we stopped by Val’s place to get the food because he lives very near to the university and also went into a convenience store to buy milk, soap, shampoo, and ramen. There are bowls and a few kitchen odds and ends in my apartment (thanks to the current English teacher at my school who is leaving soon after I start working) but that’s all so we needed other basics. By this time the busses had stopped running so we grabbed a taxi and rode back to my place. We stayed up for a while, continuing to say “I can’t believe this”, things like that, until we fell asleep. I’m jet-lagged so didn’t really sleep but as soon as morning came I was exhausted! I guess it’s going to take a while to adjust to the 13- hour time difference. Speaking of, I’m going to put my computer down and sleep a little before Val gets back.

Pictures and more updates to come!

Love,
Mel

Humorous Insight into Korean Life: ROKetship.com

Hey everyone,

Thanks to a friend's blog, I just came across this great website called ROKetship.com. On this website are comics, drawn by an American living in Korea, documenting the quirks of Korean culture that often jolt Americans living there. It seems that some of these you might not "get' unless you actually live in Korea, but they're interesting anyway, and they give some insight into what it's like to be a foreigner in Korea. I've already looked at a bunch and find them interesting and funny and thought to share them with you all. Here's the intro from the artist to the website, to give you a better idea:

Hi, my name is Luke Martin and my wife and I have been in Korea for a little while now. We are here teaching English and are having the time of our lives, though our hearts are still at home in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Since living South Korea, I have noticed the many large and small ways that life is different in this country and, on my wife’s suggestion, I began drawing a comic strip about them. Hence, the magic that became, ROKetship! (ROK = Republic of Korea). The strip is a cultural comedy of sorts, which pokes fun at foreign life on this planet called, Korea! It seems like every day is just bursting with quirky inspirations. I have already stuffed a note book full of ideas for new strips.

My humble aim for ROKetship is for it to become the voice for Westerners living in Korea. Comics are much funnier when they reflect real life, so if you have any ideas for strips, please send ‘em over!

Thanks for swinging by and I hope you enjoy ROKetship!
Laugh often,

-Luke



See more at www.roketship.com! I know I'll definitely be looking at them! Thanks to Anais for introducing me to the website =)

Lots o' love. 6 days and counting!

Cheers,
Mel

FAQ's

Salut tout le monde! (Hello everybody!)

Welcome to my new blog, a place where I hope to give you all a glimpse of my new adventure in South Korea. I have received many questions about my trip, so I thought what better way to introduce my blog by answers those frequently asked questions!

Q: Why are you going to Korea?
A: There are a few reasons. First, teaching in Korea is a wonderful opportunity for me to continue my passion for traveling and not to mention, employment! By teaching English in Korea, I get to fulfill my goal of working and living abroad, discover and experience a part of the world that I have never been before, and get valuable job and life experience. Also, Valery is living in Korea and after spending more than a year apart, it is time for us to do this for real!

Q: What is Val doing in Korea?
A: For a number of reasons, Val is completing his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in Korea. In order for him to apply to a Korean university, he must pass level 4 of a Korean language course. He is on level 3 now. Each course level lasts for 3 months, so he will be done with his Korean language requirements in March of next year. Then he will apply to university and complete the last 1.5 or 2 years (depending on credit transfers) of his degree.

Q: Will you be close to Val where you're living?
A: Yes! His apartment is about 20 minutes walking distance from where my apartment will be.

Q: Where exactly will you be in Korea?
A: I will be living in Suwon, a city about 20 miles south of Seoul.

Q: Where and what is your job, exactly?
A: I'm going to be teaching English conversation at Sannam Middle School, a public middle school in Suwon. The school is walking distance from my apartment.

Q: When are you leaving and how long will you be there for?
A: I depart Rochester on September 18th and will arrive in Korea at 6pm Korea time on the 19th! I have a 1-year contract starting on October 1st.

Q: What is the time difference between Korea and the U.S.?
A: Currently Korea is 13 hours ahead. Once we hit daylight savings time in the fall, however, it will be 14 hours.

Q: How can I keep in touch with you?
A: Skype me! My skype name is melissa.waldman10. I will also have internet at my apartment so e-mailing is great too.

Well folks, that's all for now! Time to start packing and preparing!!!

Love to you all,

Melissa