As it dawns on me that my expiration date is nearly up, I have found myself thinking a lot about the things I will miss here. I do still have 4ish months left, but judging by how fast this year has gone, know that soon I will be packing up my apartment. It is definitely too early to be talking about things I will miss, especially as there is still so much I want to do here. So, maybe, I will say this is a blog about some of my favourite things in Korea.
When I first decided to come here, I never expected my life to be this enjoyable. I didn't even expect to meet such a vast array of interesting people from all over the world, or to feel like this place was a home. I can understand why some people stay or such a long time. Needless to say, the thing I will miss most is my friends. I think it's hard to truly understand every aspect of a year in Korea (or another country) without actully doing it for yourself (and I'm not trying to sound pompous or pretentious.) Therefore, there seems to be an automatic bond wth those you meet and become friends with. Perhaps, I am talking out of my ass, and have just been very lucky with some of the people I've met.
The thing I love about this life, is the easy-going pace. I generally have enough money to do what I want (unless it involves a trip to Japan, apparently). I can finish work and pretty much go to do whatever I want. At home, I would be worrying about money a lot more. Bare in mind, I get out of work at 10pm. This is definitely something I will miss. Although I have realised that I feel better and healthier in a 'normal' routine, it is still great being able to go to sleep at 4am, wake up at 2pm and still have a full working day.
Meal times. Oh, Korean restaurants. I do love them. The most common type of food is 'galbi', which is basically different types of meat that you cook on a grill in the middle of the table, with various delicious sidedishes brought to you. These places are usually full of hustle and bustle, with tables of businessmen and women knocking back soju and eating to their hearts content. The noise and laughter is sometimes obnoxious and offensive to my ears... but only sometimes. I think one of the reasons I love these places so much is because it's much more of a relaxed dinner. At a regular restaurant, you order, eat, and leave. But here, you can take your time, cook as much or as little as you want, and have long conversation that doesn't feel rushed by eating.
One of my favourite things here, which I have mentioned several times, merely because I think it's such a genius concept, is DVDbangs. A comfortable cinema room, with a huge screen, big couch and large selection of movies. Yes please! You can go alone, or with friends, and it costs between 6-8000 won each. Which is probably about £5. Something I haven't mentioned, is that if you tell a student/class that you went to a DVDbang, they will giggle and laugh at you. The reason for this is that it's generally accepted that DVDbangs are places for the younger people to fool around/make out/have sex. Therefore, if you are reading this and are planning on going to Korea, don't tell your students if you go to one. This is one of the conversations I've had with a class:
Student: What did you do at weekend, Teacher?
Me: Went shopping, went to DVDbang.
Student: Oh!! With boyfriend?
Me: No...with a few friends.
Students: Ohhhhh, Teacher!!
If I returned home for a night out with friends and suggested going to kareoke, they would look at me like Korea had scrambled my brain. Here, however, it is a perfectly acceptable and welcomed suggestion, and a great way to end a night. Yeah, singing till 7am. I admit, I am often against the idea, but once I am there it is lots of fun. Some of them are swish and fancy, with white sparkly walls, marble floors, and huge rooms with big windows. Others, are shitholes. One of my favourite Noraebang stories involved one of the fancy ones, whereby a bottle of soju, hidden in Blakes jacket, falls out and smashes all over the pretty floor right infront of the reception area. You're generally not allowed to take in your own alcohol. In another, really crap Noraebang one rainy night, we were surprised to realise that the microphones were giving us electric shocks so bad that they actually caused pain all the way up the arm. In an attempt to find out why, the response received was "Ah yes... raining."
I love that it's acceptable to sit outside convenience stores and have a few beers. If that was in England, people would think the very lowest of you and you'd probably be arrested for public drinking. One of the astonishing things about Korea is that although the drinking culture is high, the crime rate is low. I think this could be because the binge drinking seems to mainly be among adults (This could be debated). I haven't experienced that much drinking with the younger people, due to where I live, but even in Seoul they seem much more carefree instead of having a lets-go-fuck-some-shit-up attitude. I guess what I'm saying, is that I'm grateful there arn't chavs in Korea.
I know, this is turning into an essay. Bare with me, the following paragraph is in no way related to this blog post.
In Korea, students will not even hesitate on ratting out their friends or other classmates. "Teacher! He say bad word!" "Teacher! He Korean speaking!" "Teacher! He hacking!" and my personal favourite form one student of a friend of mine, "Teacher! He hand-fark!"
'Hacking' is another word for cheating. I have never seen one of my students cheating, but they are all absolutely convinced that their classmates are trying to steal their answers. One of my students, James, will cover his answers with anything he can use - his hands, arms, pencilcase, books. It's so funny for me to watch. We just had a big test and he was pressing his hand so hard down on his answers, as if little Alex next to him had Xray vision. Well, maybe he does.
This blog did seem to lose it's way, but I guess it was my way of appreciating the things that I have here. Aside from my 'hacking' story. Because, quite frankly, I miss home and it's been a tough last few weeks, with a lot of change. It's not particular material things I miss from home, but more like certain situations. I am also happy and content here almost all of the time. Little things, like cooking in the kitchen on a cold, rainy saturday night, drinking wine and having conversation with my parents, whilst constantly updating Twitter. Or, driving to Canterbury on a friday ready to party and recover afterwards with tea/Laura/Coach Trip. I guess the hardest thing to think about when deciding if I want to stay or not is whether I just have this romantic idea in my head of everything being the same when I get back.
Well, if it's not the same, I must embrace the change. I guess the most important thing for me to realise is that this year of my life, with all the ups and downs (but mainly ups), I would not change for the world.
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Tuesday, 10 August 2010
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