I know, I know.. You're looking at this blog and thinking to yourself.. "Holy smokes, how long is this thing? I only have 3 minutes so I'll just read the first sentence and zip through the pictures." To which I would say, "Please don't let this NOVEL-sized blog scare you from reading. It really is quite interesting. Or at least I think so. Thank you."
Has it really been over a month since I arrived in Asia? Wow.. what a whirlwind of adjustments. First the time zone and climate (Did I mention that it felt like a million and one degrees outside PLUS humidity?), to adjusting to my surroundings (knowing simple things like finding my way home from school) to more difficult adjustments like taking a taxi ride to Homeplus and back... ALL BY MYSELF.. knowing VERY little korean. (Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself.) Finally, one huge adjustment has been my new role as an RA here at TCIS. I'm not going to lie, the hours are ridiculous at times but I have got to have one of THE COOLEST jobs around. The community here is so unbelievable and from day one I have felt so at home. My dorm parents, fellow RA's, and faculty (new and old) have been such an encouragement to me and have had so much patience with me learning EVERYTHING. PLUS, I get to hang out and live with the coolest high schoolers I know. I went from a family of 6 to a family of 42 practically overnight... and I LOVE IT!
So I guess since the one month date has come and gone, I feel I better reflect on the new things I've discovered about Korea and how I'm adjusting to an Asian lifestyle. What better way to do that than to describe Korea to you through the 5 senses! (Haha.. I know, cheesy, but I've got WAY too much to say, and I felt that this was a good way to break it up.)
SOUND:
I've never lived in a big city before. (and when I say "in" I mean, I look out the window and I see NEON.) This place never sleeps. From early morning, I hear a man in a truck driving slowly down the road with a speaker at the back blasting the same message over and over and over and over.. and OVER again (I think someone said he's selling cats... but that information could be wrong)
Well, here.. let me just explain with this...
yeah... that goes on FOR.EV.ERRR. (Sandlot anyone??) Anyways, it's really loud and I can't understand him but can hear him through closed windows. Next, CICADAS. Wow. Goodness, those things are loud! I've seen them before and you've also probably heard their buzzing, but one cicada, no big deal. Hundreds of MILLIONS of cicadas? Standing under a tree with those things above you, it's almost impossible to hear the person next to you. The funny thing with those is you can hear their mighty roar and yet can't see even ONE. (Well, until they're dead.. then you see them.) Then finally, you have the busyness of a downtown city.. The cars... people... trucks... construction.. it's a noisy place.
However, amidst the crashing and honking of horns, there's the language. I know close to absolutely no Korean and as frustrating as it is at times to not communicate with those around me, at the same it it's actually quite peaceful. Let me explain. If I were back in Detroit walking around- wait.. I wouldn't be-let me rephrase- If I were back in Chicago walking down the streets, I'd be listening to millions of conversations and words being expressed-words that aren't always the most uplifting. Just think about all the bad language we're bombarded with just walking down a street or aisle in the store. Whether we want to or not, those words are entering our minds and thoughts constantly. So here in Korea, I can't understand conversations, which sometimes ends up making a stressful day a very peaceful one where I can just think to myself in solitude. An interesting thing, right? Solitude in a loud huge city.
SMELL:
Have you ever smelled something like a perfume, warm cookies, or an attic smell and it instantly throws you back to some distant memory? Smells really bring up nostalgic feelings, I've found. Well, I have a feeling that it will be really hard to find one of those here in Korea, due to the fact that everywhere you turn, there is a new and sometimes less exciting smell around the corner. The cause of this? Open sewers. Yes. Who really knows what we're smelling every day? Also, if you didn't already know, Asia loves their seafood. Especially dried seafood. (I bet if you wanted a dried sea cucumber you could probably find it somewhere, or they'd special order you one, most likely.) Now... I like seafood. Alot, in fact. I mean, shrimp is probably my favorite food at the moment, but when you're enjoying , let's say, a soccer game with friends and get a waft of fishy air, my first reaction isn't "mmm... seafood." But here in Korea, you don't order boring hotdogs, but instead a dried WHOLE squid wrapped in foil. We went to watch the Daejeon Citizens a couple weeks ago and the guy in front of us ordered one. oh, the smells.. Needless to say, I'm not used to the dried fish.
*will the squid culprit please raise his hands???
In fact, I tried some the other night. Jwipo. But I'll explain later. HOWEVER, smells don't always have to be a bad thing, right? I mean, the food is soooo good! And walking by restaurants can bring some AMAZING aromas of edible goodness, which ever so nicely brings us to the next topic...
TASTE:
Nearly everything I've tried and eaten I have loved. Seriously. It's a bit on the spicy side, but so yummy. Only a few times have I felt like I might die... and once it was because I was fooled into thinking it was a harmless chive. I was VERY MUCH mistaken, for it twas not a chive, but a scary VERY SPICY pepper! Phew.. makes my eyebrows sweat at the thought of it. But I've tried Bi bim bop (which translates into "mix mix rice" or something like that), mondu (like a pork dumpling) and kimbob! (the yummiest sushi-like roll ever!) It's all so good and to eat a huge meal here (that I never finish) is less than 7,000 won (roughly $7.00) But the jwipo... hmm.. It's a fish that is dried and baked ( I think) with some sort of sugary flavoring. So think.. texture of beef jerky/ dried mod podge and the flavor of fish and a candy bar. Interesting? ...very.
*this was taken just moments before my spicy chive of death scare*
I've discovered some drinks that only in Korea you might find. Drinks like "Pocari Sweat" and "Milkus", both of which are a cloudy color resembling a drink that had milk residue in the bottom before the new liquid was added. Aside from the color, these drinks are actually really good! The first resembles the flavor of gatorade while the other is like a carbonated orange creamsicle. The craziest drink I've tried so far is called Aloe. It is exactly what it's called. My first thought was, "Wait, shouldn't I be applying this on my skin to soothe a sunburn?" You would think so, but this aloe, you drink. The flavor wasn't so bad but the many chunks of aloe were a bit difficult to swallow. And the flavor grape...not the flavor of the green fruit grapes, but the artificially flavored tootsie pops or grape gummies... well, I always wondered why it was always the flavor it was because it never seemed to taste like the fruit I was eating. Here, the grapes taste EXACTLY like the grape flavor we eat back at home... so it DOES exist! haha.. I used to think it was just made up. the grapes taste like grape flavor and the SNOZBERRIES taste like SNOZBERRIES! (..willy wonka?)
SIGHT:
As far as sight goes, I arrived on July 31st to a very smoggy city of Incheon. It was so humid that I felt like I could collect buckets of water right out of the air, if I tried! From my window, actually, I could always tell how humid it was going to be by whether or not I could see the distant mountains. (Therefore, determining whether or not I should actually try to do my hair. ha) But so far, Daejon looks pretty similar to a downtown area at home, except for the arcade games that line the streets. (You know, the crane games? Except here you can actually win the stuff, it isn't just a scam to get your money. Yeah, I know the pain we've all felt trying to win that stuffed animal, but the claw just wasn't strong enough to hold the weight of a feather.) But They LOVE their arcade games and have complete rooms EVERYWHERE devoted to just that. I think I already commented on the Karaoke rooms? Yeah.. it's awesome.
One thing I've seen though is the respect here. Whenever you say hello to someone who's older than you, you bow to them. Also, simple things like handing money to someone, you wouldn't just hand it to them with one hand. Out of respect, you would pass always with two hands, and if you couldn't then you put one hand on your passing arm. Some words are even spoken differently depending on who you're talking to. So I've got so much more to learn, but I'm excited to start taking Korean language classes.
* This was taken as we were arriving to the hotel for our retreat. I couldn't help but chuckle inside from all of the bowing taking place.. it was like being in a Marx brothers movie... and I secretly felt like walking by the line a couple more times. I mean, come on, wouldn't you? I felt like a celebrity walking down the red carpet.. but you know.. a bit different.*
*our dinner entertainment on the retreat. I thought they needed an extra member of the traveling group*
But the Koreans are so helpful here, and EXTREMELY generous! Wherever you go they throw in free stuff! I went to a store called Innis free and got a W3,000 container of lotion and at the checkout the guy kept throwing in "freebies." He kept smiling as he pulled some other sample packet into my bag and explained what it was in his best English. "This is cotton.. for face. This is lotion for body. Wash, for face." I think I got more than what I even spent at that store. Even at the big supermarkets, if you keep your eye out for them, you can score yourself MANY of these freebies. For example, I was shopping for a garbage can for my apartment and I found one with a cleaning glove thing taped to the top. Even when I grabbed a lotion, out of no where an employee came rushing by to take the one I had out of my hands and make sure I got the one with the free miniature body wash taped to the outside. They look out for us here.
The other day I went to the store to get some pretzels and couldn't find them, so I tried asking someone if they had any. (I think I said "pretzel" in about 10 different ways to see if any of them clicked.. "pretchel?" "prettssal?" "prechal?" nothing seemed to work.) I also think it was a wrong move, on my part, asking the lady I did because she worked in the cosmetics department across the aisle. As I'm motioning to my mouth that this is an edible food, she ever so nicely points me to the makeup aisle with the lipsticks. Seeing that this is going no where and although she's trying to help me, she discovers that it's not makeup that I'm looking for, but food. Good, we're getting somewhere. She finds a couple other workers nearby who are all giving me the same confused face. So I explain that it's like a cracker. "Ahhhh..." they all say. Remembering my artistic talent and my degree in Illustration, I fumble through my bag to find an old receipt where I begin to draw the shape of this mysterious cracker. By this time, more and more Korean workers are beginning to crowd around me deciphering my impossible clues. I've got probably around 8 workers "helping." (Either they were genuinely EXTREMELY helpful to all drop their normal duties to help me find a bag of pretzels or just excited to practice their English with a real live American.) After all of that, I left Homeplus empty-handed... but had quite an interesting experience. Sarah Dainsberg got me some pretzels from Costco nearby. (And the bag will probably last me a full 2 years here..haha.)
TOUCH:
Hmmm.. touch.. WELL.. I've joined a touch rugby team here! Haha.. I'm excited, but a little nervous because we have a tournament coming up in a couple weeks already. (Yeah.. and I'm still learning.. pass BACKWARDS!) But it's been so much fun! Speaking of joining things, I've also joined a Taekwondo class taught by one of my girls here in the dorm. She's a junior in high school and has taken 10 years of Taekwondo...black belt. Haha.. yeah.. and you'd never expect it either. So who knows, maybe when I come back I'll have some sort of belt.
Although, as far as feelings go, I am absolutely LOVING it here in Korea and TCIS. It takes a while to get used to something new and there's always that period of adjustment, but I feel so supported here, it's amazing. I made a logo for the middle school chapel series titled "The deep end" and in some ways I feel exactly like I've been thrown into the deep.
The first few weeks were times of furiously just trying to remember people's names, procedures and try to act like I know what I'm doing, when in all reality everyone here knows I don't. Haha. But God has really answered my prayers of finding genuine friendships and renewing some old ones as well. :) (these are my co workers)
Now that I've got names out of the way, it makes my job MUCH easier. If you're reading this, you have in some way been such a huge blessing to me and I miss all of you very much. I know God has called me here and is confirming that daily. We serve an awesome God and I can't wait to see what He does this next year, back in your lives and here in Korea. Thanks so much for reading.. I'll try and keep this more up to date next time. But until then..
Hugs, blessings, and pretchels :)
