The End and Beginning

It’s Quiet.  I sit here in a chair in my living room of the house in which I have lived from 5^th grade on, listening to the noises:  a fan blowing, a cricket chirping, Oliver the dog licking his paw, and that’s it.  This silence, open spaces, nature and lack of tall buildings everywhere has been the biggest thing for me to get used to since I’ve been back in America.  As my brother was driving along route 6 & 11 on Sunday when I got back I couldn’t help but wonder if it was always this open, always this ‘empty.’  At night I can’t get over how wonderful it is to lie in bed and listen to crickets sing me to sleep.  I feel as though I am in a poem.  It’s a vast difference from Korea where I live on the 5^th floor of a big apartment building, surrounded by many other buildings and people and NOISE.  A walk down the street has me assaulted with noises of people, cars, and music; sights of flashing lights, tall buildings, many Korean people; and smells of roasting squid, hot asphalt, and fresh fruit/veggies/fish from the market.

While I love the nature, love the quiet, love being able to walk out the side door barefoot to look at the full moon with no one else around, I still miss being in a city.  This yearning for city living eases my mind as I know I will be in Seoul for another year.  City life is easy with public transportation and large amounts of things to do.  I think when I come back to America for ‘good’ I will want to try my hand at living in another city closer to home so when I want to visit friends and family it doesn’t require 23 hours on a plane.

My goodness I haven’t written anything in a long time.  Warm months get busier with birthdays, people heading back to their homelands, and just having more things to do with more sunlight to do them in.  I also attribute the lack of writing time to a new relationship that I am in, which is pretty amazing.  I met Mike one night at the end of May when I went to the foreigner area of town to see some live music I could understand and get into.  I went to a few places, saw some okay people, then went to another place with some friends and saw a handsome bearded man playing guitar on stage.  Mike ended up playing a song by John Prine, which excited me to the point of yelling, then he and I chatted all night after he was finished playing.  I’m thankful for our serendipitous meeting, and of course, for John Prine.

And now on to the ‘most excellent adventures’ portion of this blog post, brought to you by my friends Bill and Ted.  I’ll try and sum up some of the more interesting things I have been spending my time on since April.  Jeez Louise. 

Korea is infamous for having seasonal festivals, as they are a very seasonally inspired country in general.  The markets around town consistently showcase fruits and vegetables that are in season, and when out, tend to disappear.  In the middle of April some friends and I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Southern Korea, and it was amazing.  I had pictured a small street lined with sidewalks and cherry trees as cherry blossoms fell and engulfed me while I rode my bike down the road, flailing my arms to catch the blossoms.  This is one of the few times in my life that I have set a high expectation that was actually met.  It was magical, beautiful and took my breath away. 

Towards the end of April we took another trip outside of the city and went on a ‘DMZ/Bungee Jumping’ trip.  There is an organization here called ‘Adventure Korea’ that arranges trips for foreigners that takes the stress out of trying to book a big weekend outing in a foreign land.  This trip took us (and a bus full of other foreigners) to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.  The high point was
donning a hard hat and going underground into the 2^nd infiltration tunnel, and getting 100 meters away from North Korea.  The ‘line’ between the two countries was well blockaded and North Korea had a camera on their side, trained on the South Korea side.  It was an interesting trip that helped me learn a lot about the history between the two countries and understand more of what the conflict entails.

The following day on this trip entailed bungee jumping.  Even as I type this my palms are beginning to sweat, my heart race is increasing and my breathing is becoming shallow.  It was the most terrifying thing I have ever done; looking down from a high bridge into a shallow river below, knowing that you have to jump.  I’m glad that I did it, and I will never do it again.

Once April was over, a good friend left and then some birthday celebration times started.  My friend Ada had a birthday later on in May and it was fun to celebrate it with good friends in a foreign land.  It’s a different mentality from other birthdays I celebrated with people in America – overseas you almost feel a deeper sense of comradeship so you go above and beyond for friends’ birthdays.  For Ada’s we had a North American breakfast, a boat ride/river hang time, and then went to a Lantern Festival, which was right in downtown Seoul.  The festival was a parade on
Saturday night with lots of delightful lanterns lit, monks carrying them, big floats with beautiful
Korean women adorning them, and even some fellow foreigners we met on the DMZ trip.  The following day we went to another part of the festival that had lots of tents, crafts to make and or buy, dance performances (including some stellar break-dancing Korean men), art to purchase, food, and monks.  Living in a big foreign city that has differing customs proves to almost always be entertaining in some sort of fashion.

I am going to end this now so I can actually post it.  I’ll work on the rest during some more of this free time I have while at home on vacation.  It’s amazing.

Hope everyone is well.  If I don’t get to see you this time that I’m home, I’m pretty sure that when I come home next it will be in a more permanent state of mind.  Happy August.

Spring Time Reflections

On Monday morning I walked into my classroom, sat down at my desk, got myself together and then was bombarded by five little five-year-olds ‘talking’ (when they get excited they yell) to me and telling me things about their weekend. “Miss Kearney!! Look at my skirt! Look at my dress! Miss Kearney! I got new shoes! I have a ring at my house and it’s berry BEEEERRRRYY beauuuutiful! Miss Kearney! Look at my chin! I have a cut! I need a band-aid! Miss Kearney! I showed my brother what an ‘O’ is! I’m done unpacking first, do I get a smiley face??” (Can you tell that these children come from rich families?) Monday mornings are hard to always be excited about, especially when you just took a trip away for the weekend, your train tickets home got messed up and hard to change because you’re foreign, and you don’t get home until well after midnight only to find yourself locked out of your apartment because your building ‘super’ just installed new cable boxes and accidently locked your upper lock to which you have no key. But hearing those shouts of joyful exclamations into my ear make it all worthwhile and remind why it is I do what I do.

The picture above is the class I had for two months; just five little five-year-olds who have picked up on my silly-ness. They love hiding under my desk as they had a big moment there a few weeks back. I can't help my 'just kidding' nature that I have and kids are even better targets than adults because they're so darn gullible. I chalk up this trait to being raised by my father. Anyway, one day I walked into class after lunch when all the girls should have been there, yet not a soul was in sight. I was confused as I just saw them walk up the stairs a few moments before. I walked over to my desk, put my coat on my chair and then heard five little voices shout 'BOOOOO!!!' from under my desk. I screamed. Then laughed really hard (yuk status for those of you who know the level my laugh can attain) for about ten minutes along with my girls. I don't know if they were prouder of themselves or if I was.

This past weekend, or Easter weekend as it’s referred to at home since I have not found one Korean who observes this holiday, was spent with two friends in Busan, a port city on the southeastern side of South Korea. It was so nice to be able to get out of Seoul, see some new sights, try some new things, and reflect upon my life thus far. It’s ironic to me that I got to Busan and thought, it’s nice to be out of the big city, when Busan itself is a huge city compared to anything I have ever lived in or near before. There’s still a subway there, tons of buses, tons of people, and tons of things to do and see, with the beach being at the top of the list for the warmer months of the year.

As it is a port city, Busan is famous for its seafood, which was plentiful both in quantity and selection. Saturday was a beautiful day and we got out early to visit some places around the city, with the fish market being the first stop. We stumbled upon an outdoor one first with tons of adjumas (old ladies) sitting on their haunches over big bowls of ice, water, and sea creatures. Many of them shelled shellfish as they sat there awaiting hungry or curious customers, and it amazed me to realize that this was their everyday life. Fish. Octopus. Sea slugs. Scallops. Mussels. And many other unnamable items.

Right next to the seemingly renegade fish market was an indoor one with actual fish tanks to hold the sea creatures in, and many adjumas and adjushes (old men) selling their fish. After taking copious amounts of pictures, we ran into a ‘stall’ owner who spoke English, showed us many of his products and invited us to pick some out to eat upstairs. He told us that most of them were delicious as sashimi (uncooked) and we should be adventurous and try some. He also enticed us with holding out said items to buy, most interestingly an octopus and a sea slug. I was enthralled by these two items and got

to hold a live octopus (which I later ate – still alive and squirming in my mouth) and the sea slug. Now, the sea slug looked very much like a specific part of the male anatomy and my two girlfriends and I had giggled previously over this thinking we were quite clever. When I asked our En

glish speaking seller what it was he said ‘sheep penis.’ I responded with a confused ‘Whaaa??’, which then made him do a very Korean thing of repeating something in English until he knew I understood. “Sheep penis! SHEep penis. Sheeeep PEEENis. SheeP PeNIS!.....” Finally I yelled “Okay, okay!” to which his response was to put said ‘sheep penis’ into my hand and told me to squeeze it. The result is much like you are probably picturing in your head and made me giggle quite a bit. I later ate that raw also (quite tasty actually), and found out the proper name was a sea slug.

Finding English speaking Koreans here in Korea often results in a most excellent encounter, which proved to be true throughout the rest of the trip. On Sunday we took a journey to a Buddhist temple called Beomeosa, which means Temple of the Nirvana fish. It was MAGICAL. Beomeosa is located at the top of a high mountain in Busan and it is a huge Temple compound, if compound is any sort of word to describe a sprawling temple. There were lots of people there as tourists, but also a lot of people on temple stays who were there to hang out and pray a lot. Many hikers were there also as there is a huge mountain/river right beside the temple with big boulders everywhere. On our short walk back down a group of Korean hikers, decked to the nines in gear, asked us some questions and, as per usual, were very excited with our answers. “English teachers! American! Here in Korea! Learning about temples! Hurray!” They asked us to come close to the river to dip our hands in and splash around a bit, then pushed us into a group picture shouting “We are the world!!” and alternated holding our hands and making hearts over their heads with two hands.

I was lucky to go with two friends, Amber and Vicky, who are also quite spiritual people because they also just got it about the place. As it was Easter, we were already talking about how the day contained some spiritual connections for all of us, so it was a serendipitous event to find a little praying platform in front of a small building off the beaten path that had a few Buddha statues inside. There were mats there to sit on so we all grabbed one and sat down to have a few moments. It was thrilling and made me reflect on the life I have in Seoul and think about what kinds of things I want to do when my time is done here.

Once we had our time finding (!) God again on Easter instead of him/she/it being handed to us on a crispy little wafer, we sat by a stream for a long time thinking some more. As a huge city, Seoul actually does have a lot of mountains and places to hike, but there are always SO many people everywhere. It was nice to be able to sit next to a nice stream and be more alone, with the sound of the flowing water drowning out any noise from others around. I had my Kindle in my bag, the bible downloaded, and the Old School Catholic in me it felt like it was a good time to pull it up and read a few verses fitting to the situation. Then to balance it out I sung some songs that are much more open and in tune with nature, I do believe all of which I learned at Journey’s End Farm Camp. We all felt such a strong presence of something more than us sharing that moment and it made me realize how much I miss nature and its calming/spiritual effect on me.

It was a grand trip indeed, and it made me appreciate Seoul a bit more as I got to get out of the bubble and realized I missed some things about it. City life is becoming routine to me and something that I quite enjoy what with so many things to do, places to see and new experiences to have. However, the trek over the weekend has reminded me of things that I highly value in my life that I am missing living here.

With all that being said, I am excited to enjoy the rest of my time here in Seoul as it’s made a big impact upon my life. One thing I absolutely love about this place is all of the museums; one for robots, locks (and keys), wars, kimchi (I haven’t been yet, but I sure do hope they serve free kimchi samples), Science, art, art, art, and everything traditional/cultural about Korea. A few weekends ago some friends and I took a trip to the War Museum of Korea and it was as informative as it was sad. Korea has a terrible history with most of the surrounding countries trying to take them over because they are so small. One thing I really admire about Korea is how much of a fight they put up to remain their own country. It also amazes me how much different North and Korea are, and how there was a whole three-year Korean year war that is still technically going on between them.

Seoul just had the pleasure of holding a Conference on Nuclear Weapons with people from 50 different countries. I have to admit, when I read about it the weekend before it happened, I got quite nervous. North Korea had just been telling the world that they were going to launch a long-range rocket for their ‘space program’ while the rest of the world, even China, was against it. Then alllll of these world leaders come on over the Seoul, just a couple hours drive from North Korea to discuss matters to which North Korea was fervently opposed. However, other than the INTENSE increased security in the subways and around town, nothing bad happened. Recently they just launched their ‘space rocket’, which cost $850 million dollars to make and exploded within a minute. I just don’t understand it all.

Oh my, oh my I have so much information to pass on but as so much time has passed, the volume of words becomes overwhelming. I’ll put this up now and write more later. It is now the Monday morning following the Monday morning I wrote about in the beginning, and I have just taken a trip over the weekend to a Cherry Blossom Festival, which was beautiful with perfect flippin’ weather. I am leaving for school in about ten minutes and look forward to the greeting I will get from my girls, especially since I am getting two old students back and one new one. Should be an interesting day.

Farewell for now, friends and family. I hope everyone is doing well and your spirits are being raised by the warm weather and blooming plants coming our way.

Until next time.