Here is the play by play,
Three weeks of orientation at Korea University in Jochiwan are coming to a close, people are saying their goodbye's to each other, franticly packing, loading up the provincial busses and luggage trucks. I was pretty happy to be going onto the next part of my journey, while the last 3 weeks had been filled with fun, adventure, and making friends I was ready to let myself go a little deeper into authentic Korea and not see the same 300 people each day acting like college freshmen (I never lived in the dorms at EMU and I am now glad of it).
We were being bussed to our regional orientation site, so instead of 300 TaLK people we were now 70 scholars all being placed in Gyungbuk-do. Our bus was the last to leave so I loaded my luggage on the truck and decided it would be a good idea to put my laptop bag under the bus so I would not have to carry it around for the next 2 hours, I see some girls throwing their purses under the bus so I follow suit and any concern for the whereabouts of my laptop disappear into the distance. Now, hindsight is 20/20 but like all my more humorous learning experiences I choose to blatantly disregard the warning signs, here is what I should have seen... The girls putting purses under the bus, not in group 1, so not going where I am going. Nobody else in group 1 going on or off the bus. And finally, the sign on the front of the bus said Chungnam, I just saw that is was the "blue" bus, which was mine (in my mind). The Gyungbuk busses were parked behind the luggage trucks, not in front of it. Whoops.
"Tangent"... Before starting the 2nd stage of orientation at a beautiful mountain resort we were going to a temple stay at this Buddhist temple at a national park somewhere along the way. It was pretty interesting, the monks were all very happy and smiled all the time. I respect their devotion to what they believe in. I was in need of a solid night's worth of sleep and some pancakes, there was neither at the temple. Korean food can be pretty spicy at times and they generally don't serve water until after the meal, drinking during a meal is a western practice. This temple food was some of the most eye watering, nose running food I have ever eaten. I felt extra obligated to finish all the food because traditional Buddhist practice has monks beg for their bowl of rice each day. It was rough, but I am over trying to look cool eating Korean food. Things we did at the temple include wearing super trendy monk robes, make paper lotus candle flower things, sleep on the floor like a boss, wake up at 4am for meditation, go on a painful barefoot walk through the forest and have a friend feet washing session all before 7am. In a moment of serious introspection I can say this, while I don't identify with any religion. I enjoy the simple parts of Buddhism, there is much time for thought and the petty issues in life are dismissed as quickly as a breeze comes and goes. Perhaps most to my acceptance is the fact that Buddhism does not appear to have an agenda. Just good people smiling, being kind.
By lunch time the next day I was ready for an ice cream cone (tangent #2)... I should dedicate a post to my ice cream endeavors. As people who are close to me know, I am quite fond of ice cream. Say what you will, I believe ice cream tempers friendships and brings people closer together regardless of distance or background. True story, back in Livonia I have a few of my dearest and closest friends. We don't get together as often as we would prefer, but more times than not we meet up for ice cream, there is an association with them, ice cream, laughing and general good times. In Korea I am truly glad to have found friends to share ice cream time with, it has been my saving grace a few times when I am glum or stressed, it is a little piece of home and comfort to remind me of my friends far away, and to share the same camaraderie with new friends! (I know I got a little bit emotional there but James Blunt came up on my itunes, and some things you just need to get out).
So back on the bus to orientation sleepytime ensues, we arrive at the hotel and I go to grab my laptop bag. No dice. Through the grace of the Korean coordinators they track it down within a matter of 5 min, I really didn't have time to freak out about losing it. I knew that I would get it back eventually, hopefully sooner than later...This is when I heard no less than 15 different updates on the whereabouts of my laptop, ranging from getting it by Saturday (this was thursday), I'll get it on Tuesday, it will be waiting at my school for me on Tues. Things degraded to me leaving orientation to my apt and being told they haven't shipped it yet. If any of you are thinking that a laptop is one of the cooler things to have the first week of living on your own in a new city, in a foreign country, you would be right. Thank goodness for my ipod touch, I would have gone bonkers without it. I did feel like a junky having to bum charges off of random peoples usb ports, standing outside coffee shops using Wifi where I could get it. I finally got my laptop back 8 days after I realized I lost it, I felt naked and inadequate without it. Not one of the smartest things I've done in Korea, but in the words of my mom from when I was young "it's not the end of the world", profoundly simple and calming words.
Throughout that last debacle I was thrust from essentially being a tourist to being a expat living in South Korea. I was too exhausted to be worried or stressed about too much so after exploded my luggage all over my apt I went exploring. My city is Waegwan, nothing too exciting going on here. An army base, market, train station. All the essentials I guess. I am very happy to be a 5 minute walk from my school and ~10 minutes from the train station. Another EMU talk person lives on the other side of town which is nice and a few more EMU peeps live in Gumi (2$ 10min train ride away). I am beginning to settle in finally. The staff at my school seems very nice, I think the office staff gossips about me, but in a good way. The 1st three questions I got from them were, where is your girlfriend? How old are you? and who I thought was the youngest person out of all of them was. I think there would have been more but they found out that I play saxophone and they just erupted in Korean giggle-laughter. Game over. I start teaching tomorrow (monday), and I am nervously excited about it. I am sure that I'll have a few stories to share about it all.
I could tell you all about my weekend spent in Gumi and Daegu. But I have to leave you curious about something. I'll tell you this, it was my intent to have a relaxing hangout with my Gumi peeps. This turned into very us staying out way past our bedtimes both friday and saturday. Good times had by all.
The Korean holiday of Chusok is next week so I have a 5 day weekend, very excited to go to Busan and have some fun times there!
"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page"
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