A Life in the Present 3.0

This is what I did sitting at my desk this morning.

Happy Halloweeeeen!

…after an epic hike you arrive back in Seoul, four hours away from the mountain you were on to realize you do not have your phone.

When you have no idea whether you left it on the bus, in the restaurant, or up on the mountain during one of the countless stops to catch breath and wonder why you put yourself through such torture, but email your guide/organizer to see if he can help.  He is more than willing of course, and calls up the bus driver, calls the phone, asks other hikers if they stumbled upon it and so much more.

When no one has, he says he’ll see if he can find me a cool, new, cheap phone.

But, then you really know when you are in Korea when your student’s dad comes to the door of your apartment hours before your lesson and tells you that someone found the phone and he’s arranged to have it mailed to him to give to me.  He tells me this in person, in his business suit, as he drove to my apartment that is out of his way, parked his car in the madness, and come up 17 flights of stairs all hours before he could have sent his kid to me to tell me.

So nice to lose stuff here and have people actually try and get it back to you instead of ganking it for themselves!

Near the summit that was "just 10 more minutes" away.

Went hiking this weekend up to a lovely mountain in Korea called Seoraksan.

I found out that hiking in Korea consists of the following:  a bus trip at midnight,  no sleep, a 4am start in the dark, a race against hundreds of ajumas and ajishis (older Korean women and men with the latest in hiking equipment and apparel) up the mountain,  an intolerable amount of sweat, cold temps, burning calves/thighs/buttocks/back/everything else, and a series of promises such as “only 10 more minutes to the top” followed by two hours hiking without reaching said summit.

Seoraksan packed with people wanting to see the change of colors.

Yet, what an amazing hike it was.  After almost three hours, I was welcomed with  absolutely stunning views paired with a sense of accomplishment that I successfully evaded death on the climb up once the sunlight revealed the ridiculous paths, rocks, inclines, and near missteps that we narrowly avoided on our way up in the pitch dark with our wimpy little flashlights.

In 6-7 hours time we made our way to the top (or close to) and back down again hours before our hardcore hiking counterparts would finish their loop encompassing 4 more summits.  As we waited we explored, ate, and napped passed out in the lawn of one of the hotels at the base.

This rocky path is what we ascended in the dark for approx three hours. And, this is a mild section.

While I  feel like an ajuma myself after climbing that mountain so clumsily and feeling the burn in my legs two days later, I plan to do another hike in two weeks time in hopes of finding more interest in this activity I am so ill-prepared for here in Korea.

A sweet looking river rock bed at the base of Seoraksan.

My newest purchase.

To go with my older purchase.

I am on a mission to find the tackiest, most awkward Colorado sports jerseys I can find.

So…I have this student.  Hangs out with the boys, fights with the boys, sits with the boys, dresses like the boys, looks like the boys.

We played a game in class today.  Two teams.  Girl team vs Boy team.

I started to separate them.  I told this student to go with the boys.

“But, why Teacher?”

“Why ‘why?’ You are a boy, you go with the boys.”

“But, Teacher!  I am a girl!”

I wasn’t the only one fooled.  Half the students turned and gasped and immediately questioned the student in Korean.  Indeed, she is a girl.

A recently received proposed itinerary I requested for a flight home over winter break:

Seoul-Tokyo-Minneapolis-Denver

Denver-Detroit-Tokyo-Seoul

What is that?  I don’t even earn miles on this trip and I’d be flying all over the place.

I hate finding flights.

: Phone calls on my walk to school with my older sis who tells me stories of little boys abducted by aliens in Fort Collins, Colorado.

: Phone calls at lunch from my best friend back home who calls to tell me she was just hanging out with my fam drinking wine…

: Video Skyping my bro, sis-in-law and Tokio while waiting for this forever long Friday afternoon to come to an end.

: Planning trips to Costa Rica!

: Eating handfuls of M&M’s sent to me by my mother instead of eating gross Korean cafeteria lunch.

: Knowing that this horrendous week is almost over!

At school:

Chae In: Oh, hi Lori!  How are you?

Lori: Good, thank you!  How are you?

Chae In: Berry busy.  Berry, berry busy. Uh, oh!  Lori!  Your face? (–Korean Korean Korean mime mime mime–) Uh, you face very thin.

Lori: Really?  Uh, thank you??

Chae In: No.  Not good.  Face bad.  Ok.  Byeeee!

~~~~~

At yoga:

Korean yogini: Lori, are you sick?

Lori: No, I feel fine.

Korean yogini: Are you tired?

Lori: Nope.  Not at all.

Korean yogini: Oh, you pale.  You have pimple.  Not look good.

~~~~

Next day, at doctor:

Doctor: Looking at me one hand on hip, one on chin. Hmmmmmm. Making abnormally large bottomed pear shape with hands in reference to me. You gain weight?

Lori: Uh?! What?!  No!

Doctor: Really? No gain weight?  Hmmmm….

Lori: NO! I didn’t gain weight.

Doctor: I think maybe you gain weight.  Not look good.

~~~~

Apparently I look like shit today. this week.  Just FYI.

Yes, as I was just telling Erin, I’ve finally gotten an internet connection at my apartment.  I found a company that wasn’t discriminating against whities and did not require my first born as part of the agreement contract.

Be on the lookout for increased Skype and IM usage.  Be ready to communicate!
XOXO

Telling people that I live abroad usually results in some comment that includes, “Oh, I am so jealous!”  The ability to travel to another country, to experience and ingest a different culture in its entirety, to live in a mysterious world where everyday arrives with some sense of wonderment cultivates that jealousy.

What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that living life in another country comes with the same responsibilities and pitfalls of living in your own country.   That the banality of life still exists and can still be incredibly annoying.

Case in point: my weekend started on Friday night with a few drinks and home by a decent hour, snuggled in bed, only to be woken at 3.30am by yet another drunk Korean man at my door insisting that he lived here although the alarm going off on my keypad should have alerted him otherwise.  Thirty minutes of arguing and telling him to go home while he continued to code in wrong numbers, ring the doorbell from hell, and POUND on my door resulted in only a cheerful, “Hey buddy, this isn’t your room” punishment from security.

After only a few hours of sleep, it was up bright and early to trek across Seoul to meet with a group to go to an orphanage two hours outside of the city.  Yet, our ‘organizers’ were no where in site and thus began only the first of many complaints about the organization running this volunteer opportunity.  The complete and utter incompetence of the woman set to get us to and from the organization started with us missing our bus and me being called “Larry” all day due to her mistranslation of my name into Korean script.  Many other instances, of which I will spare you, left me and everyone else wanting to smack the obnoxious smile straight off her face.

After a long day where success was only found in the smiles of the many orphans we played with, I was completely exhausted and dreaming of my bed.  Unfortunately, I returned home to find my door’s keypad completely unresponsive as a result of zero battery power no doubt due to the jackass who couldn’t leave it alone the night before.  My key, a mere 15 feet away and tucked nicely in a drawer in my apartment, did me no good as did the building security guard who just looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said he could do nothing for me.  So, at midnight I called my very generous girls who were still out partying in Seoul and asked if I could crash at their place in hopes they would rage all night so I could sleep.

I woke, crossing my fingers to find my building management open, to be denied once again and had to call Kelly on the weekend and ask her to call me a locksmith.  It is now 3pm, I am 65,000 Won lighter, but I am once again in my apartment…my apartment that I don’t really like in the first place, yet have never wanted to be in so badly before.

So you see kids, living abroad isn’t all magical and glorious.  Life can be just as annoying here as anywhere although I am pretty sure this weekend in Korea was worse off for me than you lovelies getting to enjoy the snow, the beauty, the good news of Kiki’s acceptance to DU (what! what!), another Bronco victory (!!) and each other.

Be assured, today the jealousy is all mine.