Phase 1 in which Doris Gets Her Oats

Aside from it being the most random beginning to any album, even for the Beatles, it aptly describes my first week here in the heart of Seoul (nyuk nyuk nyuk couldn't resist a little pun there, c'mon it's too easy)!

I'm completely taken care of by everyone and everything here, something I've yet to be open to before in my travels and just in my general days on this planet. In every other experience I've dove in without a hand to hold and forged my way willfully, not here. Every step of this journey I've had little guardian angels and not spent a minute alone or lacking anything. My fellow teachers just include me and catch my weight for the check without batting an eye because I've yet to receive my bank account. It's like family and that too, is a foreign concept, at least in this sense.
I'm checked in on, called, fed, and entertained without missing a beat. It's like regressing to the pre-school age that I teach but it's profoundly invigorating and inspiring.
No doubt, I walked into a cake situation, totally set up with nothing to figure out but my role which everyone else seems clear on. I have no time to live in my head as I'm on sensory overload and shock waves abound me. I wake up to a view of the city and it doesn't feel strange, it's exactly how it should be and I've no doubt about that because there is no "should" or "shouldn't"- I can't argue with what is.

My favorite moments so far are the ones where I take the time to recognize just where I am and pinch myself that I'm here. Today walking to the bus stop through Lemon Plaza, men of all ages sat bundled on the pavement playing a cubic chess-like game and children ran under thatch huts beneath the neon signs.




The sewers waft up into your nose from the depths below, even in 14 degree weather (Fahrenheit) along with the strange taste of motorbike exhaust and a general spicy fishy scent that escapes from every door. The light is so beautiful and the moon when it rises shows itself to me from an angle I've never seen before.


I'm left without much else to say which is nice. So tonight I head out to Noraebang (karaoke) and I'll celebrate my first school day that went off without a hitch. Kamsa hamnida and anneyo haseyo my good people!
Xoxo!

This is Ella Teacher, saying Good Night and Good Morrow.