Up for Anything? Down for Dae Jeon...

Up for anything? You kind of have to be when you don't speak the language and you're at the whims of your host. In fact this concept is available to anyone not only in theory but in practice because we're all in our own little worlds with our meaning making machine lexicon... but I won't go down that road right now because it's nearly 3am on a Tuesday, or now, Wednesday.

Met with my Korean Kim family down in Dae Jeon for another fun filled adventure. With a nine-year-old full of spunk and little conversational English skills in charge of communication, there's bound to be a lot of room for error. I never know if I'm spending the night, in what room/bed/floor, where we're going, when I'm returning, and what's on my plate to eat.

As for food....They know I'm a vegetarian but at this point I partake in fish because it just has to be done. They can never explain in English what's for dinner or what's on the menu so it's always a surprise. And most vegetables don't translate anyway, most things don't (especially when you're nine or in my case, when you're starving). It can be a little overwhelming to never really know what you're ingesting and if it's going to get along with your taste buds. But that's just how I roll most of the time these days. A tad stressful but most of the time I just find my self laughing.

Every time I'm in a cab, every time I buy something, it's a lot of thank you's and goodbyes and hellos and not much more. Same goes for anywhere I find myself, everyday. It can be comedic or tragic depending on quite literally, what lands on your plate.

This weekend I got to experience a full fledged up close and personal moment at jjimjilbang (the big ol' spa dealio here in Korea). That was also a very up for anything shrug that led to a night of sleeping on a floor with 30 other people. But I digress...
The evening began with the typical very naked squatting on plastic stools, bathing with a mass of about 30 women of all shapes, ages, and sizes. But this time I got to be scrubbed by someone else, a very typical custom here. Sang-Eun got the middle of my back with the scrubby towel which was awesome! Putting the kids to work, I'm always a fan! Being utterly and unmistakably naked amidst strangers is one thing though and it is another to be squatting next to people you know, and have not seen quite like this...
Mind you at the jjbang (my nickname for it) in Seoul that I frequent, I'm one of four foreigners that are baring it all and we don't get so close in proximity (i.e. the Korea customary centimeter... space is a luxury here). Dae Jeon, I'm the only peachy lady and this jjbang was triple the size. I got in the cold pool with the kids and let them say the phrases they knew in English which was fun. And truthfully, I have to say that Korea has shocked me into not being shocked. I didn't really bat an eye at the experience for longer than a minute. When you're up for anything, there's no arguing with where you're at. It's nice to have your back scrubbed anyhow, even by my Oma while I helped my mini-sister wash her hair.

Sleeping on the floor with a wood brick as a pillow was something else entirely, add to it that there was no communication about it. Sang Eun dragged me into a room of people chilling in a darker setting (nothing strange about that, as it's just what's done at jjbang) but after an hour of "napping" I began to wonder when we were leaving. We didn't. And I kept having this strange notion that we were all breathing the same breath although there was idle chatter and snoring. Kids played and wrapped themselves around the bended knees of the mothers and fathers. It was odd but magical. I didn't sleep well but it was certainly something to write home about... and here I am doing so.

Woke up, totally disoriented and was fed seaweed soup at the restaurant four feet away (restaurants, arcades, gyms and tv sitting rooms, dvdbang private movie rooms are all in the jjbang across from the bathing rooms and saunas). Showered and scrubbed and bathed again. And then we got in the car, for a drive that like our "nap" never ended. Two hours of driving and I had no idea what was next. Trust is a word I think I'm becoming quite acquainted with. It didn't matter, right?
I was just riding the ride, literally and figuratively it's what I signed on for.
Korean folk village site seeing, ice cream licking, random noodle lunch that was delish, rice ponding, water wading in side road creeks.... good day all in all. Careful what you wish for...because every time you smile and point and say yes, the car will stop and you will be let out to enjoy. We stopped, a lot before I figured this out. ;-)




Ended up at train station in the middle of nowhere and did get home (which I do call Seoul now, awesomely strange and not strange at all, it is what it is). The cool thing about roads is they lead somewhere, you just don't know most of the time and you never know what you'll come to pass by.

Luckily, all train tracks lead back to Seoul and I can atleast figure my way from there. Now, if I could just find myself asleep instead of writing this blog amidst the monsoon lightning out my window. I'm just too excited to lay down, I've regressed to my toddler self who didn't want to miss anything and banned the word sleep.

The Wheels on the Bus Go....

SLP took us on a field trip as they do every third Thursday... anything cheap and almost free will do!

My Cassiopeia class pink ladies, Joo Young, Seo Yeon & Da yeon (L to R)

We got to ride big buses all together and Cassiopeia class was once again donning their hot pink name tags (I love that pink continues to make itself known in my life after all these years of being opposed to it- and no, it wasn't my selection). Da Yeon gave me her little pink visor and it sealed the deal, we were off and the air conditioning finally kicked in.

As per usual, there was a fight over who got to sit with you so I just let the bus' motion throw me around in the aisle much to the children's delight. Je hee, my most troublesome little one whom I love (yes she's my temper tantrum favorite, a spoiled princess to be sure) got to get her hands on my iPod and I quickly set an age appropriate play list. We sang a little Bob Marley and Kate Nash. She bobbed her head to and fro. So kyuptah (cute), I love her!

This month was the National Museum of Korea where all us teachers got to say "Don't Touch" about 30million times. I somehow managed to accidently find the cool rooms with sexually provocative and suggestive art as well as some Warhols (these are famous, "What 'famous' mean teacher?")... and although I would have loved to stop and postulate, I had wee little ones who have yet to learn those things in any language.

Post-modern German photographs with nude women in black vinyl thigh boots was an awesome challenge to get the
kids to miss.


















And they did because I found robots instead. So caught up with the cool, literally not scorching hot rooms that we neglected to make lunch on time but we ate with our picnic mat just as quickly as we could and overall had a blast.



They each brought me extra gimbaps and fruit, I had lunch x7 and it was awesome.




Getting them to not eat their candy proved to be a chore... "Save for later, at go home time."

I love my kids but they are exhausting!

Some might call it hungover hiking...

I agreed to partake in a morning hike after little sleep and much wine. I made the commitment to do it even as a huge part of me wanted to head down to the beach and soak up the last remaining seaside moments of the weekend.

Mosquitoes buzzed and hopped all over us at the trail header and the greenery swallowed us up. Scaling the mountain, zigzagging back and forth didn't seem to strenuous but it wasn't necessarily welcomed either.

The incline became more rigorous, the girls ahead slipping and sliding in their flip flops, I forged ahead until I saw the ropes. The straight up, nearly vertical trail with ropes on one side to sustain those pilgrimaging up to the temple atop the island. Shit, ropes? Well, it couldn't be that bad, it would however be a first.

"I can do this, I can" I thought to myself as a man passed by me with a baby on his back coming down the mountain. For the first round, the first 3 minutes I just kept breathing and focusing on my footsteps directly in front of me and below, not looking ahead. Coming around a bend at the top, I exhaled deeply and through my back down onto a flat rock for a moment of respite and water. The endorphins were kicking in and my heart began to thump in my head blurring my vision.

I started up the hill again as those with me scampered ahead. We hit another leg of rope-dom, fuck! THe wine began to swirl and the lack of food to absorb began to talk to me. What was I thinking? "Stop, stop and go back, you're going to be sick" is what I heard but I just let the sweat trickle off my brow onto my nose and took an audible breath, beckoning my heart to stop it's racing.



Again and again and again, after each round of reaching a crest another ropes course hill appeared. An hour of battling my body and my mind, I reached the top. I could barely catch my breath as it found a dry pocket in my throat and brought about enormous waves of nausea. I wasn't finished though, there was still more, the temple had yet to be found.

More rocks, less grip, more breathing, more focusing on the task at hand and oodles of arguing with myself as to when it was okay to give up.



I don't know how I managed to not turn back, I surely would have before. My face was shimmering and although my eyes went in and out of focus due to lack of oxygen, I felt so alive and so accomplished.


Reaching the top after knowingly knowing that I "couldn't do it" and wouldn' t have created a silence that just ate me up. One of my favorite quotes from Illusions is echoing in my brain now so I suppose it should be typed: "Argue for your limitations, and you can have them."

A Better Beach, Deokjeok-do

Deokjeok-do. Do - meaning island... "do" do, indeed. Although it took us an unnecessary 24 hours to arrive there.
With two three day weekend holidays back to back this month in Korea, I had planned only to participate in travel for one of them. Come Friday night, I was told of the big plan and it set my wheels turning. A really awesome little lady named Lindsay, a fellow SLP teacher, is always in the know and given that she would be leaving after this month I felt obliged to atleast turn my head and listen to her invitation. So come 11am Saturday morning, I receive solicitous text message number two and the truth is I really had no excuse not to go. Laundry and grocery shopping could wait (as could the previous holiday weekend's unpacking).

$10 taxi ride to meet Erica (my last minute partner in crime) at Yongsan station, each of us chiding the other to make record time... I left the instructions and basic reigns to Erica for the rest of our travels. We fumbled our way to Line 1 and looked for our final destination, we were on the correct train bound for Dongincheon. An hour and a half later with twenty to minutes to catch another taxi to the ferry, we realized we'd somehow missed the part where we were should have transferred trains. When and where and how and what, not so sure but we were o the opposite end of the line, an hour's drive from where we were supposed to be. Muggy and frustrated we called our friends who were already island-ing it up and blushed over our mishap. Gimbap and another two hours later we were back in Seoul and putting on our dancing shoes. We were going to get to Deokjeok-do but just a day late. Dance, dance, dance until 3am and then 6am alarm clock- not the smartest of combinations but there was a long ferry ride on today's calendar. Perfect for napping. We made it to the right train at the right time, hailed a cab after asking a few locals with broken Korean and a good flip through my handy dandy translation book.





Grabbing coffee and our friend Robert, who had cleverly decided to add Baileys to his morning cuppa joe, we began to board the ferry that was docking. Passport? Passport number? I haven't carried it with me since arriving and my European money belt has long since been thrown away. We were held up, no passport number, no ferry.
Erica being the electric and elusive etherean that she is jut batted her eyelashes and said the obvious, "I don't have it" and just kept walking. I on the other hand flipped out a little and briskly made up a number and signed illegibly. We were gonna make come hell or high water!

Surrounded by blue and not a Seoul in sight, I was beyond happy. The ferry locked up the bow but finally let us out onto the deck when we were about 3o minutes from the island.

I miss being afloat and getting all wind bitten by salt air. It was definitely different than the Larkspur ferry in the San Francisco Bay. Strange little green islands blurred past and there was something strange about the air.



We finally arrived and beached it up properly.

This was a beach and this was a holiday. Sunburns were prevalent and so was Cass, Hite, and Soju. Pregnant lesbian English teachers, drummers, acoustic strummers, Canadians, Californians, New Yorkers alike- and all of us cheaply, happily drifted along without much sleep and without much care or concern for anything.

Busan weekend get away

Where to begin? Chronologically would be the popular vote I'm sure but who among you is keeping tabs?


Train rides and lots of 'em. The writing bug has been confined to my journal for the most part this past month and it's so disjointedly distracted these days with the humidity and oodles of opportunities around every corner.

I missed the most highly anticipated holiday celebration of the year in order to go and beach it, however I did find myself at Beomesa (one of the founding Buddhist temples in Korea) on Buddha's big day and witnessed many a lantern. Amber and I had planned to get away the moment we could and we did (as soon as our shifts ended at SLP we were on the midnight train to Busan for our three day weekend get away).

Busan was played up and it had been three months since I'd last seen the shore that my expectations were soaring. I've found that there's a general lackluster about things as of late, maybe it's the so-called three month curse (the majority of foreigners claim to hit a wall and fall down a bit at the end of their first quarter abroad). The beach was basically a park with sand, including pigeons and school uniform clad teens. Having committed to getting at least a drop of sunshine on my skin, I donned my bikini and caught many a stare. Curves don't happen in this country, and I certainly put them in check as I tip toed along the icy surf.

Amber and I did find ajima visors to bolster off the heat, which I think was the beach day highlight! Summation of Busan's main beach: for the birds (the pigeons).

There are no seagulls, not one! Returning on a whim at dusk we found that that was the real time to attend Haeundae Beach, the lights twinkle in the absence of stars and it almost can appear Mediterranean.


Best find was the awesome drum circle with Korean traditional drumming that nearly had Amber and I (chingus extraordinaire) demonstrating what hips are supposed to do with the crazy rhythms. Intoxicating truly, it brought on the elements, rain and thunder came shortly thereafter.

The other great find in Busan was appropriately not beach related but up in the mountains in the depths of stillness. Beomesa temple was such a treat, its gates were the opening to the heavens as legend says and we found ourselves leaving the city and the world behind. The green and the mists, it felt like fresh morning all day. I even stopped into a prayer room and was given instruction by a very kind old woman who placed prayer beads in my hands and showed me how to bow after lighting incense.

To get away from the masses was after all just what we had envisioned and so it was. Just have moments to giggle with no timetable or agenda was what the doctor ordered in any case. In fact, it was such a necessary prescription that like antibiotics we couldn't taper off a day early. Monday was a holiday and we had planned to return to Seoul after our Friday/Saturday jaunt but to no avail, all the trains were full. Hmmmm 7 hour bus ride in the humidity and expected holiday traffic or 5am Express train with first come, first serve seating the following day? We opted for the latter and I had one of the most delicious moments I've encountered in a very long time. With only a few hours from teaching the little ones, I still had the world to myself. It was my unprecedented introduction to The Land of the Morning Calm that is Korea.

I adore trains and I love seeing things from a different perspective, one of them being the rarity of true morning.
I often forget about the dawn, the aurora and its still, sweet gentle kiss that warms like a bird's heart beat. We often watch the details fade away into silhouettes, losing their distinction moment to moment as the sun sighs against the horizon amidst crimson and plum dusk. Morning, however, serenely heralds the day, the darkness fading away into cool descriptions like sugar wafers dissolving into sweet on your tongue. A witness to death and dusk, the magic of birth evading us, life and its simple and humble gifts go unnoticed and therefore imbalanced. I could see myself seeing the dawn far before my twilight years shake me up at ungodly hours and being ever so inspired by its yawns. My heart hummed with the train as it stumbled along without complaint and the day took its shape.