Samcheok 1: Feels like Home

Last weekend with friends Julie and Olivia in tow, we left the concrete jungle that is Seoul and headed east towards the East Sea (Donghae, 동해) to a little slice of heaven called Samcheok (삼척).

Me and Julie in our couple seats...

Poor Olivia in the nice and spacious solo seat

The bus ride was supposed to take something like 3 hours to get Samcheok. In reality, it took 4 hours, in which the 3 of us alternately ate, slept, and stared out of the window.

But when we arrived at Samcheok, this is what awaited us <3

The first meal of the day, a fish soup called Gomchigook (곰치국)-- 곰치 is a kind of fish and 국 is soup. I adore seafood and since we were right by the ocean I thought this soup had to be delicious. Like, there would be some sort of heinous injustice if it turned out to be anything other than tasty.

Turns out that there both that fish and that soup suffered a cosmic injustice. That fish because it was just unfortunately ugly. That soup because the texture of the fish was something akin to jelly--and I could not for the life of me appreciate it.

We spent the rest of the day along the strip of beach, played in the waves, played soccer/volleyball with a kid's abandoned ball, and ate snacks while drinking makgeolli (막걸리)--korean rice wine.

I love you Samcheok, I really do.

When we stood out on the shoreline, my friend olivia turned to me and said, "you stare at the ocean like its full of memories." I am, at heart, a girl raised by the sea.

Seoul Snapshot #2: Samcheongdong

Samcheongdong (산청동) is my favorite place in Seoul for its mix of modern and traditional, and for all the cute cafes it has. The other day while I was with a co-teacher, we stumbled across this little road and it was quite the beauty.

The Book Club

In my feverish attempt at making my life in Korea actually mean something, damn it, I joined a bunch of clubs and activities a few weeks ago. This included joining a book club.

Now, the very idea of a book club is something that is extremely appealing to me. It's the picture of smarty-arty pants sitting around in a well lit room sipping tea and discussing what really matters. It's quaint. It's cute. It's novel.

Of course, my romanticized idea of book clubs are anything but the real deal. Instead of tea, we are downing beers and wine. Instead of a cozy cottage somewhere, we are in a dingy bar/restaurant with dim lighting and a bathroom with a door nearly off its hinge. Instead of the orderly discussions where we all nod our heads in deep thought after someone has (yet again!) said something really profound about the book, we talk over each other, debate heavily, and disagree as readily as we agree.

Yesterday was the first meeting of our book club and I'm not sure if it was because it was the first meeting or what, but I felt like everyone was going balls-to-the-wall trying to assert their dominance, or brillance, or opinion, on the rest of the group. Like any moment we would all just whip it out and measure.

I include myself in the battle for supremacy because, please, like I was going to let someone misinterpret me, my opinions, or to, God help them, talk over me, or worse, not let me have a voice. I came into the meeting with my usual quiet reserve, prepared to get my tea sipping on, but left the meeting with guns blazing.

The reason why I decided to join a book club, I mean, besides the fact that I can say quite assuredly with noise turned straight up that "why yes, I am in a book club thank you very much," is that I missed the sort of discussion usually found around any seminar table in any university. I missed getting into the nitty gritty of pulling books apart only to put them back together again. I missed reading books that I myself wouldn't necessarily pick out for myself, but challege me and actually, actually, make me think.

That is not to say that I haven't been reading here in Korea. But I don't think re-reading Pride & Prejudice or the first of the Harry Potter series constitutes as a challenge. The former because I've read it a million times that whole pages are engrained in my memory, the latter because it was more entertaining than not.

In sum, I felt like I was becoming, for lack of a better expression, stupider. Like my synapses had stopped firing. I could actually feel the loss of my usual reading load because it effected not only my speech, but my writing.

Which is why I'm really glad I joined the book club. Because I always feel at my absolute best when I have my intellectual guns blazing.

This is for my writers ~~ or dreamers

via thisisnthappiness.

Vacation, or Something Like It

My contract states I have 21 days of vacation for the year.

Unlike back home in the states, I don't really have a say in when exactly I can use those days. When I can take vacation days is determined by the academic calendar: if school is in session, I shouldn't take a vacation.

After summer camp was over, I used 5 of my vacation days (+ 2 weekends + 1 national holiday) for a Ten Day Summer Vacation. I'm not complaining about this, considering I've always taken summer school and have always basically had 10 days of summer vacation, but what I am bummed about is the fact that I did nothing and went no where for summer vacation.

That list of places I wanted to go to that I made earlier? Didn't see a single thing.

I know, I know. Trust me, I know.

I was actually really upset by this. I know it's all my fault, that if I really wanted to get out and go, then I should have just went, that there was nothing, really to stop me. But I let excuses pile up on excuses and ended up not even really leaving Seoul.

The weather was horrible, and all the things I wanted to do were outdoorsy--hike a mountain in the rain? go to the beach during a thunderstorm? no thank you. But it wasn't even just that, because I should have forced myself to explore more of Seoul.

But I didn't do anything.

Instead, I felt horrible about my life and myself and cried everyday. Not having anything to do, nowhere to go, no one to go with... it was the first time that I actually, horribly, felt homesick. I felt so terribly alone.

I felt disenabled. Stifled and suffocated by being in Seoul. I wanted to get out, but felt stuck. Maybe I couldn't make up my mind, that it was my own indecision, my own internal conflict that disabled me.

In any case, the tears fell a lot that week. Without work to define me and my life here in Korea, I was faced with the naked truth: I don't have a reason for being. I hated the feeling of not knowing for what I was living and why.

It was such a sobering thought.

I'm not saying that I hate my life here in Korea. Not that at all, but I am saying that it's not all roses here. There are times when you miss home something fierce, and there's nothing more you want to do than to just be with the people you love the most.

The upside of not doing a damn thing during my vacay: I booked my flight to Japan, and all the money I saved can and will be spent on my Japan vacation next month! Tokyo & Kyoto, wait for me!

Scenes from Summer Camp

We Were Born & Raised in a Summer Haze