6 Months

Midway into my contract.  I think I've reached my "mid-contract crisis".  Yeah, that's what I'm calling it.  Which means I need to figure out what I'm going to do once my contract is complete...or at least have a few plans in place since I'm constantly changing my mind.  It will all boil down to how I feel when my time here comes to an end.  I'm fairly certain that I will not stay another year (I know I keep saying that).

Since my arrival here I think I have finally overcome my homesickness, realized that I should never say "never", come to terms with the fact that I don't know when I will return to Atlanta and if I will stay there...the list could go on.  One thing I have realized during my vacation in Tokyo is that I really do have a great life.  What a wonderful feeling!  It seems as if I am in a dream world.  There's nothing holding me back...I can do whatever I want.  Never in a million years would I have imagined myself working/living on the other side of the world, or even in a different country.  I'm meeting great people and forming friendships which I know will last beyond Korea.  The proximity to the places I would like to visit is ideal and unbelievable.  Since I'm on this side of the world, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't visit my motherland.

So the time has come for me to start my list making of what I would like to do in Korea before I leave and what I would like to do when I leave Korea.



"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  ~Howard Thurman


"People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life.  I don't think this is what we're really seeking.  I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive."  ~Joseph Campbell

Lost in transit...

Imagine going from this rinky dinky railway system...

Atlanta, GA (USA)

to this...

Seoul, South Korea

(I'm still trying to figure out the bus situation in Seoul.)


Okay, now imagine having to use this...

Tokyo, Japan

(I'm not even going to try to figure out the bus system in Tokyo.)

It's quite overwhelming for someone who has had to rely on having her own car in order to get around town...

Five Months

...and so the saga continues, not really.  FIVE MONTHS!  Time seems to be a flyin'!  Before you know it my contract will be up and I better have a plan.  It's probably time to start considering what I might be doing when the day comes for me to leave my humble abode here in Seoul.  Oh decisions decisions.  This won't be easy.

I'm just being me...having fun while making friends.  Sometimes I do find it a bit difficult with the part where I make new friends.  My problem is that I haven't figured out how to balance the groups, especially since I continue making new ones.  I can't hang out with them all at once, so it forces me to choose.  If any of you know me, you know that can be a difficult decision since I am indecisive and pretty much would like to do everything.  I just have to learn how to prioritize, but then I feel bad when I am forced to decline the other peeps I decide not to hang out with.  Oh first world problems.

A few things are changing at school...a South African coworker is marrying his Korean girlfriend this weekend, after five months a Canadian coworker is moving to Scotland where his girlfriend just started grad school, another Canadian coworker is leaving to go back home (sad)...that's not all of them, but I'll spare you the rest.  Of course, all of this will bring in new faces and possibly new friendships.

On a different note, I have a couple of exciting trips coming up...yay!  There's the Boryeong Mud Festival this weekend, which will be a blast...there will be a whole lotta craziness going on!  =)  Then off to TOKYO for summer vacation, July 30th to August 7th...can't wait!  I'm going with Steph, my friend/co-worker.  We were originally planning on either going to Thailand or Vietnam, but we decided at the last minute (sitting in front of the travel agent, which is the best way to book airplane tix here in Korea) on TOKYO.  I've always wanted to go to Japan, well everywhere for that matter.  So now I'm getting my chance.  There may be a couple of other small trips next month...we'll see where the chips fall.  You have one life, so make the most of it.  That I plan on doing...yessiree!  Marking things off of my bucket list while adding a few more at the same time.

Looking over the Han River at Yeouido Park during my bike ride earlier this evening.  Riding along the river is very relaxing...such beautiful scenery.

"We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again-to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more." 
~Pico Iyer, "Why We Travel"

Nothing Lasts Forever...

Which is very unfortunate for certain things.   (Warning, this is a very personal post…read at your own discretion)  IF, for some miraculous reason, someone would ever want to marry me, I would want it to last forever…till death do us part.  Call me naïve.  My life has turned into a catch-22.  I would love to get married and have children, with the right person who would be silly enough to stay with me.  Let’s face it, I’ve made it rather difficult for that to possibly happen, especially with my current lifestyle.  I only want it to happen once, but I can’t control how the other person feels and wouldn’t want to.  My parents are divorced and it still has an affect on me.  Once upon a time, it almost happened for me.  The fact that I called off a wedding with a month to spare may be a deal breaker for anyone remotely interested in me, and I can understand.  To this day, I don’t regret my decision of not going through with it.  Somehow I could see into the future and see the relationship not lasting.  My friends knew we weren’t right for each other and were happy about my decision.  I had not ruled children out of the question and I couldn’t see him as the kind of father that I wanted.  Plus, I fell out of love and I wanted more out of life.  I want to travel the world and would love to have someone to experience those moments with me, but I just don’t see it happening.  One time I became a caged bird and gave up many things, changed who I was, for a guy.  The life was sucked out of me.  (That relationship has made me appreciate, and only go for, the truly/genuinely nice guys.)  Since then, I have made a vow to myself that I would never let that happen again.  Tired of experiencing heartbreaks...

You have one life, make the most of it.  You're never too young, or old, to have a "bucket list"...it only counts if you actually work on your list.  

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." ~Henry David Thoreau

Long Weekend Part 2: Samcheok Beach

Our 3-day weekend consisted of a stop at Samcheok Beach located on the east coast, which is where we stayed for our trip to Haesingdang Park (aka Penis Park).  It was quiet, practically deserted, and relaxing at the same time.  It was nice to get away from the bustling city of Seoul along with having our toes in the sand.

(taken by Cath Witten)
Having some fun!  Took us a few tries to get this shot...had a lot of fun in the process =)

 

While we were watching the sun rise, I just happened to look over to the sight of these soldiers marching silently across the sand.  It caught me off guard and startled me a bit.  

Most of the time a picture can not capture the true beauty of nature.  

Our next stop, Busan (or as some pronounce it "Pusan")...

Four Months

Oh goodness...four months have passed.  I don't really have much to say at this moment...except for the fact that I know, I have decided, that I will definitely not extend my stay here in Korea once my contract is up.  I will be moving on.  To where?  I haven't the slightest idea...

I was going to provide you with a different quote, but I can't keep going without providing you with what may possibly be my favorite.  This quote, along with others, was posted in my slightly padded cell (cubicle) at my previous job back home.  It was there to keep me motivated, to remind me that I would move on to something else, perhaps better (?)...and that I would experience, discover for myself, more of what the world has to offer.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed

 by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  

So throw off the bowlines. 

Sail away from the safe harbor.  

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover." 
~Mark Twain

The Black Hole

That's what I'm calling Seoul.  Whenever I meet another expat who's been here for 3-4+ years, I always ask them how long they initially planned on living and working here in Seoul...the answer is always one year.  After one year they would return home and after a few months back home they would return to Seoul.  I can see how that could happen.  It's easy to get used to, or sucked into, the lifestyle here.  You go out every night for a few drinks with your coworkers and friends (especially when you don't want to go back to your lonely one room apartment), you can easily get away with never cooking for yourself, public transportation here is wonderful, your apartment is paid for (minus the utilities), and it's easy to save some money for whatever you may have planned in the future.  Oh yeah, Seoul also serves as a great "home base" for traveling to other parts of Asia.  But then it's also easy to get stuck in a routine, or rut, if that's what you would want to call it.  Some of the expats I meet make a life out of teaching English here.  I don't see myself staying here another year.  Life here can be very convenient.  

But then again it's also difficult to not get out of, over, the depression after a few weeks or months of living here.  One of my coworkers who arrived here on the same night as me turned in his six weeks' notice earlier this week.  I heard the news from my other coworkers, but I definitely understand what he's going through.  However, I promised myself that no matter how bad things got for me, except for an emergency of some sort, I would stick through my one year contract.  Living and working here is no vacation and it's absolutely nothing like home.  South Korea is quite the experience for a waygook, foreigner. Of course, you also meet some great people here.

"have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." ~Rainer Maria Rilke