The Latest in Korea

I know, it's been awhile. I mean, not that anyone really cares about how often I make updates besides myself.  Nonetheless, I'm usually pretty diligent about keeping up-to-date on my life via this blog since it's my journal--but the last couple months have been crazy busy, and just plain crazy.  Three weeks of June we actually went home to visit family in America.  It was wonderful--probably the best vacation home in the history of my married life.  Which was good and bad.  Good for obvious reasons, and bad because it made it incredibly hard to come back to Korea.  I didn't realize how challenging living overseas, and specifically in Korea, really is--we make a lot of sacrifices here that I had forgotten about until I was reminded by going home to the Promised Land.  Needless to say, I'm having a hard time trying to stay positive and keep my spirits up here in Korea, but I am trying to keep my sense of humor.  The following colored paragraphs are updates I shared with friends and family on Facebook and a little bit more elaboration for the purpose of this blog, which is in black:

"Learned a couple valuable lessons today: #1 When you go to the gym, do not choose the treadmill next to the old guy. During my 5th interval of tabata sprints, he let one rip and the horrific smell about shot me off the back of the treadmill as I gasped for clean air. #2 Women cannot multitask while on the phone as well as they think they can. Case in point, as I was engaged in making a very adamant point on the phone while crossing a busy intersection, a car ran into me and I fell onto the hood of the car. But because I could only concentrate on one thing, I got back up--still talking--and walked another half block before realizing what had just happened to me. #3 When a husband makes fun of a wife for having to learn lessons #1 & #2 the hard way, he has a very lonely night."

No, I didn't get hurt, thank goodness.  The person who ran into me did it on purpose.  He saw me and rolled his car right into me as I tried to cross the road.  What's up with that?  No one plays chicken with me and gets me to back down.  No way, I'll walk right over the top of your stinking Korean made car, buddy!  Ok, yeah, I was irritated.

"I know I always try to put a funny spin on my crazy life experiences, but today I just have to tell my sad series of unfortunate events with no humor. First I had a client that was, let’s say, severely socially challenged and I was exhausted after his session. Then when I needed to leave work to catch my train my boss cornered me to discuss the case. Rushing out late, I realized I lost my key card...

for the elevator and couldn’t get off the 25th floor. With only 20 minutes to take two subways and catch my train to Daegu, I sprinted in 4 inch heels with a suitcase through the stations. Reaching Seoul Station, I had 4 minutes to get to the train so I ran with every ounce of strength I had, with my wheeled suitcase trailing behind me. The suitcase bumped into someone’s leg and twisted, hitting a Korean man in the shoe. I yelled back, “I am so sorry!” as I kept running for my train. Just as I was almost to the train platform, I heard a man screaming, “Hey, you!” It was the same man. He grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let me go, yelling at me as loud as he could. I kept saying, “I said I was sorry. I don’t know what you want, I don’t speak Korean. Please let me go, I’m going to miss my train.” The man grew angrier and meaner and screamed more and wouldn’t let me leave. I started to cry and turn to people that were surrounding us, “Please, won’t someone help me? I can’t miss my train.” Finally, another man pushed him away from me and I sprinted away, barely making my train. I cried for another 20 minutes. All that for bumping into his shoe? I am so ready to come home to America where at least mean people can yell at me in my own language and I can say, “Are you freaking serious?” without any confusion."

 After this incident, I awoke with a blind spot in my right eye, just a few days before we flew to the states.  The symptoms were indicative of a detaching retina, so I had to go to the Korean emergency room for all kinds of testing.  I went in to the opthamologist and there was puke in the chin rest of the eye machine where they do tests.  No one would clean it, so I had to put my chin in it and then sanitize my entire face with the hand sanitizer in my purse afterward.  There were loads of hazardous waste and garbage strewn on the floors--near to the garbage cans, but not quite in them.  I was so grossed-out!  The good news was that it was not a detached retina, meaning I could still fly home without needing emergency surgery.  The bad news is that I have a cotton spot in my eye, which is generally found in people with diabetes or hypertension--neither of which I have.  That means that if I want to find out what is going on, I have to go back for more testing.  Forget it!  I've had my share of gross, overcrowded, Korean, socialized healthcare hospitals.  I'll try to hurry and get back to the States for testing before Obamacare turns U.S. hospitals into gross, overcrowded socialized healthcare hospitals.  Seriously though, it really only bothers me when I am very stressed out or sleep-deprived, so I'm trying to avoid those things as much as possible.

"After driving for a total of 16 hours, flying for 15 hours and waiting in airports for another 10 hours, we made it home to a series of calamaties. First, while driving in a monsoon storm back to Daegu, Chloe said, "Mom, it's raining inside the car, too." Someone had left the sunroof slightly cracked, the rain water had filled the ceiling of car for the last 3 weeks and it was leaking through th...

e upholstery onto their heads. Then our door lock was dead and this is the only way into the apartment--although Gwynyth did offer to scale the side up the building up from the 5th floor into an open window. I considered it for a minute while we were waiting for the realtor. We entered the apartment to the smell of death. Our fridge had somehow been turned off. A couple hundred dollars of food had rotted, molded and been infested with maggots. We scrubbed it with bleach, but I don't think it will ever be the same. It was so horrible. I think that the only thing that could've been worse was to find a neighbor dismembered in the freezer. . . but even that might not have been as gross as this, depending on who the neighbor was. . . . I also forgot the part where we retrieved one of our suitcases from baggage claim and it had a giant padlock placed on it. We were escorted to a special customs agent where we were asked to show them our shotgun and handgun. We had to unpack the entire bag to show them that it was Sophia's nerf arsenal. I think it's an omen that I'm not supposed to live here anymore!!!"

Everything is okay now in the house and car, but we're all around having a hard time being back!

"The old lady next to me on the train offered me a bean paste donut thing. I tried to say no, but realized she would be offended, so I accepted. Then she offered another and then another. . . and I had to keep eating them--because that's what you do in Korea. Ugh! I hate bean paste donut things!!! But I guess it sure beats mean old men chasing me down and screaming in my face."

This same old woman apparently wanted to take an nap undisturbed, so she pulled out her plastic rain jacket and put it on backward. She then pulled the hood over her face. But every couple of minutes, she'd gasp, lower the hood, take a deep breath and then put it back over her face. I kept thinking to myself, "What is it that she just isn't getting about this?"

"What a miserable summer for us with ineffective A/C, no where to go, no garbage disposal (which makes the house really stink), 100 degree temperatures and 90% humidity. This is making Georgia look good. I should not have come back to Korea! On the bright side, it's looking like we may get out of here sooner than we thought. . ."

I mentioned a few blog posts back about Brian being denied permission to leave Korea six weeks early to apply for his Orthopaedic Doctoral program through the Army, starting in June 2013.  We were so sad to hear that, but resigned ourselves to our fate of being in Korea for another year.  That's when I went and got a job and we decided to go home to visit family.  Well, the day before we returned back to Korea from the U.S.., Brian received a message that he had been accepted into the doctoral program--which was really ironic considering that he hadn't even finished the application process entirely because he thought it wasn't an option to go.  He contacted his branch manager who indicated that he may be able to go afterall if he puts in another request to leave.  It's not so simple as that may sound.  There are a lot of signatures and pieces that have to fall into place, but as of right now, things are looking really hopeful that we may actually be able to leave Korea this winter sometime.  Life is full of irony, and this time, I'm hoping it ironically works in our favor to get us out of here, because my desire to be in Korea has now run out!

Lest I sound like too much of a complainer, let me just say that I do try to stay busy and find things to make me hate it less.  We decided to go to the Boryeong Mud Festival on the west coast of Korea.  It was a beautiful drive and quite a bit of fun, until it got so crowded that we couldn't move or breathe or get anywhere without losing a child.

Playing in the mud was awesome, of course, as was washing it off in the ocean.  What was not fun, were all the Korean paparazzi photogs following us everywhere.  I don't know how famous people do it!  Seriously, it is so intrusive and obnoxious.  We should be used to it by now, because we've gotten this all over Asia--but no, it's still annoying as heck!

If you notice the crowds, well, that was BEFORE it actually got fully crowded.  I don't know what it is about Koreans (maybe Asians in general), but if they see a crowd of people where they can't move or breathe, they think, "Wow, that looks fun, we should go there!"  Whenever they advertise fun things to do in Korea, it always includes pictures or footage of places so densely crowded, you can barely see the scenery.  I don't get it.  I guess I am too American because I define fun as somewhere where I can actually move freely without smacking my head into someone.

The kids couldn't swim because of the thousands of people standing in the water.  Finally, we packed up and headed down the coast to a beach with only about a hundred people and the kids had a great time swimming.

On the way home, our friend's car got a flat tire.  My sexy husband, barefoot and covered in mud, got out on the side of the Korean highway and changed the tire for her.  I love funny little life moments like this.  True, it was kind of annoying that it happened, but such is life and it made for a great picture to remember that life gets a little messy sometimes!

So about my work. . . yeah, it's exhausting commuting six hours a day, or sometimes staying overnight in a hotel room by myself in Seoul.  Right now it is so hot that by the time I find a taxi to the train station, take a two hour train, descend seven floors into the basement to take my subway, ascend seven floors to the subway station, walk into my building and wait for the elevator to get to the 25th floor, I'm exhausted and dripping in sweat.  Then after working for eight hours, I get to do it all over again. 

I have had a really hard time building my clientele during the summer because it is only poor, flakey English teachers coming in for counseling.  It is high pressure, which is good and bad.  It is pushing me to really refine my skills, but it can be very discouraging and demoralizing at the same time.  I suppose most residents in any field would describe their training that way.  I think that the commute makes me much less patient with the situation.  I know it's a good experience for me, but I'm not sure how long I can keep this pace up with out self-destructing.

I do try to keep my sense of humor as well as my sense of wonder, even when things are difficult.  Above is a picture of the police that are assigned to the Dong Daegu train station.  They are called the "Nice" police.  I find this hilarious.  Can you imagine if the cops in New York City wore vests that said "nice" on the back? That'd go over really well!  Another thing that is funny is that the Koreans chose an English word to advertise their pleasantness--but they don't pronounce it the same way as English speakers.  Koreans say, "Nice-uh Police-uh."  If you say nice without the "uh" at the end, they'll correct you--as if all of us native English speakers have been saying wrong our entire lives.

This is the view from the employee room at my work.  I don't love big cities, but sometimes it is pretty amazing to look out over Seoul and think to myself, "Wow! This place is enormous!"

 Diamond had a birthday!  That's right, my little guy is now 9 years old.  I am such a terrible mother, though.  We were so tired from the mud festival the day before that we had lost track of day and time.  That is until about noon, when I looked at the computer and realized what day it was.  I felt so terrible about it that I decided to make a surprise party for him and act like I had it planned all along!  I cooked a cake, which Brian skillfully developed into a Pokemon type creature (Diamond's current life obsession is Pokemon).  We made a giant card, and Chloe got some art supplies as gifts at the art store under our apartment. 

 Fortunately for us, Diamond had also forgotten it was his birthday.  He was pleasantly surprised and thought it was the greatest day of his life!  I love how simple kids are--it really makes my life a lot easier.  Diamond is turning into such a sweet, talented kid.  A couple years ago, I spent a lot of my time wondering what in the world had made me think adoption was a good idea.  There was a lot of emotional giving (or more like being emotionally drained) on my part, and very little emotional give back from Diamond.  But that is very different now.  He gives me lots of hugs and kisses and is very helpful around the house.  I am really proud of him and the young man he is becoming.

The other night we found a giant obstacle course up on the side of the mountain in Daegu.  It's crazy dangerous, but seriously awesome stuff--like two story high ropes course and net bridges.  No place in America would have that open to the public for fear of litigation.  But we, being the high adventerers that we are, had a superb time. . . and didn't even wear helmets! 

I will soon update my trip to Utah, and I hope to soon know some details about when and where we may be moving next--but knowing the Army that may take a couple months.