Keeping it Real, or What I do, or Surviving the Heat, or whatever fits

With the end of August, comes the end of one of the most trying times of the year.

Summer.

Summer used to stand for something fun. It used to stand for reposing, relaxing, partying, family trips. Every single year, summer used to be what we lived for. But that was years ago, and I haven't had a summer break in... enough years to stop missing it.

It would be nice to have that break back, sure. But no, it's not because of work that summer has become the hardest time of the year for me. It isn't because it isn't really summer anymore.

It's because I can't stand the heat.

If you know me personally, you know how much I can't stand the summer heat. I complain about it on a daily basis, and I will continue to complain about it for the rest of my life. I'm just not a summer weather kind of person. And I've grown up in hot places all my life... you could argue I should get used to it.

But no. Never.

This year, South Korea was hit with their hottest summer in 106 years according to this article. And to be honest, I don't doubt it. It was absolutely terrible and I spent most of my time indoors, pumping up that AC and that electric bill. And I couldn't have survived it any other way. Getting out of the house for a five minute walk to the supermarket took a lot of preparation mentally and physically. I'm not even over reacting. I can not stand the heat and this summer was exhausting and draining.

I spent a lot of time indoors. "Living for the weekend" was put on hold and it really was just getting through it.

So not a lot of exploring. Not a lot of adventuring.
So here are some of the things I did to get through this horrid time of the year.

Reading
I read avidly regardless, but during this time my reading time increased significantly. I read a total of five books in two months - which is a recent personal best.
One of my little successes was getting through the first book in "The Wheel of Time" series, "The Eye of the World". 
I'm a fantasy freak, and I had this series recommended by several friends. They always would always warn me of how much of a commitment it was, because of how many books there were and just the length of it. They would also tell me that it's one of those series that you have to get through the first couple of books before you get to that hooked moment.
Am I hooked? Not particularly. Will I keep reading? Sure thing. I'm in need for an epic fantasy series. Could this be it? arvitsi.

Another fun one that I really enjoyed was "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman. I've always really enjoyed Gaiman's books, and I would highly recommend anything that has his name in it - but I would definitely say to pick this one before any other. I always find myself giddy when I go into his worlds.

Other books I got through that I would recommend:
- The Beach by Alex Garland

- The Summer of the Ubume by Natsuhiko Kyogoku

- Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) 

And I am currently getting through a collection of folk tales from East Asia, because, why not?

Watching

I haven't really been spending a lot of time into watching shows or movies - I never really do on my own. I usually have someone recommend me a show or a movie, or I'm being forced to watch something and then I get hooked (my brother is usually the perpetrator).
I have been watching Orange is the New Black, although it's mostly background noise. To be honest I couldn't really tell you most of the character names, although I know what's happening. Decent show, good for background noise.

Stanger things, now that was fun. A short enough series... way too short. But highly enjoyed it!

A highlight of movies that I've seen is Mongol. A fantastic Russian film about the greatest Mongol of all time, played by a Japanese actor. Honestly though, one of my favorite movies I've seen this year. 

Others

Haven't really done anything much worth saying. But then again people would comment that reading and watching isn't something worth saying, specially on a blog. But that's life - life is filled with these moments where time passes and you get to choose what to do with those moment. And a book or a good movie can be just as time worthy as an adventure in the back yard or on the other side of the world. It's what you make of it, isn't it? 

What I known and what I thought I knew

I am almost 6 months into my one year contract teaching in Korea.
Almost.
But I'm desperate to round the numbers and tell myself that I am halfway there. Halfway there is still a month away.

It's not that I want to get out. It's not like I'm ready to get out of South Korea and not look back. I am enjoying my time here; my weekends and my trips. There is a lot planned for the next couple of months and a lot more planned for when the contract is actually over: I have mountains to climb, a winter (a real cold winter!) to tackle through, and two more trips set before the year is over. It's just that weeks are long and once again I find that my job is getting the best of me.

You think you learn. I wrote about this before, about not letting a job taint your experience abroad. And everyday I remind myself to not let it happen. And maybe it's harder because it's happening at the present moment; or maybe this is just something that I am not cut out to be.

But then I remind myself of something I know and some other things I wish I could've kept in mind at the beginning of this adventure: 

1) I know that I am a good teacher.

    I know I can bond with my students, and  I know that I can do my job professionally and         enjoyably. I've done it before. 

2) The private schools in Asia (in my personal experience and from what I have gathered from other teachers) is first and foremost a business. Meaning that money will always come before education. I once had a serious conversation with a previous boss about this, about how uncomfortable it was for me to realize that my students were just dollar signs and how I didn't believe that you could form a balance between the two: the business side and the education side. He argued that he believed that these two sides of a private school could easily go hand in hand, and that I should try to see how education benefits from business and the other way around. He did admit that it was hard to achieve this balance and he'd only really seen it briefly throughout his 8+ years of teaching experience.

3) With that in mind, schools in Asia, private schools specifically, will see foreigners as an asset. Your professionalism or your experience is secondary and maybe, sometimes, if you're unlucky absolutely worthless.

4) It's all worth it. The bullshit and the stress, it really is worth it.

I decided to write this because I recently had a conversation with a good friend. She asked me if I would recommend coming to teach to Korea.

It took me a moment to answer straight away. 

I would say it's not for everybody. I would say you come to work and not necessarily to adventure 24/7. I would say everybody should give it a try. But I would say be careful. Do the research, read contracts, and be assertive.

I won't let this beat me.
Not this time.

Meditations

This is an idea I stole from a really good friend of mine, about a year ago. He used to write these "meditations" where he would just go deep into something that intrigued him, bothered him, made him curious and just wrote anything and everything that came into his mind.

Or maybe that was how I read it, but he's got more structure than I do when it comes to writing.

But that is a type of writing that I learned from him that I haven't done in a long time. A type of writing that I really enjoyed doing. I would get my little notebook and just get on with it, write anything and everything that came into my mind, and I loved it.

Lately, what I've been writing on a regular basis is my best and worst of the day, budgeting, lists of all sorts, budgeting and more budgeting. And I'm kinda disappointed by that. Back when I used to write on a daily basis, creatively and actively, I used to come up with things that I could be proud of - things I would take to other and ask them to read them over, to get critiqued over - I used to write things that would make me excited, excited to keep writing.

Gosh, it has been so long.

I am happy that I have this blog, but this isn't the place to write how I used to. This isn't where I would write my stories. And maybe that's my mistake, maybe I should get over this idea of what blogging is supposed to be, of what a blog should have and just write whatever the hell I want to write.

But it's in my notebooks. That's where I need to get back on - get over being obsessed with money and get back to my stories, get back to getting stuck in my head and writing everything out.

I once wrote about spending too much time thinking. Not a good thing, never a good thing. But one of the best 'meditations' I ever wrote. It relaxed me. Spending too much time thinking is when things stop being wonderful... it's when they stop being. I tend to over analyze any possible angle of a situation, of a theme, of an idea or of a feeling and then I ruin it. I stop feeling in the way things and experiences should be felt.

About 6 years ago I took a college class that changed my perspective and that changed my life. (Thank you, Professor Pipkin) and the most important thing that I got from that class was to let yourself be overwhelmed with emotions and know that you can experience something new everyday but those experiences stop becoming new immediately after. And that is life. But an old experience carries just as much of an emotion as a new one, if not even more. Depending on how you think about it.

I want to go back to being inspired by thoughts like that.
I'm getting back on it. 

Getting Out of Seoul Pt. 2; Crowds at the Yellow sea and a deserted City

One thing to be grateful for:
2016 was a good year to teach in Korea. 

Why? Well, there's a couple of national holidays that fell on a Friday or a Monday.
Meaning, three day weekends.

Yaaaay.

There are some things to consider when taking a trip within Korea, specially on a national holiday.

1) Everybody is going to be traveling. Everybody.
    There will be a massive migration out of Seoul and into the rest of the country. Chances 
    are that if you don't plan ahead, things will be booked; hostels, pensions, buses, you name 
    it.
2) When, and if you find somewhere free to stay, there is a huge chance that you won't find a
     quiet place - no matter where you go.
3) Most Koreans are used to the crowds. Personal space is nonexistent and your bubble
     won't be acknowledged.  

Logically speaking, I should have known all three of these points before this last weekend. I should've known.

I started researching places to go about three to maybe four weeks ago. And I couldn't find a single place to stay... everything was sold out or stupidly expensive. I was starting to think that I had waited too long to actually score anything for this precious three day weekend. But thankfully, I found a place on a city close by to one of the national parks that was on my Korean  bucket list. 

Taean National Park is a little bit over two hours away from Seoul, and it's got around 26 beaches and a bunch of beautiful eco trails. Coworkers said it was beautiful, and I really wanted to be able to get to it before it got too cold. However, nothing was open for that city, but I did find a nice and affordable place to stay in a city 20 minutes east from Taean.

Seosan is - in my own personal standards - a pretty big city with a population of over 140,ooo people. However, in compare-everything-to-Seoul-standards, BOY what a difference.

Getting off the bus (after a little bit over an hour stuck in traffic; like I said, mass migration) and walking through the city... let me see if I can encompass the shock...
- Half of the shops were closed, maybe even more than half the shops. In the middle of the day.
- There were no people. Literally. The streets were quiet, and they stayed quiet. Of course you had the odd old lady turning into the street here and there, or the couple sitting under some shade, but the lack of people was mind blowing. It was perfect.

We didn't explore much Seosan, since not much came up while researching this place. We stopped at Seosan to sleep, but our main destination was Taean. We stayed at a cheap hotel, and the young man working in that hotel (Seosan Hotel) was one of the friendliest, nicest persons I have met while being here. He was hospitable, he wanted to help and he went out of his way to make sure that we were exactly where we wanted to be. Honestly, you don't find that in a busy, each man for himself city like Seoul. Not to say that they aren't friendly, just to say that no one really seems to have the time to help.

Aside from walking around Seosan for a few and the hotel, nothing much to say about the city, except that the quiet and the peace it gave me was one of the best things about this weekend. 

Taean was a completely different story.

The park was beautiful and I really enjoyed the sea breeze and the trails. Oh, gosh the trails. The trees were so beautiful, and again - they really give you the possibility of escape and just be alone in the midst of it all. And they were everywhere. The beaches were insanely overcrowded: tents were set up all over the beaches, all over the camps, and an overwhelming amount of pensions were set throughout the entire beach side.
Now, you ought to know by now, I am not a fan of crowds.
I am also not a fan of heat. None whatsoever.
And it was hot.

If it had been just a couple of thousand degrees cooler, I would have been happy getting lost in those trails and just walking throughout the entire coast. Because surprisingly... you could get lost. You could feel alone in those trails. I could have been okay with the crowds, but the heat. The heat just killed me. In fact, the heat has been killing me all summer. 


Would I go back to Taean National Park? If 
the weather was cooler, absolutely. It is close enough to Seoul to make it a decent day trip. Would I return to Seosan? Probably not, but I would urge anyone who would ever find themselves in that little city to stay at the Seosan Hotel and meet Chan (spelling could be embarrassingly incorrect). 

Out of Order; Out of Korea

When I first started this blog, I made a conscious mental note to not let it take over my life. And thankfully, it hasn't happened - and to be honest, I feel like it would be very hard for that to actually happen. I guess what I mean is that I didn't want to let the thought of "This is blog-worthy" take over and override the moment; the moment itself of just being.

However, I have enjoyed keeping this blog. And I'm happy to be writing in it again.

It has been a month since my last post. And I wish I could say that's because I was out and about and so busy being and living. In truth, July was a month of recovery. It has been one of the hardest months I have ever gone through in a long time, and I wanted nothing more than to go home. No matter how much I dislike my job abroad or how uncomfortable and out of place I feel while living in another country, I have never felt the need to go back as strongly as I did last month.

Thankfully, it's over. August is here, and I'm back on track. Back to living, back to writing, back to the routine.

A trip outside of the country definitely helped.
Which is what I want this blog to be about.

For the first plane trip outside of South Korea, we headed towards Mongolia for five days. And it couldn't have come a better time.

 

I enjoy cities, I do. But personally, nothing compares to the vastness of land with nothing but plains, mountains, trees, sky and the absence of civilization. Cities have all the comforts I have grown used to, and true, it would be very hard to give that all up in order to live in the country, but the more I've been exposed to these kind of places, the more I believe this is where I could be the happiest.

Even in Ulaanbaatar, not necessarily a small city for my standards, but definitely smaller than Seoul - the absence of people and noise was a welcomed blessing. People walked as if they weren't rushed, people walked looking ahead and not down to their phones. Even in the capital, there was a sense of tranquility you rarely find in Seoul. Don't get me wrong, it's there, but not as obvious as in Ulaanbaatar. There wasn't an overwhelming much to do in the city; we went to the National Museum and to the Dinosaur museum where they have a full fossil of the closest relative of the Tyrannosaurs Rex - the Tarbosaurus. 

You don't go to Mongolia without appeasing your nerdy-dinosaur-geek-kiddie-but-not-really-self and go to see the dinosaur museum. You just don't. There were also a bunch of neat little restaurants and shops around the center of town. 

However, if I find myself back in Mongolia (which I fully intend to), I would not go back to the city. You don't go to Mongolia to stay in the city.

It's outside of the city where things truly get beautiful. There was a lot of Georgia that came back.

* The suicidal cows crossing highways

* Crazy AF drivers (honestly, up there with the Georgians)
* The vast absence of buildings and houses along the roads and highways
* The friendliness of people

But there was also a lot of uniqueness about Mongolia. There were yaks and camels and horses; wild horses and domesticated horses. There were birds, massive birds that would set themselves wherever they wished without worrying if there were people close by; there was sand, there were sand dunes; there was silence and there was music from an instrument made of horse hair. There were yurts on backyards, yurts on the city, yurts everywhere but never overcrowding. There were people who move, the land of the nomads, children under the age of six riding horses, there was an ancestry of the one of the most powerful conquerors that have ever lived. There was a rock shaped like a turtle; there were women monks, and there were mountain temples. The land of the big sky they call it, and boy oh boy, it truly is. 

Not enough time there. Never enough time.

Oh. And there was a Georgian food restaurant.