My Very Own Apartment!

I realize it has been quite some time since I last updated you on the adventure that is my life these days. So although so very much has happened, I am going to try to stick to just one thing: my new apartment!

That's right folks! As of 2pm today Megan officially has her very own apartment in Seoul! It's like I really live here or something. I've been living in (very nice) temporary housing for the last month. It was a lovely, spacious penthouse type apartment but it was completely empty and it wasn't mine. I think that was a psychological block. I was living out of a suitcase for a month! I unpacked the essentials but left everything else in the bags until I moved into "my place".  I didn't realize how much it was getting me down until I got into my own place today.

This place isn't a palace, in fact it is a very small studio. But it is mine, and I already love it so much.

#1 reason I love it? Wood floors.

Let me repeat myself.

Wood. Floors.

I think those are commonplace in Seoul, but in the ghettos of Los Angeles they are NOT and I have been lusting after some wood fucking floors for about 5 years now. Finally they are mine. I guess patience really is a virtue. Mama was right.

Also, I now live by myself. Commence absurdity. Commence constant nudity. What? I'm alone behind a locked door. Shit is going to get weird.

I would like to back up, I have been blessed with a series of absolutely wonderful roommates over the last 5 years. People who were patient with my antics, agreeable, and generally easy to live with. But for the last year I have been longing for the solitude of my own place. I am an introvert and introverts need our time alone to recharge. This will be my nest and I am so excited to start setting it up.

Tonight, however, I am being Korean and sleeping on the floor. And not only I am I sleeping on the floor, oh no, I am sleeping on a pile of my jackets on the floor. Complete with airplane neck pillow.

What can I say? I'm a classy bitch.

But the apartment came with a really nice desk and bookshelf. 

All I want to pick up is a mat to sleep on, and some drawers for clothes, something to hang clothes from. Maybe a table. A sofa even... I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Mostly I need storage.

Anyway I'm super excited about my new place. Its adorable and me sized (except even in Korea I can't reach the stupid top shelf in the kitchen cabinets, short girl problems).

Tomorrow the scavenger hunt around Seoul commences. Objective: furnish this apartment. I'll bring my camera and hopefully return with lots of amusing stories and pictures.

I love you all and miss Los Angeles very much. But moving into this apartment just made Seoul feel that much more like home.

Week 3: Homesickness, Epic Partytime, Magical Hiking

I cannot believe I have already been here for 3 weeks. Time is flying. And it is amazing to see myself becoming more familiar with (parts of) Seoul. As a man said to me in the subway tonight "I have lived here for 40 years and still feel like I am new". This city is gigantic.

 Teaching is going well. Oh, except I gave one class the middle finger. They were being brats. It was an instinctive reaction. I heard someone sassing me so I flipped them off. Then I realized that "someone" was a 14 year old Korean boy. It all ended in laughter but I did have a brief moment of panic right after doing it.

 So much to talk about.

 I had my first true bout of homesickness this weekend. No matter how much I love it here, there is no escaping the fact that I have moved across the world. I am in a new country where very few people speak my language. Every day I am forced to adapt and every day is challenging. Simple things like ordering food become huge accomplishments. And making friends, which is happening, is happening slowly. A long day of miscommunication without friends to share it with can be emotionally exhausting. So this Saturday I had my first experience of laying in bed, looking at pictures of LA and holding back tears thinking about all of you, my wonderful friends. Also thinking about the mountains, and the freeways, and all sorts of nonesense. But then I talked to Josh on skype, laughed it off, and went out to party in Hongdae.

 I am glad I am able to experience the homesickness and move on. But I wanted to include it in this post so that I can a) be honest with both myself and all of you, and b) include it for those of you who are considering doing what I am doing. My advice is DO IT! But don't expect it to be easy, it's not, but nothing really worth doing is easy.

 Okay HONGDAE.

Party neighborhood north of the river, across the city from me. I went out there for the first time Saturday night. Super fun. It's a college area so very full of young hipsters (but all of Seoul really seems to be...) The party was thrown by a guy that I actually had met back in LA, he is a UCLA (sucks) grad who lived with some people from the marching band. The party was SUPER fun. I had a blast! It was in a converted garage/warehouse type of setting with lots of graffiti and a really grungy, underground feel. Totally my style. Met lots of cool ex pats AND met a Korean guy. I convinced him to take me out to eat after the party so I got to try a new kind of Korean food WITH a Korean (this is the best way to do pretty much anything in Korea, I am discovering).

We ate 설렁탕

 설렁탕 (Seoullangtang) is a local dish of Seoul. It is a soup with a white broth that they cook overnight. It is made from ox bone and had some kind of beef in it, and noodles. And then we added rice and salt and kimchi and it was soooo yummy. I love love love the food here. And I'm sorry I did not have my camera with me this night so there are no pictures.

 BUT NOW If you are still with me and want to keep reading I will describe the most WONDERFUL hike in the world... with way too many pictures.

 So this weekend I hiked 관악산 (Gwanaksan) 산 (san) is the word for mountain. It was so incredibly beautiful! So first I walked from the subway station over a big hill (the directions said to take a bus but buses still frighten me a bit... so I walked) and got my first view of the mountain that I was going to climb.

I walked down the hill to Seoul National University and then proceeded to get lost for a bit looking for the entrance. By following some older Koreans in hiking gear I managed to find this:

For those of you who cannot tell, that would be a hole cut into a chain link fence. I figured since the Koreans were doing it, it was okay. I got some funny stares from old Korean men on the other side, but  I think that was because I was foreign, and not because I was crawling through a fence.

Once through the fence, I had to confront my second obstacle:

Fording the river. For good measure:

Thankfully Korean people are super nice and some men on the other side pointed me to the easiest way across. (Not pictured.. sorry)

I carried on up the stairs and found myself on a wide paved road in the woods littered with Koreans in hiking gear. I headed in the "uphill" direction and hoped for the best.

Thankfully I saw this helpful sign! "A path up a mountain" is literally what it says. I love the english translations on signs here, they are always fantastic. So I followed the path up the mountain, it was lovely and went alongside various streams that fed into the river I had to ford at the beginning. 

All along the way I saw Korean families having picnics, both in pagodas like the one pictured above, and also on any spare empty rocks along the path or even in the river. Its customary in Korea to buy some gimbap or other food and beer and magkeolli (Korean rice wine) and then hike up most of (or hardly any of) a mountain, drink, eat and be merry. I really love the Korean approach to hiking.

Alright so another note about Korean hiking: in America we build our trails with switchbacks, to make the going a bit easier as we climb giant hills. This either didn't occur to the Koreans, or it did, and they just prefer every hike they ever do to be a kind of outdoor stairmaster.

Regardless I was booking it up this hill. Mostly because I had other shit to do that day, but also because it just begged to be booked up.

Almost at the top!

The top was a mystical, religious experience, as the tops of most mountains around Seoul seem to be for me. Not only did I have this spectacular view:

And this one:

And this one:

(Added my feet for good measure, to prove I'm actually the one behind the camera)

But while I was up here alone on top of a gorgeous mountain in Seoul I could hear the sound of Buddhist monks chanting from a temple in the distance. Seriously.

I'm in fucking Asia right now.

That thought goes through my head at least once a day, and especially when things like the sound of Buddhist chanting are part of my average weekend.

In case I needed further evidence that I belong here, I saw this on the way back down.

Some women selling food and produce at the bottom of the mountain.  I bought 김밥 (gimbap) which is essentially Korean sushi for my post-hike snack.

Oh also, for your amusement:

That would be a truck selling hiking shoes at the bottom of the mountain. There were also stands selling knock off north face apparel. For the Koreans hiking is a time to show off your gear, its sort of like an outdoorsy fashion show. Its all about status, as most things in Korea.. or at least Seoul, seem to be. I don't have fancy dry-fit clothing, but I've got my trusty hiking boots so I don't feel too out of place.

In fact I feel like Korea fits me like a glove. Except for the fact that I'm foreign. I wish I could take pictures of the Korean's faces when they notice me coming up the hill. It's priceless every time.

And just because I haven't posted one yet, here is a picture of a somewhat typical street in Seoul (main road, the alleys are a bit different)

Alright if you actually made it all the way to this point in this post, I applaud you. I realize it was a bit of a marathon post (and I was trying to keep it short!) so thank you for reading!

I'll try to update more often in the future or something. Maybe.

Till next time!

Gangnam Style

I survived my first week of teaching. In fact, I would go so far as to say I destroyed my first week of teaching. They threw a lot of curveballs at me. First off, I am not teaching the levels I was trained to teach. The good thing is that all the classes are basically the same, just some more difficult than others. In the hours before each class I sat in my classroom frantically prepping for class getting more and more nervous but once class started and I got into my groove I really enjoyed myself. I think I’m actually going to like this job. I got to teach a master’s level class on Friday called issue debate. I didn’t know I was going to be teaching it until 10 minutes before I had to start, so I literally had no time to prepare. The class had four boys in it all of them fluent in English. It was really relaxing, we talked about domestic surveillance for a while until they ran out of things to say, and then we talked about whatever I could think of. I asked them their opinions on North Korea, Reunification, Japan (that was interesting, they really don’t like the Japanese) and all sorts of things.

My job is great. The kids are adorable. Some of them are annoying but the adorable ones make up for it. Oh, and they are terrified of me since I am new, white, blond, and a woman, so I’m using that to my advantage while I still can.

Moving on to the more interesting topic… Seoul’s nightlife.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. Balls.

This city is insane. Let’s just stick to Saturday, shall we?

I went for a hike with 2 people from work. They are really nice and have taken me under their wing pretty thoroughly (without their help I would NEVER have survived this week). And they are very fun. So hiking; apparently Koreans love to get to the top of the mountain, drink a bottle of rice wine, then walk back down. We neglected to get the rice wine, so we had to wait to start drinking until we got back to their place. So we started drinking at 2pm, which according to my friends was “really late” for a Saturday. Love it.

Drank all day, went out to eat multiple times. Including this dish called 부대찌개

Pronounced Bu-Dae Jiggae, translated “army base soup”. It’s a thick stew. During the Korean War the US army base threw out a lot of food, including macaroni noodles, bits of hot dogs, spam, and beans. The Koreans put all these leftovers into a stew and called it Army Base Stew. It was delicious! All the food here is delicious, I have yet to try something I don’t like. But I’m still looking.

So we hang out at one girl’s apartment. I met a whole slew of people all of whom were nice. We watched the Olympics (the only event I saw was rhythmic gymnastics, of this entire Olympics. I have now decided I must learn how to ribbon dance).

Around 11ish we decide to go out. The original movement was towards Itaewon (the international district) but we ended up staying in Gangnam instead.

Got to Gangnam, thought we were going to go straight to a club but none of us were drunk enough for that. So we bought some bottles of Soju and stood around drinking them on the street. No funny looks, this is standard behavior for Korea.

Decided no club yet, went to a bar called Woodstock that just plays classic rock songs, you can request anything. I don’t think there was a single Korean in the bar, entirely ex-pats. I met an English guy who has been in Korea for 6 years and doesn’t know any Korean. Each year, he said, he signs on for “one more year”. And this year is his 6^th. I think I’m going to be here for a long time.

The bar was fun. They played Bohemian Rhapsody. Epic sing-alongs were had.

Then we left the bar and I very enthusiastically requested we go to the club. At this point I am still with a group of 7 or so people. It is 3:30am.

I walk into the club with only one other person. I immediately order a Long Island. I would like to repeat at this point in our story it is 3:30am.

In the club the FIRST song I hear is Gangnam Style. Yes. The club is all electronic music.

All the Koreans stand in lines facing the stage. I stood up on the balcony watching them all. It looks like an American club only different. A Korean boy starts talking to me. He ends up taking me home. Riding in the cab with me, walking me to my door and saying goodnight. I get home a little before 6am. The sun is coming up.

It was so wonderful to have a guy take me home with no strings attached. He was just being nice. In some ways Korea today is a bit like 1950’s America in terms of gender relations. In terms of technology and some other things they are way ahead of us. But gender relations are still pretty retro. Luckily I’m not a Korean woman, I’m a terrifying blonde foreigner so I can get away with not being all passive and demure. But it was still really refreshing to have a guy be genuinely nice without expectations of getting something in return.

Sunday involved a massive hangover and lots of Ramen.

I absolutely love it here. I do get homesick for certain things from the US, especially Los Angeles, I miss her so much, but I know she isn’t going anywhere, and in a year I’ll have that same level of attachment to Seoul.

Tata for now my loves.

Seoul: First Impressions

Hey guys,

This is my third attempt to write my first blog post. The problem being each time I sit down to write it more has happened, so I have to either eliminate some stuff, or write a novel. I think it’ll probably end up being a novel.

So first, my arrival was not without its struggle. I had to take a bus from Incheon to the apartment where I (thought) I would be staying for 1 week. Stayed on the bus 3 stops too long. I’ve got all my possessions with me, it is hot, I am sweating, I do not speak Korean, I am panicking. Luckily Koreans are SUPER nice to foreigners so some girl looked at my bus ticket, hailed a cab for me, and explained to the cab driving where to take me. Amazing. So I get to the apartment and  turns out I’m here in this apartment until September, but whatever. It is a super nice apartment, like nothing I could afford, however there is NOTHING in it. As in my first night in Korea was spent sleeping on a pile of blankets. Nightmare scenario? Check.

The apartment was also without a working stove, hot water, or internet. Winning.

I now have a mattress and all of the above things. But no furniture, whatsoever. I think I dream about tables.

Okay so teaching is really difficult. Think back to all those teachers you maybe hated or loved in middle school, the ones that gave you a tough time or who were really nice… they are all HEROES! And intelligent people, it takes a lot to figure out exactly how to teach little kids! I’m on day 3 and it is a struggle. The kids don’t give me feedback so it is hard to understand if I am going through the material too quickly or too slowly or what. And my night classes, from 7-10, are like pulling teeth. The kids will NOT engage in the class. At the end of last night’s class they sat around showing me their phones.

Oh that’s another thing, I don’t have a phone. I know for a fact I had a dream last night about getting a phone. I can get a prepaid one right now, but can’t get a plan until I get my Alien Registration Card on August 27^th. Once I do though, I’m for sure getting that new Samsung galaxy III.

Guys, Korea is fucking awesome. This place is outrageously cool. It has hiking, I hiked to the top of a mountain and got the most amazing view of Seoul.

It also has the most delicious food ever. I’m obsessed with Korean food. I’ve had KBBQ twice now, incredible both times. And this dish called Galbi twice, at least I think that is the name. The language barrier makes dining out a bit daunting. But I will learn the language. My job is just so intense right now I don’t have the headspace to think about what I want to eat, let alone learning a new language.

Oh also, they make AMAZING pastries here. A shop called Paris Baguette is on literally every corner and they have a HUGE selection of the most delicious pastries. Also they have salads, I realized that a few days ago and it significantly increased the quality of my life. You really need to search for fresh vegetables here, in the market they are pretty expensive. Anyway my favorite pastry is a garlic sweet potato one. I just had it for breakfast. In America I never really craved pastries and never ate them, but for some reason here they are my go to comfort food.

Okay one more thing before this turns into an essay…the nightlife here is INSANE. And I haven’t even been to a club yet. The bars never close. Seriously. There is no last call. Koreans just drink all day erry day. And the clubs stay open until 8AM!!! 8AM!!!!!! I walked around Gangnam last Saturday night just watching all the drunk people make fools of the themselves. Also there are no open container laws.

Basically Soeul makes NYC look like child’s play. And electronic music is huge. So I think I’m going to be very, very happy here.

Thanks for reading! I know that was a whirlwind update without too many specifics but I’ll try to update with my frequency so that you guys can hear some of the ridiculous stories from my life in Seoul.

Much love

(PS: Blogspot has decided my name is Sensual Destruction, I'm not sure why but the internet has spoken, so let's go with it)