Afterburn and Seoraksan

It’s a rainy Monday and I’m sitting in my local coffee shop, Coffee Avenue, drinking a delicious and adorably presented latte and trying to decide on what to write this blog post. The trouble is there are so many great happenings in my life that I could choose from:

How about the hiking group I found, Climbing in Korea. Not only do they go on challenging, beautiful hikes, but also they are a group of friends who are not only wonderful people but accepting to boot! I hiked Dobongsan with this group and felt like I had found the community I have been looking for here in Korea. Afterwards a bunch of us went to an international festival in Itaewon (a neighborhood in Seoul) and spent a great night hanging out in the street and in bars. Even though I had just met all of them that day, it felt like I was hanging out with a group of close friends. That was a truly wonderful Saturday.

Or I could blog about the Monday I spent last week walking around Insadong street market with my friend Phoebe. This market sells traditional Korean folk art, Buddhist icons, contemporary art by Korean artists, traditional Korean food, and just about everything Korean you could want. It’s a truly wonderful neighborhood and so much fun to explore! It made for a great photography adventure as well.

Or I could tell you all about the incredible yoga studio that I joined! It’s called Celebrity Yoga (yeah okay, the name is a little goofy) and it is run by this beautiful soul Ball. He’s not from Korea, in fact I’m not sure where he is from, but he is an incredible Yogi. His classes are challenging but also welcoming. I can feel myself getting stronger every week. It probably helps that I go every day of the week except Mondays. It is really fantastic to feel my body getting strong again. And beyond that, experiencing my body through yoga is really improving my self-esteem and increasing my self love.

Oh, I KNOW! I’ll tell you about the indie-rock festival that a Korean guy took me to a couple weekends back. It was called the Ssamzie-Sound Festival and on its 14^th year, it is the oldest music festival in Korea. It was SO much fun! I jumped around in a mosh pit to a Korean punk band, threw my hair around headbanging to a Korean metal band, and saw a performance by a legendary Korean band. Every Korean in the crowd had their arms around the shoulders of the people next to them singing along to every song.

Oh man, or I could tell you about my trip to the Zoo with my friend Patrick! Arg, I can’t even write a little cutesy paragraph about that day. Hopefully I’ll actually blog about it. The zoo here was really awesome.

Shoot guys, I’ve written almost an entire page just telling you about the things I’m NOT going to blog about in this post.

In my day-to-day life, I’ve made a breakthrough in teaching. I am finally figuring out HOW to teach. It is increasing my enjoyment of my job so much more than I can say. I’m learning what questions to ask the kids to guide them to the right answer without just telling them the right answer. In response, my classes are more fun and I can tell that the kids are understanding the material, whereas before I felt like I was just overwhelming them.

Unfortunately I don’t respect the business practices of the company that I work for. But that’s Korea’s private Academy system for you.

Now that I’ve written a page long introduction, I’ll get to the actual events that I planned to blog about today, how’s that sound?

As with all weekends here in Korea, this weekend was full of exciting new adventures.

Saturday: Korean Burn Afterburn Party

You will remember, or if you don’t allow me to remind you that early in September I went to an event on the west coast of Korea called Korea Burn, a regional “Burning Man” inspired event here in Korea. It was a wonderful weekend full of beautiful souls and included Megan partying way too hard.

Well this weekend was the Afterburn party held here in Seoul, in one of the biggest party neighborhoods, Hongdae.

The party started with a Potluck. And fun fact about Megan, I LOVE to cook! Cooking is one of my favorite activities, and I love taking traditional recipes and getting crazy with them. So for the potluck I decided to make curried lentils (so sort of like an Indian Dahl, but curry flavored) with cabbage, sweet potatoes, and persimmons! It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

The pot luck was really delicious. There was a great mix of food Korean and foreign (okay, mostly foreign) and I got to reconnect with friends from the Korea Burn. It was great to see them again after a month apart.

The potluck ran from 7-10. I got there about 8. My friend Patrick came with me. He should probably feature in this blog more often since he’s basically my best friend in Korea and we hang out several times a week. So anyway now my readers know Patrick. Moving on…

10-11 was the “Open Stage” portion of the night. I brought my flowpoi with me to dance so I signed up to do glow poi. However, an absolutely inspirational spinner by the name of Shin was running the event. We had met in passing before but this weekend was the first time we really had a chance to talk. He generously offered to let me use his fire poi. So I got to SPIN FIRE! It was SO fun and felt amazing to dance with fire again. I had missed it so much. I managed to leave my fire poi in Massachusetts on the morning I left for Korea last July, so that is why I have been disconnected from that art form during my time here.

A video is on its way, I just don't have that yet.

So I danced with fire. I got very good feedback from people in the audience. That is always nice to have. My friends Kali and Caroline danced with a fire hoop, both of them were beautiful! And then Shin spun poi. I can’t even put into words how absolutely incredible he is with fire poi. Watching him set my soul on fire and I finally feel inspired to start practicing again. His dancing reminded me why I started in the first place.

The rest of the night was spent dancing and laughing with friends. A really spectacular Saturday. Unfortunately I had to leave early because I had signed up for a trip to Seoraksan National Park the next day and needed to wake up at 6:30am.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Trojan Marching Band for conditioning me to be able to party hard until the wee hours of the morning, and then wake up at 6:30 and fight the fuck on through a long day.

Sunday: Seoraksan National Park

So Seoraksan National Park. I had been hearing about this place since I got here in July and knew that I wanted to make it out there before winter hit. The park is, I think, only 2-3 hours from Seoul without traffic. We left Seoul at 8am and were hiking by 10:30. A real trip to climb Seorak Mountain (San = Mountain) usually takes 2 days, or at least you need to start hiking at 5am, so we were doing a short hike by Seoraksan standards.

But we were not alone.

I kid you not, I have never seen so many Koreans hiking at the same time. It was a beyond ridiculous but made for a very amusing day.

Except near the top, where we were all crammed onto a wooden platform. On a normal day this platform is probably a great place to take in the view. On this day, it was a great place to feel like livestock.

Myself and a few other people from the group decided to take a “quick” (read: 30 minutes) detour to the top peak of this hike. The view from up there was truly incredible. But all the views all day were incredible.

 

Hiking down we encountered the most traffic. It was literally stop and go on these stairs on the way down. The traffic was caused by places in the trail that were slightly perilous and so only one person could walk through it at a time. Again, on a normal day this would not be a problem. But when most of the population of Korea is on the mountain, it caused some traffic.

But why, you may ask, was the entire population at Seoraksan on this particular weekend?

This weekend was supposed to be the best for fall foliage in Seoraksan. And once we’d made it up and over the pass the foliage started to show itself and let me tell you, it was worth it.

I was born and raised in New England and as such I am no stranger to Autumn. In fact, it is my favorite season. But I’ve spent the last 5 years living in Los Angeles in perpetual Summer. This weekend for me was almost like a rebirth experience. Being in among the fall leaves, smelling crisp autumn air and watching the colorful leaves blow in the wind was cathartic on so many levels. I spent a good hour walking by myself along the canyon taking pictures of leaves and feeling so spiritually connected with the Earth. It was beautiful.

The end of the hike was an absolutely stunning walk along a stream at the bottom of a canyon. Gorgeous foliage. Gorgeous views. And thankfully no traffic.

Afterwards we all went to a restaurant to drink beer and eat dinner. I had hot bibimbap.

Then we piled back onto the bus to sit in traffic for 5 hours back to Seoul. I slept for 2 of them and spent the other 3 hours watching the Korean countryside go by. It was nighttime so the views weren’t that great but it was a nice chance to think.

The Korean countryside is really beautiful.

So that is my update on my life here in Korea. Every weekend is different from the last. I am always excited, always experiencing new things. All in all, I think I’m overcoming the culture shock. I am less enamored with everything I see, but overall much happier. I feel like I am myself again, just myself living in Korea. This is going to be a great year, and at this point I’m starting to understand why people would stay for a second one…

Love you all!

Culture Shock

It has been so long since I’ve updated I don’t know what to write about. So many things have happened I think we all just need to accept that some aspects of my life wont be included in this blog.

Aspects. That is a word I spent a good 5 minutes trying to explain to my students yesterday.

First, an update on teaching. To be honest I am not completely loving it. At the same time, I have to recognize that I am still new at teaching and it is a skill that needs to be developed. Some days I dread going to work but then I get there and the day goes by so fast. Mostly it is the middle school students that I do not enjoy. I LOVE my elementary kids. They wear me out but teaching them is so much fun.

I also have to admit that my negative feelings towards my job may be an expression of my overall psychological state the past couple of weeks. Culture shock is hitting me hard. Much harder than I expected. Everyone tells me that the first 3 months are the most difficult. Well I’m into my 3^rd month now so I’m just trying to take each day as they come. Culture shock is a sneaky process. Lets go through it a bit, shall we?

First there was the “honeymoon phase” where I loved everything in Korea. I definitely went through this. For about the first month I thought everything was so cool. And it is, this is a crazy country. During the honeymoon phase I was in awe.

Then I noticed the awe beginning to fade. Suddenly I found aspects of life in Korea to be annoying. Koreans always walking in my path or bumping into me elicited an unnecessarily strong reaction. I found myself thinking of LA more often and with a greater sense of longing.

Then Marc came to visit for a little over a week. Suddenly I wasn’t alone all the time. I had someone with whom I could explore Seoul. Someone who was familiar. Once he left, the culture shock really set in. My solitude hit me like a ton of bricks and I found myself on a Thursday morning hiking down a mountain crying my eyes out. I let myself cry for a couple of hours and ever since then I have felt much better. I think I was trying to pretend even to myself that everything was fine, that I was happy and healthy when in reality I was hurting inside. It is HARD to move to a country where you know NOBODY and you can’t speak the language. Every day is a challenge. Making friends is a daunting task for me (but I’m glad that I’m being forced to do it). But its exhausting and I needed a day to admit to myself that yes, I was hurting and yes, that was okay and part of the process.

Moving to a new country is no easy adventure. It is an incredibly challenging and overwhelming one. But at the end of every day I have to conclude I am happy with the decision I made and wouldn’t go back to America yet even if given the opportunity.

I also recently bought a 3 months unlimited pass to a Bikram yoga studio in Gangnam. They do all of their classes in English. Most classes are 90 minutes long with a few 60 minute classes. It is exactly the physical challenge and mental clarity that I have been craving since arriving here. And now that I finally feel like I’m coming up for air after drowning in the waves of culture shock I am able to focus on myself again and take time every day to practice yoga.

I want to make sure I end this on a positive note so in summary, yes culture shock has hit me hard and yes I have been incredible homesick the last few weeks. At the same time I am loving life here more than ever. The honeymoon phase is over but as I settle into a normal routine and a life here in Korea I am discovering more things about myself that I love and I can tell I am at the beginning of what is becoming an incredible journey into self awareness.

Perhaps I’ll write a post soon where I describe my amazing trip to Busan. Or all the crazy things I saw on Marc’s visit, or any of the other outrageous things that happen to me on a daily basis. For now writing about culture shock has exhausted me. In conclusion: here are your first photos of me in Seoul.

Eagerly awaiting 삼겹살 Samgyeopsal. (I'll get into what that is in another blog post. 3 layered pork. BBQ.)

 

Me at the top of Gwanaksan, my favorite mountain so far in Seoul. 

Till next time!