Here's my rundown. I am supposed to live within 5 minutes walking of my school with other foreign teachers. I live at the end of a subway line, 30 minutes by train from school all alone. No one around, its a super sketch area! The other day a guy was peeing in my hallway (and it was in the middle of the evening, not early a.m., not late at night!). Oh p.s. I have cockroaches (yipee). Oh and my light doesn't work, I have holes in the walls and my stove...not really there...
I cannot eat here, because there isn't really a way cook anything, and I am scared of attracting more bugs, so I have been living off bakeries near by (Dunkin Donuts you are my hero)!
At school things are ok...the kids are exhausting, but adorable! My co-workers are super unfriendly though! They only care about business...I talked to my head teacher about how uncomfortable I was at my apartment and she said "this is Korea, deal with it" and then I told her how lonely I was and she said "don't expect to have friends, go home at night, sleep and then come back to work and concentrate on your job"...she said more, but that is basically the gist of it.
Andrea, a girl I met on spring break, is here researching and I hang out with her sometimes. But, she lives on the other side of town and whenever we meet up it takes us 30-40 minutes to get to a meeting point.
But, the other day we met up with a Korean student at Yonsei and we had some yummy cold noodles (although they were in this odd soup thing with hard boiled eggs and some had raw beef too...). And then we went to this other place and had some pie. Korean pie is pretty different too, it is really cold and hard (we had apple and pumpkin cheesecake). But, the best part about this pie place is that with the pie I had a hot chocolate iced, which was super duper amazing!!!
The noodle restaurant
Andrea, Andrea's Korean friend Annika and I at the pie place
My iced hot chocolate!! :)
And then Thursday we went to see Harry Potter (a day before the U.S., haha suckers!) and that was pretty awesome! There were more foreigners than Koreans (HP is really unpopular in Korea) and the theater was very empty (and it was the first day, crazy!!) The movie theater was so cheap too! For $5 I bought a large pop and carmel corn (you get the choice between carmel corn and popcorn, awesome!) and then we had this killer Indian food!
So basically, the last week had been pretty terrible, with some minor happy moments. I really hate Korea, and I hate my apartment and I dislike my co-workers...but I love Andrea (too bad she is leaving in a couple weeks...).
Also to add,
The reasons I dislike Korea in general are: air pollution, you cannot breath! its so gross, the river here is like poop-colored brown! Disgusting! You can't drink it (it being water) and I am always so dehydrated! Also, it rains all the time and the sun never shines! Then Koreans are very introverted, will not speak to you (especially if you are a foreigner) and will just completely ignore you.! Also it smells really bad here! And the food yeah, I need something more than carbs!
And about photos, I haven't been really in the mood to capture my daily life, but I have some, here's a few. I think I will take pictures of my students next week.
Squats suck!
In conclusion, I am ready to go home and I have only been here a week...to quote the title: crap, crap, crap
Aloha Marilyn! I am sorry you are having such a rough start to your time in South Korea. Keep strong! And just remember the culture that you are in, people there do not open up on the first day. It is a matter of trust and building that trust. You are a wonderful person! and in time they will see that! :-) Have a little faith and I know you will pull through. If it makes you feel any better, Hawai'i is just as rampant with cockroaches. Every morning I go out to make breakfast and I turn on our kitchen light in our apartment (mind you this is a campus dorm) I see cockroaches and and ants scurrying to the far corners. Living in a tropical environments has its pros and its cons, but try to see the beauty of the situation. Yes, you are there to teach, but you are also there for you! Take in this experience for everything you can. Use the opportunity to try and REALLY get acquainted with the language and culture. You are a good linguist, you could learn czech, so you can learn korean! But like with any language it takes time. And making friends and getting used to new surroundings takes time. Just have faith and keep strong. Use your time in your classroom as a way to vent, be creative, and get into a routine. And if you see other foreigners/Americans and they don't make the first move to say hello, then do it yourself! There is no law that says you can't say hello! Be the strong, outgoing, and outspoken Marilyn I remember! :-) And remember you have lots of friends and family rooting for you on the mainland! Best wishes to you on your wonderful journey ahead. Hugs and aloha!
ReplyDeleteA hui hou
Liz :o)