Village Idiots

Just one short day til I return to the land of my one true love...Belynda's cane!  There's really no reason to be as stoked about a short vacation as I am, and yet I am.  Between doing my current job and looking for another one, I'm pretty well past my tolerance for stress.  So tonight, one last flashback to a calmer, simpler time - my second stint in Korea.

It was during that era that Bronte and I became really good friends.  She'd already taught me how to make sundubu and given me a Korean name, but when I came back to pinch hit for five months, we got to know each other as more than just supervisor and staff.  I got to know that she was every bit as badass as I thought and way more goofy than I imagined - as evidenced by her demonstration for the bed-wetting thing that we saw pretty much as soon as we walked into Min-Seok-Cheon, the traditional folk village.  When she found out I'd never been, we decided a visit was in order, even though it was summer and destined to rain.

She, on the other hand, was discovering the depths of depravity a good little Mormon girl was capable of thinking.  Since this isn't a post about going to Seoraksan and the rest stop we visited on the way back, I'll leave it at that.  You've probably read enough of my posts at this point to know what I mean, anyways.

Min-Seok-Cheon is in Yongin-Si - close to Suji if I remember right, but even with my memory I couldn't find my way back there at this point.  Blame it on Bronte taking the lead...normally ten years wouldn't matter, I could do it blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back.  We're now living in the age of Google Maps, anyways, so my abilities aren't as necessary as they once were.

Anyways, we went out to the folk village in spite of rain, because it was the two of us on an adventure, and what's a little rain between friends?  Well, I'll tell you what it is - a terrible time to visit the folk village.  Normally there is all sorts of pageantry and stuff, with people wearing festival-level costumes.  Instead, we mostly had to amuse ourselves.

Which admittedly was not a problem.  We probably got a few dirty looks along the way - I'm not sure that you're actually supposed to climb on the great stone turtle - but I rarely let a little disapproval stop me.

One thing we did get to do was throw a pot.  Korea has a great ceramic tradition, and there was a little studio where you can use a potter's wheel and make a bowl.  Being a certified art teacher and all, I've done that before, and didn't feel like I really needed to do it again, but Bronte hadn't, so she tried it out.  When she was finished, the ahjjushi took it off the wheel and got her address so it could be delivered after it had been fired.  

Besides performances and the pottery, there were traditional houses and displays about traditional Korean life.  There were restaurants, too, but for some reason I don't think we ate there.  We did stop for tea before we left; I may have been getting over a cold, since I seem to think I got a citron tea.  Or maybe it was just because the rainy weather made me want a hot tea.

Walking around a soggy folk village may not seem that dreamy, but it was all about the company, and that was true of so much of my time in Korea.  It seems like there was always something going on in Seoul, but that wasn't what made it the experience that it was for me.  Instead, it was walks down the street and eating at kimbap shops and really, just spending time with friends.  I've got things to do when I'm there over the next five days, but it was those ordinary, everyday moments that made me love living there.

Hitting a Wall

Just three more days til I return to Korea and my one true love...dalkgalbi!

There comes a time in every expat adventure when you feel like you've seen it all.  (This is not to say that it's true...there is still lots more to experience, but the feeling remains.)  When that happens, the time has come to wander a little further afield.  It's been ten years since some of my homegirls and I decided we would hike the walls of Hwaseong, the fortress in Suwon, but I'm pretty sure that was our thought process.  Seoul was played out like snap bracelets, but Suwon had exciting possibilities.  Or at least one exciting possibility.

However, I think it took us two tries to actually do it.  The first time, the three of us came from different directions, and since none of us had been to Suwon before, I set the meeting place at Suwon Station, exit one.  If you're not sure what exit to meet at, I say go for exit 1.  If there are multiple exits, there will definitely be an exit 1, and if not, you'll find each other regardless.  The problem was that Suwon Station had both metro exits and KTX exits, and way back in 2005 the three of us were wandering Korea without cell phones.  People used to do that back then.  I promise.

Anyway, in this case, the second time proved to be the charm, and we met up and found our way to the walls.  Hwaseong is fantastic.  It's historic, but like I give much of a crap about that.  Ringing gigantic bells, on the other hand...  The hike itself is gorgeous, and the company - Heather and Jen - were the kind of friends that I could be myself with and not worry about them thinking that I was going to hell for every other thing that came out of my mouth.

Expat living: it attracts the black sheep.

This is true even amongst Mormons.  Jen and Heather were both church friends (as opposed to my degenerate GDA friends, who were also black sheep, just the kind that needed a few grown-up drinks to hit the noraebang...)  Well, here is a little bit of Mormon trivia for you - we are cheesy as...well, something that's extraordinarily cheesy.  As we passed one of the towers on the wall, one of us noted the similarity to this tower in the Book of Mormon called the rameumpton.  Basically the function of this tower was people would go up on it to pray about how much better they were than everyone else (FYI: these weren't the good guys).  So we decided that this would make an excellent photo op, and being the person who doesn't mind being slightly (or more) blasphemous for the sake of a good picture, I got tapped to climb up the tower and pretend to be a Zoramite.

It was a fairly clear day.  I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get struck by lightning...

On the way to the wall, we passed a variety of vendors and I was happy to find one that had these really cool, fold-up hats.  I bought two of them.  When we met up, it had actually been really sunny, so I was happy when the clouds gathered - I was pretty much as paranoid about skin cancer then as I am now.  I'm pretty sure my friends thought I looked like an idiot (or an ajjumma...possibly both), but they were good sports and had a high tolerance for dorkiness.

We didn't make it all the way around the walls...at some point - I believe around the time we decided to go wading in the stream - we decided we were hot and thirsty and needed melon bars.  We veered away from the wall into a market area, where old men were paying paduk or something, and wandered in and out of shops until we made our way back to the station.

People always ask if I'd go back to Seoul to work.  It's a complicated question.  I was a lot healthier then, and I love the fact that there's always something to do.  I really consider Seoul to be my second home...but like my first home, that life's moved on without me.  Most of the people I loved there are gone, and I don't know if I have the guts to go back to an empty house and build the thing up again.  That didn't stop me from applying to a job there when Belynda told me about an IB school that was advertising for an art teacher - although it did cut the disappointment when they wrote to tell me they'd just offered the job to someone else.  Thus, the search continues.

Take a Hike

Here is a lesson for you all, in a "Give a cat a cupcake" sort of way.  If you give an art teacher a primary lesson to teach on her so-called day of rest, she'll feel a little bitter.  If she feels a little bitter, she'll probably procrastinate actually preparing it.  If she procrastinates, she'll need something to do instead.  She might think about putting her laundry away.  If she looks in her closet, she will probably realize that she HASN'T EVEN STARTED PACKING TO GO TO SEOUL ON FRIDAY!!!*  That, of course, will make her realize she hasn't really thought too much about what she's going to do there (besides catching up with Belynda, her Dark Lord and Master, and shopping at the Dongdaemun Fabric Market).  She'll need to check out Atlas Obscura, since she lived in Seoul for three years already.  This will get her thinking about all the things she did when she lived in Seoul, that she didn't blog about because she didn't have a computer back then.  Knowing she didn't have a computer back then will make her feel lucky to have one now.  And if an art teacher feels lucky, she will probably sit down at her computer and procrastinate planning the primary lesson she's supposed to be teaching.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I, you know, had job prospects, I felt like there was a very real chance that I might be out of Asia next year.  (Now?  Who knows.)  This prompted me to crunch some numbers and decide that I should spend my last Tsagaan Sar not in Mongolia, but in Seoul, so I booked a flight for Friday.  I have waxed poetic on numerous occasions about how much I love Korea, but not actually written about most of the things I enjoyed there.  To get me in shape for the upcoming blog-a-thon, I'm writing about a few of those things this week.

Korea has some great hiking.  I was just about as lazy then as I am now, but the weather was nicer for more of the year, so I actually went on a few more hikes.  Smack dab in the middle of Seoul is a hill called Namsan, and one weekend my friend Anika and I decided we'd meet in Myeongdong and hike it.  Neither of us actually knew what the route was, but we figured if we kept heading uphill we'd get there by and by, and we did. 

It was a bright spring day, and we enjoyed the view at the top of the city.  After some cotton candy in the park around Seoul Tower, we decided to start hiking down the other side.  I loved being able to rely on chance like that when I lived there...just choosing a path and wandering along.  On this particular auspicious day, we ended up at the bottom of the hill where Noksapyeong Station sits, walking past a place called Chili Chili Taco, which stopped us in our tracks.  After our hike, we decided it was a perfect time for some food, and since neither of us had had Mexican in a long time, we stopped in and discovered their burritos, which I still consider to be one of my top five finds during all my years in Korea.

I loved this experience so much that when my mom came to visit me, right before I left Korea for the last time, I decided I would take her up Namsan.  Gracie is NOT much of a hiker, but when Anika and I hiked Namsan, I noticed the cable car, and decided it would be just fine. 

My mom did not agree with my assessment.  See, first you have to walk uphill a little ways to get to the cable car.  Then, of course, you have to ride the cable car up the hill.  Maybe this probably shows the self-centeredness of youth, but I wasn't actually aware that my mom was afraid of heights until she got panicky on the ride.  Oops.  But eventually we made it...to the exit.  Which was not, apparently, on the peak of the hill, so I heard a lot of complaining as we huffed and puffed our way up the last of the steps.  But we finally made it, and Gracie agreed that the view was very nice.

She hasn't visited me overseas since.  I wonder why...

*I've actually given more thought to the perfect wardrobe for me and Five's nerdy-nerdy Japan holiday than packing for Seoul.  It's how I roll.

Let Her Go - a flashback

I have been ridiculously ready for vacation.  It's less about needing to get away from the daily grind (which is, honestly, not that grinding) and more about being super stoked about where I'm going - Kyoto.  There is a veritable ton of festivals going on that week, there are about a hundred different workshops I want to do (although I'm only doing about five), and, oh yeah, I might actually get to see the Kawaii Kid, if the stars align.  He's promised to take me to Osaka's Denden Town, at any rate, which is the Kansai version of Akihabara.  If you don't know what that is, don't worry.  It just means you're not enough of a nerd, and that's okay - we can't all be.  I wasn't, two and a half years ago when I last visited Japan.  A month later I would watch my first episode of Fairy Tail, and eventually kick myself, because if I had seen it sooner, I might have visited anime's Mecca between festivals and Fuji.  Instead I was high on cherry blossoms and Japanese Kit Kats.

That time I shared a layover with Champ and Li'l Miss Catwalk. They'd heard me speak glowingly more than once about Korea, the home of my heart, and how much I loved to take layovers there on the way to wherever.  They were particularly interested in my waxings poetic about Butterfinger Pancakes, and I promised them, on this most auspicious of layovers, that I would take them there.

We spent a couple of hours in the Incheon arrivals hall snoozing while waiting for the first train into the city.  We may have talked a little then about what else to do in Seoul, or maybe it was prior to arriving; I'm not sure anymore.  I do remember them saying they weren't really interested in "touristy" things.  At the time, I couldn't - or wouldn't - formulate the thought that Seoul wasn't the kind of place that you could get to know in a few hours, and that "touristy things" were really the only thing we could experience in half a day.  But they were my friends, and I was determined to do what I could.

After breakfast, we started walking through Apgujeong toward Coex.  We saw a giant finger about to dong-chim King Kong, and a Barket - beer market - and eventually stumbled onto the Seongjeongneung royal tombs.  I never spent much time in Apgujeong, being neither a drinker nor friends with the drinkers who liked to go there, and it looked like something interesting to explore, so I convinced them to go with me.

It was only 500 or a thousand won to get in, and it was a nice, quiet place to explore.  Lil Miss Catwalk took on the role of tour guide, making up interesting facts about the tombs and their features.  We made friends with a Korean ghost, whom I dubbed Fred - if you taught at GDA with me my last year in Korea, you might recall an adorably chubby student with that English name, which was my inspiration.  We talked about hiding in fairly obvious places to scare people, doing the Asian ghost thing - hair in front of your face, hands clawing outward...like this:

We didn't actually do it.  We probably would have gotten ourselves kicked out of a UNESCO world heritage site if we had, and that in and of itself kind of seems like a reason you should (I mean, how many people have gotten kicked out of world heritage sites for anything less than defacing them???), but in the end, it was early Saturday morning and not really enough people around to mess with.  Instead, we wandered around for a while, made some jokes, and eventually made our way to Coex.  It was not a particularly eventful layover, but it was pleasant enough.


There's this totally bullshit saying about how friends are there for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  Well, I think it's a bullshit saying, anyways.  Maybe this is because if I like someone enough to want them in my life at all, it pains me to lose them.  Take my life in Korea, for example.  Over the years, I've seen lots of my former coworkers from GDA, including Dougie-Poo, who has actually brought his family to Mongolia to work at my school.  Pretty much any of my friends from the last twelve years would be welcome in a heartbeat if they showed up at my door (Socrates being the exception, good riddance).  So it was a slap in the face when Champ stopped talking to me this spring.  I could try and break it down for you - without actually talking to her about it, I can't be 100% sure exactly what was up, although I have a pretty good idea - but I won't.  I'll merely say that I had a lot of respect and affection for both her and Lil Miss Catwalk during the three years we worked together, always tried to support them, and even if they believe I stabbed them in the back and hate me, I still wish them the best.

The layover coming back - visiting Jogyesa Temple in Jongno.

Here's the thing:  in spite of my efforts to preserve them, expat relationships do sort of come with an expiration date.  It's the nature of the beast.  For better or for worse, when you live outside your own culture, you become friends with people you wouldn't have chosen back home.  Champ was super-sporty, and Lil' Miss Catwalk, so introverted that she made me look like the life of the party.  I, on the other hand, am a consummate culture vulture.  Back home, I probably wouldn't have been close to them.  Maybe on good terms if we worked in the same school - I might have even said I liked them (which seems like that's not much, but as a fairly a-social person with a low tolerance for bullcrap in the workplace, this is a decent concession from me).  But I doubt we would have spent much time outside of work together.  We were too different.  Here, though, we went to dinner on a weekly basis.  I had them over for Korean; they invited me for crepes.  We were friends, and it makes me sad to lose that.  On the other hand, it also makes me appreciate the friendships that do last - those people I chat with and in some cases even call long after one or both of us have moved on, like my best chingu, Sara.  The friends whose cities I don't feel awkward showing up in, and who make time for me if I do - Dark Lord and Master, I'm looking at you.  Or, hell, even come back to time and time again - no matter how much I love tzatziki, it's not the primary reason I've traveled to Greece as much as I have.  That would be Bronte.

Here's to more friends like GDA friends.

Back to the Start

I can't even begin to name all the ways that my first trip overseas made me who I am, but nevertheless, studying abroad, even for only the month it was, had a huge impact on young, (relatively) innocent me.  Today I've come full circle, made it back to the beginning, and so I thought I'd write about it.  Venice was my first, unless you count Canada, which none of us do (sorry, Engrish), and even if we did, I didn't choose it.  In the fall of my fourth year of college I took printmaking and my professor, Subler, talked about a program that the University of Iowa did in the years of the Venetian Biennale (those would be odd-numbered ones), and I knew I had to do it.  I hadn't been obsessed with Venice the way I once was with Paris, but the thought wouldn't leave my head.  I HAD to do this.  That's how my dad ended up driving me to the Kansas City airport early in July 2001, slipping me a $100 bill when I was ready to go through security, "For emergencies" (he does that), and turning me loose on an unsuspecting world.

Well.  Not quite yet.  It takes a little more than an hour to fly from KC to Chicago, where I spent the night before my first trans-Atlantic flight, and maybe that long to get from Midway to O'Hare, which a number of people were very helpful in helping me to manage.  It's hard for me to believe this now, fourteen years later, but when I tried to figure out how to take the L between the two airports that day, I was made nervous by a single, simple transfer.  I've come a long way, baby.

Back in the day you could get some kickass deals on hotels with the right site - although I can't remember which one off the top of my head - and I stayed in the O'Hare Hilton for $35 bucks that night.  I got checked in and got my luggage to my room, sat on my bed, and basically burst into tears.  I should tell you (if you don't already know) that I cry at the drop of a hat, but even so travel's a big old ball of emotions, and fear and sadness factor into it at points.  You put yourself in a giant tin can and hurtle across distances that were imposing, less than a hundred years ago, and in the (relative) blink of an eye, you're a third of the way around the planet.  You've taken a machete to the jungle and cut it back.  "The world is not just books and maps, it's out there," at once much bigger than you could have imagined and much smaller than it used to be, because now you're in it.  That's cause to mourn, as well as to be a little bit afraid, because you don't know what's going to happen out there, and how it will change you, and when you get back, you won't be the same person you were before.  You can't say if you'll be changed for the better, but you will be changed for good.  Or at least you will if you do it right.

So I cried in the room and went to sleep early and managed to pull myself together for my first international flight from Terminal 5, where I met up with the crew from KC as well as the students from the U of I and wherever else we came from.  We had a layover, in Belgium, I think, and although I remember feeling like it took forever (7 hours was a lot of time for me then - now I think it's a short flight!) we eventually made it to Marco Polo airport, where we collected our luggage and were herded outside to get a water taxi to Campo San Maurizio.  I leaned over to look at the water, and promptly had my sunglasses fall in the drink, but hell, sunglasses are overrated.

We were whisked off to Campo San Maurizio, where the 20 students participating in the program were staying in two apartments.  It may have been crowded, but honestly I don't remember thinking so at the time.  During the days we were in the studio or scattered, doing stuff, and in the evenings the veterans of the group taught us newbies the game that would make a card shark out of me...Canasta!  Some of my flatmates cooked, but most of the time I was out eating pizza and gelato, and believe it or not, I lost 5 pounds that month.  Lots of bridges, 'nuff said.

The month was daily routines punctuated by activities.  The routines were my morning walk through campos still waking up, stopping to buy a croissant - some days crema, others cioccolata - at the bakery up the calle from the studio and a bottle of aranciata, before starting my artistic endeavors for the day (which did not amount to much - fiddling around in my sketchbook for the most part).  The activities ranged from the Biennale to a puppetmaker's workshop, a maskmaker's workshop to trips up the Brenta canal and to Padua.  There were the strains of the Brandenburg concerto (charming the first day or so, but they got annoying pretty quickly) from the guitarist who busked next to the well in our campo, afternoons on the beach at Lido, the night Piazza San Marco flooded and a couple of my classmates and I went to splash in water sparkling from the Plessi installation set up in the windows of the Museo Correr.  There was taking the vaporetto out to Murano and Burano and the Cimitiere, and the bus up to Mestre where I went to church a couple of Sundays.  And in the end there was my first art show, staged for one night only in the entry to our flat, just off the campo, for which one of the KC crew made tzatziki, which I'd never had but fell in love with that night.

It was over too fast, and while at the end of the month I was ready to go home, the magic of that month lingered.  Walking along the same routes each day convinced me that slow travel was the only way to go.  The lady I bought my croissants from knew me, knew I would be there every morning and what I would get.  I had a place I fit, and that set the tone for my future expat life.  As a high schooler, I was really disappointed that I didn't get to do the "grand tour" thing with a band group like my friend did, but who knows?  If I had, I might not have ended up coming at the world the way I have.  

Kyoto on my Mind

I always get emotional at graduation, but this year is going to be hell.  The graduating class is one of my two favorite classes, and includes many favorite students.  One of these - whom we'll call the Kawaii Kid, due to more than a few otaku tendencies - has gone from being an annoying pain in the ass to being an even MORE annoying pain in the ass, thanks in part to the fact that between work study, a free period, and art he spends 1/2 to 3/4 of each day in my room, and I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself when he's gone.  To top that, I'm ridiculously jealous of the fact that he's going to university in one of the cities I'd move to in a heartbeat if I could - Kyoto.

I haven't had much to write about since Istanbul, and thinking a lot about Kyoto thanks to the Kawaii Kid has made me realize I've never written about visiting there, almost ten years ago.  When I moved to Korea, Kyoto was at the top of my list of places I wanted to visit - I'd loved Memoirs of a Geisha and couldn't wait to walk down a street and see maiko in their makeup and kimono, so I went in October of 2005.  I think we had a 3-day weekend, for Foundation Day or something, and since there were direct flights from Incheon to Osaka I decided 3 days would be enough.

I got in during the afternoon.  If you've never been to Japan, I've got to tell you that they are the most helpful country in the world for foreigners.  This was my first time flying solo, and I was continually impressed with the facilities - easy to read maps, easy to use public transportation.  Ten years of travel later and I'm even more impressed.  Within 5 minutes of entering the arrivals hall I was booked to take a shuttle that would deliver me to my hotel.  Once I'd checked in and left my luggage, I set off, Lonely Planet in hand, wandering toward Gion and stopping at just about every shrine I passed til I made it to Yasaka Jinja.  The paper lanterns glowed in the dusk, and I rang the bell and clapped my hands.  I don't know if I've ever felt wanderlust as strongly as I did that day.

As you know, I love to see music and dance performances when I travel, and that hasn't changed.  This was another thing I did on my first night, something I probably found through LP, though I can't remember for sure.  I'd already seen geisha as I was walking down the street, and it was breathtaking.  Here I got to see one dance, as well as other performances, including a puppet show, some drama, a lady playing the koto, and a tea ceremony.  I hadn't even been in Kyoto 12 hours and I wanted to call up my Dark Lord and Master and tell him I wasn't coming back.

The next morning I was up bright and early to climb up to Kiyomizu-Dera.  From this temple you could see out over the whole city.  The building itself is incredible, but it also had a number of attractions.  There is the "love rock," which predicts finding your future love if you can stumble your way blindly to it.  Friends are allowed to help guide you (these friends being the same people who will help you find your love), but you can't use your eyes.  I figured with my grace I'd trip over it, no problem, but alas, no such luck.  The same area had little paper figures that you wrote wishes on, which dissolved when you put them in water.  But the coolest part, I thought, was the - I don't know even know how to describe it.  There's a building where you descend into the dark and feel your way through passages to a stone, lit from above, which you turn.  It was means to symbolize entering the womb of one of the female Buddhist deities, who had the power to grant your wishes.  There was a certain kind of calm and stillness in that place, that I've never felt anywhere else.

From there, I took a train down to visit Fushimi-Inari-Taisha, which is one of my top five all-time favorite travel experiences.  This shrine is built on the hillsides, a little southward from Kyoto, and consists of endless passageways of red torii gates.  It's a shrine to Inari Okami, a spirit of sake, rice, and foxes, and as you ascend the mountain, you pass numerous altars, covered with offerings, to which the crows are helping themselves.  When I got off the train and began walking past stalls selling knick-knacks, the sun was shining, but at some point beneath the tunnels of red gates the skies clouded over, and an otherworldly feeling overtook me.  It felt almost as if the pairs of foxes stationed throughout the shrine were watching me.

Eventually I came down the hillside, and somewhere along the way found a shop selling shaved ice.  I bought a cup of cherry - my favorite - and I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite that delightful.

I'd seen music and dance and plenty of shrines by the last morning, but I wouldn't have been a very good art student if I didn't visit the most famous Zen rock garden in the world, which I'd learned about when I took Asian art history in college.  It was on - I think - the west side of Kyoto, and between my trusty LP and the awesome handouts of the Japanese National Tourism Organization I found it with no problem.  October in Kyoto was serene, and I had the place mostly to myself, as I sat on the porch looking over the raked grounds, soaking in the stillness.

The last place I visited before taking the train back to Kansai International Airport was Nijo Castle, which was just down the street from my hotel.  I'd been walking past it for two days, and had just enough time to walk across the nightingale floors, listening to them chirp and imagining samurai hidden behind paper walls.  It was a great way to end my trip.

It's hard to believe it's been almost ten years since then.  I still remember things very clearly, like the light in the arrivals hall or the taste of the cherry shaved ice.  I think I just about walked my feet off during those three days - I did that a lot, I guess up until I wrecked them running in Ras Al Khaimah - but there were so many things to see, and I barely even scratched the surface.  In less than a month, I'll be revisiting my first great international adventure, that Queen of the Adriatic, Venezia.  The anticipation has literally killed most of the enthusiasm I had for St. Petersburg and Moscow, which I'm doing just prior to Venice.  I should care, but I really, really don't - I'll enjoy those cities, just not as much as Venice.  Part of me wonders if this is the stage of travel I've come to - revisiting old places instead of new ones.  Let's face it: Myanmar and Cambodia, with all their glorious temples and wonderful people, didn't cause me nearly as much excitement as seeing Bronte again and eating dolmades at a taverna in Monastiraki, or taking my young hellions to Istanbul.  So who knows...maybe Kyoto will be on the list again one of these days.  But not this year - I'll hit Greece again in October with Engrish, be home for Christmas, plan to spend Tsagaan Sar in Chennai with Fire Marshall and Domestic Goddess, take the hellions somewhere for spring break (possibly Moscow or Paris), and finally travel the old Silk Road with Blondie, if everything goes well up until then.  So many places, so little time.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2011

There is no place in all of Shanghai I love as well as Tianzifang.  My first year there was more than half over the first time I went there, which was for a friend's birthday.  JoAnn was with me - hell, pretty much all of my friends except her husband were there, and we felt the need to remedy the fact that he hadn't come with us about two weeks later.  We ate dinner at the same restaurant, Bali Bali; the food was okay, but we were more charmed by the building. 

Tianzifang is partly known for this architecture, which I had to look up to find the name...shikumen.  Between these 2-3 story structures are narrow alleys, along which are galleries and shops, some selling communist kitsch, others selling stationery with mangled English.  The narrow alleys are hellish on a Saturday afternoon,  but I've braved them more than once. 

On the night I went back with JoAnn and Michael, however, it was cool and rainy.  We wandered into the museum this fountain is attached to and saw the most incredible glass art.  The prices were pretty steep, but I fell in love with a necklace that I went back for after payday, and never felt buyer's remorse!

Of all the art in this art heavy district, this was one of my two favorites.  This guy makes paintings of traditional Chinese landscapes with ink, but does away with all the fancy brushes...he uses his fingers to get the job done.  It kind of shocked me to see what he could do.  (The other favorite was work by a surrealist/printmaker/illustrator.  I'm still wishing I'd found a way to afford the print of the girl riding the tiger made out of rabbits.  It was cool).

Another favorite was the place that sold ocarinas.  In a former life I was a flutist, and I own more than a couple of these clay whistles.  It was incredible to see them in so many shapes and sizes.

The variety of restaurants was another draw for me, and led to more than one guilty post-church Sunday afternoon side trip (not my fault that a:I was starving when church got out, b: it was right on my metro ride, and c: I was still a ridiculous distance from home!)  Some of them are better than others.  Yes, the sign says Teddy Bear Thailand Restaurant.  No, I never ate there.  I went back to Bali Bali a number of times and was a fan of Lotus Land Indian restaurant, too - but probably would have passed them both by if the New York Style Pizza had ever been open after I finally discovered their Brooklyn.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2010

In August 2010 I moved to Shanghai.  What made this move different from other expat adventures was the fact that I already knew people who would be in Shanghai...not only Socrates, whom I was stupidly following there, but our colleague Meen from RAK as well as a teacher I never actually worked with in Korea, Roisin.  I knew she was cool because she had become friends with MY cool friends during the year I was gone to Bahrain, but I didn't realize exactly how cool she was until I made it to Shanghai and, in spite of not actually knowing me all that well, she welcomed me to China.

Within the first month I was there she asked if I'd be interested in going to the big, fat birthday party of an Irishman named Nick.  Shanghai is chock full of expats, but none bring the craic like the Irish.  In fact, there is a big Irish organization, the aptly named Shanghai Ireland Association, and if they were the mafia, Nick would have been one of their dons.  Thus the big birthday party.  Complete with guys in kilts.  Authentically wearing nothing underneath.  Kilts are Scottish, you say?  Who cares???

Roisin, being Irish, was our link to the Irish mafia (she also organized our tickets to the St. Pat's ball, which was even better craic, even if I did forget my bag o' swag when I left that night).  She even let me bring Socrates and Meen (if that doesn't seem like a big deal, you've obviously never socialized with Socrates before).

If I could change one thing about my two years in Shanghai, I'd want to spend more time with Meen.  She was always up to try new things, and I never had bad Chinese food with her.  My last two weeks there she let me stay at her apartment (the Hami Lu Hilton!) when I had to clear out of mine to make way for a new tenant.


In addition to good friends and men in kilts there were some rockin' tunes, some of which were on bagpipes.  There was also food and booze - which I generously allowed others to partake of in my stead.  It was a really great evening, and it added to the hopeful feeling I had that Shanghai was going to turn out to be a really great place.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2009

I tried to be a homebody.  I really did.  In November of 2008 I moved back to the States, to see how that would work out for me.  It didn't.  I gained back all the weight I lost after moving away in the first place and then some, and had probably $4000 on the two credit cards I had (which had been very nearly cleared when I went home).  I loved working at Barnes and Noble, but it was not good for my waistline or my pocketbook, and I felt fairly disconnected from everyone.  It's not that I don't love my family - I do - but living in Iowa to make them happy made me miserable, and it was only a matter of time before I set out again. 

I ended up back in the Middle East.  This prompted a lot of people to ask, "But didn't you hate it there?"  As a matter of fact, no, I was not a bright ball of sunshiney joy when I lived in Bahrain, but my analysis of the decision to move to Ras Al Khaimah, the northernmost of the United Arab Emirates, factored in - among other things - the fact that I was mentally prepared for the things that made my year in Bahrain so hard.  So I went, and that move was where this blog actually began five years ago.  Happily, since I was not as zealous a blogger as I am today, there were plenty of memories to choose from, and I went with the road trip to Fujairah I took with some friends that fall.

First and foremost, I want to thank Melissa for these pictures.  I forgot my camera that day, and if it weren't for the fact that she's a picture taking maniac, I wouldn't have anything to remember it with, and it was a fun day.  She'd just rented a car and was raring to go anywhere and everywhere.  One of the guys we knew suggested Fujairah, which was several hours' drive southeast of RAK.  Along the way we stopped at a beach which Socrates...

...Oh yes, this was the beginning of THAT long, awkward association...

...suggested must be popular with the Russians, based on his translations of the signs in Cyrillic.  In the background you can see "Snoopy Island," which looks slightly like Snoopy lying back on his doghouse (if you are squinting or presumably drunk, that is).  We winced at the heat on the sand, even in October, and piled back into the car quickly enough.

The point of going to Fujairah - other than just getting the hell out of RAK - was that they had an old fortress.  We weren't allowed in the fort, for some reason.  I don't remember if it was just closed to the public or if we went on the wrong day, but we had a good time climbing around it and taking pictures.

There was also a museum nearby, which we did go into.  Did we learn a lot?  Not really.  Did we have fun?  Absolutely.  If I remember right, Melissa was excited to have someone who liked taking goofy pictures, and both of us posed for more than a few!

On the ride back I claimed the front seat.  It was hilarious to see our three guy friends crushed together in the back.  Although it took some time to get settled in Ras Al Khaimah, it was not the disaster that my year in Bahrain was.  Not only was the school a higher caliber school but I had friends, and ten years overseas have taught me that this is what really makes a difference, and what you will actually miss when you do move on.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2008

As I mentioned yesterday, I kept coming back to Korea because of the people, particularly Bronte and my Dark Lord and Master.  Well, you can't call yourself Evil Incarnate and not expect your Spawn to follow suit.  This is how he came to have a surprise party thrown for his 39th birthday.

We talked about the idea at school, and later I went to her mom's shop and we worked on the plan some more.  I was sure he was going to figure out what we were up to because that night his wife insisted I stay at the shop until my Dark Lord got there to give me a ride home.  Somehow, we got away with it.

The three of them picked me up at the park in the 'Dong across from GDA - the story was that we were going out for dinner to celebrate.  Instead, the Spawn and I ran off to the playground, and my Dark Lord and his wife got out of the car to follow us.  He got the shock of his life.

The party was a big school secret - all of the teachers were invited, as well as some of his friends that the Spawn had to get me contacts for.  Bronte had already moved on to Greece, but she provided the music by burning us a collection of her favorite tunes - one of the things she'd shared with our Dark Lord.

One of my favorite things about my time in Korea was belly dancing, and since my Dark Lord and his Spawn had been there for my first performance - a hafla that Azhaar put on just for me - it seemed fitting that I would dance at his birthday.  I had two choreographies I'd been working on at the time: Sonia's Art of the Drum Solo (with a few modifications by Azhaar), and the veil routine we'd put together to Massive Attack's "Teardrop" (which I'd first experienced another year in Korea, courtesy of another friend). 

Teaching at a hagwon brought together an eclectic bunch of 20-somethings from all walks of life every single time I did it.  It was absolutely crazy, and I loved most of them even though I often had little in common with them other than the black sheepishness that led us to move to the other side of the world in a career move that I've often thought of as Russian roulette.  There are really no guarantees that the school that you're signing a year of your life away to is going to follow through on its promises. 

But we got lucky.

I found belly dance.

Some people found love.

Others found a new career.  I can't tell you how many people I knew who went home and started working on a degree in education, because that year and those kids had that kind of impact.

But I think just about all of us found friends and shared a time that we'll always remember.  Especially those of us that were there that night, 'cause that shit got crazy.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2007

I've only got one photo to go along with this memory, but it's a doozy.  July 2007 saw me going back to Korea for round 3, and although the Powers that Be typically get underlings to fetch new teachers from the airport, the Powers that Be happened to be dear friends of mine, so they came to get me themselves.

When you accept an international gig, the person picking you up from the airport may not recognize you, and as a newbie, you're unlikely to know one squinty-eyed bastard from another, so the underling that fetches you will usually have a sign.  Well, even though I was guaranteed to recognize the people picking me up, my flight was delayed (it's a looooooong history, me and delayed flights), and so my Dark Lord, Bronte, and V decided to get creative while they waited.  They went scrounging in the nearest convenience store in Incheon's arrivals hall, and came up with a soju box, a permanent marker, and a highlighter.  When I walked through the door from customs and immigration, this is what greeted me.

English teaching was never my favorite thing in the world.  I worked my ass off when I was at GDA, and although I can't say I loved every minute of it, I kept coming back to it because of these people.  My time in Bahrain was challenging, to say the least, and coming back to Korea, while challenging in its own way, gave me the chance to relax amongst comfortable surroundings, with much-loved people, beginning from that first moment.

Every expat should be so lucky as to land in such a nest.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2006

My second job overseas was in the Kingdom of Bahrain.  It's a tiny speck on most maps, smaller than a crumb, but my Dad knew where it was when I chickened out and called to tell them where I'd scored a job on my way home from the University of Northern Iowa's hiring fair.

"Where's that?" asked my mom.

Loud sigh, "IT'S IN THE MIDDLE EAST, GLENDA," said my dad.  He was not impressed.  I was, though.  I'd started learning to belly dance in earnest when I was in Korea, and I was eager to live in the culture, to learn about it unbiased by the media, relying on my own perceptions and experiences.  Those experiences taught me that no, Muslims are not all terrorists.  Some of them are zealots, some are hypocrites, some are heartfelt believers (so, basically, just like Christians, apart from a few points of doctrine).  The men can be total and utter assholes, but aren't necessarily.  The women may be extremely kind and utterly gorgeous, or they may not.  It isn't my favorite place I've lived - in fact, I think it was the hardest year of my life, but that had less to do with the culture than it did with the school.  But anyways.

Ramadan began in September that year, and school had hardly even started before we were on a shortened schedule.  The non-Muslim teachers had to be really careful not to eat or drink where anyone could see us.  The kids were exhausted from staying up late partying and getting up early for prayers.  Everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - was thrilled when we finally went on holiday for the last week or so of it...and then it was Eid!  I went with my roommates (whose heinous bitchiness I had yet to truly realize the depths of), these two gorgeous ladies (who I still keep in touch with via Facebook), and a couple of the Lebanese staff, and we had brunch in public in BROAD DAYLIGHT!  If you've never lived in a Muslim country, I don't think you can understand how good that feels.  During the month of Ramadan, depending on what country you're in and who catches you (and possibly how hungry they are at the time), you can be fined or even arrested for eating, drinking, smoking, or hell, even chewing gum in public.  So having a nice meal with friends was a great pleasure.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that being Mormon is really helpful when it comes to finding your feet in a new country.  The church in Bahrain organized a sightseeing day during that Eid, and I brought my heinous, bitchy roommates with me (don't let anyone tell you I don't try to be nice).  We visited Qal'at al-Bahrain, the World Heritage fortress on the north end of the island that is one of the few preserved historic sites in the country.  We also visited the "Tree of Life."  Bahrain is one of the suggested sites of the Garden of Eden, with this big tree in the middle of nowhere supposedly being THE tree.  But my favorite part of the tour was the camel farm.  I got to take a short ride (that didn't even remotely prepare me for the camel trek I would go on when I visited Wadi Rum in Jordan) and even did a camel (a belly dance undulation) WITH A CAMEL!

The last stop on our tour was Bahrain's Grand Mosque, which was airy and full of light.  It's not usually open to the public, but Eid is a special time.  Bahrain is a fairly forward-thinking country, and women are not forced to wear the hijab, but we needed to for the mosque, and we were okay with that.  It was a day full of good experiences, and gave me something to lean on as the days of poorly behaved students and passive-aggressive roommates started to add up.

Ten Years, Ten Memories

 Next Tuesday marks the tenth anniversary of my arrival in Korea as a terrified greenie - a fact that astonished both myself and my Dark Lord and Master (who was the largest part of the reason I was terrified back in those days - it took me a while to realize he was just a big bunny rabbit) when we discussed it on my way through Seoul at the beginning of July.  To celebrate, I'm setting the Wayback Machine to count down a memory each day from each of those ten years to share with you....

The problem with doing one memory for each year you've lived abroad is that unless you moved at the beginning of January, you're really looking at 11 calendar years.  I've solved that problem by ringing in my first memory with the time we rang out 2004.  Another reason Korea was hard for me at first was because I didn't quite fit with the teachers who were at GDA when I got there.  One of the wonderful things about being Mormon, though, is you'll always have a second place to look for friends, and the Seoul English Branch is where I found my first friends overseas.  It was wonderful, because it had the eclectic mix of black sheep you expect to find teaching English in Korea, but with the added bonus of us all sharing the same standards.

We started our New Year's Eve at Bennigan's by Seoul Station, and then packed our way onto the subway to go to Jongno 3-ga.  It's an intersection in central Seoul that has a big bell tower named Bosingak, and that night it was packed with tons of people.  What would New Year's be without some fireworks, you may ask, and that's a great question - we obviously had some sparklers.  What the photo doesn't show you is that lots of people (including my friends) had Roman candles, which we were shooting into the air over this crowded intersection next to an old, wooden pavilion.

There was also swinging.  And swaying.  And music playing.  We were dancing in the street.  Over the three years I lived in Seoul I came to love their traditional drumming and dancing, and it was impossible to resist being swept up into the action.

How much do I love Korea?  SO much.  I've told you so many times you probably want to barf every time I start.  One of the many, MANY reasons is the fact that it's a night owl's paradise.  Not everything is open 24 hours, but it's damn close.  When everything finally ground to a halt in Jongno we went to Hongdae.  It's a university area and the only place I've really ever gone "clubbing."  We found a cafe and warmed up for a while before going to look for a DVDbang.  We picked out a couple of movies and split into the two rooms set up as personal home theaters.  Somehow most of us stayed awake - I remember the movie my group watched being really good.

We ended the night at the 63 building - a skyscraper in the financial district that has an observation deck.  We watched the first sunrise of 2005 from there, and I felt I was finally starting to feel at home in Korea.