Secrets to Tell

When I moved to Korea I came with few expectations. I didn’t know what to expect, but was up for a far away adventure on my own. One month of my time here has already come and passed and I have loved everyday.  I’ve loved the bibimbap, the simple apartment, the friends, the bars, the dancing, the teaching, and the swapping of cultures.

Something truly unexpected also came along my first month of living here…

I may have met a man at a smoky underground bar, I may have waited at a subway station in hopes to see him again, I may have spent late nights composing and rereading emails to one another and I may have flown to Kuala Lumpur for 30 hours to see that same man.

Patronas Towers

Batu Caves 

I just like this one.

I'm pretty happy about now

Butterfly Sanctuary

So nice to be warm for a few hours

Traditional Malay meal
Our taxi driver showed us where to go and how to properly eat with our hands. 

He's a bit of a romantic...I like it

Life is unexpected but so rich when you take chances. 

Developmental Konglish and ADD

Heaven help me and even this blog entry! I have been in Korea for less than a month and am quickly loosing my ability to speak complex and educated English. I have to simplify everything I say to almost everyone throughout the day and it is really taking a toll on my speaking abilities. I am embarrassed by the conversations I have and the emails I send. Everything I say is broken into simple sentences with basic vocabulary and I have already found myself forgetting the words to describe more obscure emotions, beliefs or technical terminology. I also rely a lot on expressions, hand gestures, pictures and other forms of non-verbal communication which means I talk less and express more. I hope this doesn't take a toll on my sociablity - ability to be social ;) - because I know I need to maintain a fairly high word quota to feel complete and happy at the end of each day.

Something I could do to help maintain my English proficiency would be to read more books, although, I have had problems with reading books for about a year. At first the problem was I would start reading and the weight of my own thoughts would take over and I'd end up staring at the book perplexed by the tangents of my mind. I'm not so crazy now, but I do I think I have developed ADD due to social bombardments. For too many hours of the day I have gmail, gchat, facebook, fb chat, skype, heytell, text messages, phone calls and probably others that I am forgetting about, distracting my from whatever I am doing. Between my computer, phone and iphone things are constantly buzzing, bouncing, ringing, vibrating, and chiming to get my attention. It's gotten a little out of control. I couldn't count the thoughts unfinished, tasks delayed and conversations cut short due to these interruptions. Now, when I sit down to quietly complete something my mind is all over the place. I wonder who has emailed me, I wonder if this friend is available to chat, I wonder how to make kimchi soup, I wonder how the flood in Australia is, I wonder if I ever wrote that person back, I wonder when my bills are due, I wonder what the weather is like in Japan and it goes on and on. The answers to all of my wonderings are only a few clicks away so I spend hours googling random questions that really have no direction or benefit, rather then spending those hours improving my mind by focusing on one thing. 

*Sigh* 

This has got to change. 

If I don't start challenging my mind and exerting a little discipline I'm going to turn into a harebrained, Konglish speaking foreigner. I don't even want to think of the stereotypes that will put me under. I'm signing up for online TESOL courses tonight! Maybe, I'll read a book too!!!

Just an Average Week for a Busan Foreigner

My second week in Korea was a success. I met my students and taught my first classes. All in all, I think things went well. Having 3 years of experience helped, although I am definitely looking into programs to get my TESOL or ESL certificate while I am here. I think I would be a more effective educator with some formal training, not to mention I am desperate to challenge my mind again.

My work week started off a little hectic but for the most part was low key. I ran, got groceries and skyped my family/friends in the morning, taught my classes, went into to Seomyeon with my director and co-Korean teacher to get some books, and just kind of hung out alone!

This is Michelle; ain't she cute?

By Friday night I was in desperate need of some social interaction with a completely fluent English speaker. I already have this fear that if I don't challenge my mind with furthering my education or keeping a very active social life, my language skills are going to be reduced to that of a middle schooler at best. The point is, I need to talk complexly as often as I get the chance! In anycase, after work I headed into Centum City and met my friend Michelle for dinner. We went to Haeundae, which is probably the MOST famous beach in Korea and is similar in feel to Waikiki in that it has skyscrapers along the boardwalk and is nicely planned, and had some really delicious "fajitas" that looked an awful lot like tacos. I slept at her place that night and we stayed up late girl talking as we should.

The next morning I met up with Matt and Joe, from the Busan hiking club (so far, the club is just the three of us really...it's pretty awesome actually) and we hiked to Seokbolsa Temple. It was a little cold at first, but the hike was beautiful, the view from the temple was amazing and it was peaceful just to be high up in a spiritual place while looking down on a busy city and the ocean. I plan on going on these hikes as often as possible while I live here. It's such a good way to get to know the city and it feels good to be outdoors. I can't wait to see how the scenery changes as the trees blossom in the spring and change color in the fall. Busan is perfect for me because it's like the mountains I love from Utah, meet the ocean I love from California, meet the city I love from anywhere! It's such a great city. We ended the hike with some kimchi, pork and rice. It was a great first outing.

We took a cable car part part way up the mountain

View of some of Busan

Here's the club!

There's no better place to meditate than on a platform surrounded by Buddha's,  overlooking the ocean, with the sun on your face. I'm contemplating becoming a monk so I could do this everyday!

After the hike, I hung out in the city for a while longer, stopped at Home Plus (think Walmart with 4 stories...you can get anything there!), and came home to relax and watch my dubbed Korean TV show called Pasta! This morning I caught my bus to church and had a really good Sunday. Many of the young adult members in my ward have studied at BYU, BYU-H or served missions in the states and they are really helpful at translating the talks and lessons for me. Every Sunday after church the entire ward gets together and has lunch. Some of the women in the ward prepare it ahead of time and the men clean up after. Today we had rice with 5 or 6 varieties of fermented and boiled vegetables (cabbages, sprouts, seaweed, etc.) and chili sauce and then clementines for dessert. It was delicious and so nice to have a meal, since I still have no idea how to cook for myself well in this country!

I'm really happy here. I know I'll have moments and days where I'll miss my family, friends and maybe a warm brownie but I'm in a really good place right. I'm enjoying every moment of the experience and hope it will enrich my life and help me narrow down what I intend on doing with myself after this is over! 

Enjoy a few more pics from the hike :)

Happy New Year!

This New Year I was in Korea and basically knew no one. Although, due to my excellent facebook networking (AKA stalking) skills, prior to New Years Eve, I had arranged to meet up with a few people who are also here teaching. I got really lucky because the people I met up with are awesome and I ended up having a great New Year! 

It started with a hamburger at Burns Breeze with some LDS members who came for the weekend from Daegu, continued on to pretty much a 6 hour dance-a-thon and ended watching the sunrise with hundreds of other people at Gwangali Beach. It's a tradition here to watch the sunrise for the New Year. It was kind of a weird experience because I am so used to seeing the sunset over the ocean and I hadn't actually gone to bed so it could have been morning or evening as far as I was concerned. In any case, it was beautiful and definitely a New Years I won't forget. :) 

I did end up waking up to a little Irishman (on the right) once I finally crashed. He thought it was a good way to start a new year!

This is my friend Matt. He has already proven to be invaluable and a great friend to go dancing with. 

It was freaking freezing, but so worth it!

The sun of the new year peaks through.

Did I mention we went to Dunkin Donuts after the sunrise? Haha - you can get just about anything American here!