I went out for dinner with Neil, Geri and Jodie last night as a kind of goodbye, since Jodie is leaving on Saturday and won't be back before we leave. Of course, the conversation during these kinds of dinners always lead to the same question.
"Are you excited to be leaving?"
Well, duh! We're going back home! Of course we are going to be excited! But, for me at least, there's also a big sense of loss. Korea is where I have spent the last year of my life. I have become accustomed to being here, have made friends here, and the idea of leaving it all behind makes me incredibly sad. This sadness has been particularly bad over the last few days when I look at posts like this one from Amy:
"when you leave i will be absolutely desolated!! the random abuse of drunken yongamdong ajosshis and the whole supermarket family jumping on my bed at once won't be the same without you. don't gooooooo~~~!"
Before that moment, I had never really thought about what I was leaving behind. Sure, I was going home and would get to see my friends there, but I was also leaving friends behind - friends that I might never see again! Sure, we make plans to travel the world and we make plans to come and visit each other and attend each others weddings, but life gets in the way sometimes, and who knows when we will meet again. The thought of this makes me a little teary.
Anyway, once I started concentrating on what I was leaving behind, I started really appreciating what it is that I have. I started looking at Korea in the bright-eyed bushy-tailed way that I don't think I experienced when I first arrived - I was too busy being homesick and missing everything back home to notice just how awesome some things are here. So I thought that I would take this moment to write down some of the things that I will thoroughly miss about Korea in general (not going into details about things that I will miss about friends, because that will just be too hard.)
There are about a million and one other things that I am going to miss about Korea, and the more I write, the more things I think of. But I think that this list is an indication of just how much I am going to miss this beautiful country that I have called my home for the last year of my life. Hopefully I will return one day (as a visitor rather than a teacher) and relive the year that I spent here, traveling around the country on that wonderful bus system, taking advantage of that fast internet, reveling in being able to eat that wonderful food. Korea, I will miss you!
"Are you excited to be leaving?"
Well, duh! We're going back home! Of course we are going to be excited! But, for me at least, there's also a big sense of loss. Korea is where I have spent the last year of my life. I have become accustomed to being here, have made friends here, and the idea of leaving it all behind makes me incredibly sad. This sadness has been particularly bad over the last few days when I look at posts like this one from Amy:
"when you leave i will be absolutely desolated!! the random abuse of drunken yongamdong ajosshis and the whole supermarket family jumping on my bed at once won't be the same without you. don't gooooooo~~~!"
Before that moment, I had never really thought about what I was leaving behind. Sure, I was going home and would get to see my friends there, but I was also leaving friends behind - friends that I might never see again! Sure, we make plans to travel the world and we make plans to come and visit each other and attend each others weddings, but life gets in the way sometimes, and who knows when we will meet again. The thought of this makes me a little teary.
Anyway, once I started concentrating on what I was leaving behind, I started really appreciating what it is that I have. I started looking at Korea in the bright-eyed bushy-tailed way that I don't think I experienced when I first arrived - I was too busy being homesick and missing everything back home to notice just how awesome some things are here. So I thought that I would take this moment to write down some of the things that I will thoroughly miss about Korea in general (not going into details about things that I will miss about friends, because that will just be too hard.)
Snow. Yeah, I know. I must get over it already. I am not a fan of cold, but as I have said time and time again, the snow makes it feel worthwhile, and I am sure that I am going to sorely miss it during South African winters where all I will have is an icy wind keeping me company that is cold, but just not cold enough. I am still hoping for one more snowfall before I leave – though I have thrown a few snowballs and had a number of them thrown at me, I have yet to make a snowman, and I feel that this is something that I must do before I leave the wonderful white stuff behind. Come on, Korea! SNOW!!!
Picture: Cindy and I taking photos of the snow-covered park outside my school. Taken by Jinny.
Hiking. I haven't done as much of this as I would have liked, but the little bits and bobs of hiking that I did do were awesome. There is nothing like walking through a hillside steeped with beautiful trees and random temples strewn along the way.
Picture: Munkyeong Saejae when we hiked it in early April.
Cherry blossoms. Why can't we have these in South Africa?! The little pink blossoms definitely made my month of April pass by a little quicker, and looking at them always seemed to bring a smile to my face no matter what I was going through.
Picture: Me playing with cherry blossoms. Taken by Rowena or Meghan.
Buses. Being able to travel across the country on a whim is something that I will sorely miss about Korea. Cheap, fast, reliable, comfortable travel to anywhere in the country was great, and I wish South Africa would get something similar. Of course, South Africa is a hell of a lot bigger than Korea, but that's no excuse for it to cost R600 (about 100,000 won) for a return trip from Cape Town to Plett - the equivalent of Seoul to Busan - and for the bus to be four hours late in each direction. Korea, your transport will be sorely SORELY missed!!!
Picture: On an express bus to Seoul.
Taxis. On the topic of transport, I am really REALLY going to miss the taxis in Korea. There really isn't anything similar in Cape Town, and while I will certainly appreciate driving myself around for a change, it would be nice to be able to flag down a cab when I have had one too much to drink or when I am too tired to drive. Taxis that, once again, are cheap and reliable - sure, they might take you the long way around, but you never worry that they are going to leave you in the middle of nowhere - are a great commodity.
Picture: One of my taxi drivers stuck in traffic.
Subways. Still on the topic of transport, I am really Really REALLY going to miss the subway. Remember how I said taxis were cheap? Forget that. SUBWAYS!!! I can just picture myself climbing on a train in Bellville (and not the kind we currently have that I wouldn’t feel comfortable riding on) and coming out in Cape Town half an hour later regardless of how bad the traffic is. And traveling in comfort at that! Air conditioned in Summer, heated in Winter kind of comfort, even if I would have to stand to enjoy it. Yes, there is a train system in Cape Town, but as I said, I just don’t feel comfortable participating in that form of travel. It’s moments like the one my friend, Robyn, experienced where she was abused (verbally, not physically thank God) for being a white woman using transport that is supposedly reserved for black people. “Look at that whitie thinking she’s like us” is not the kind of thing that I want to hear on my way to work in the morning thank you very much. (Sure, the Koreans might be saying it too, but at least I don’t understand them!)
Picture: Me returning from the Mika concert by subway. Taken by Dawn.
Love motels. Being able to find cheap accommodation anywhere in the country without any booking was always handy when deciding to take a trip on a whim. You would be guaranteed to find a love motel somewhere with a spare room, though it might take a little searching at times. And yeah, they often weren't the most savoury of places, but they were cheap, led to you sleeping on a bed rather than a thin mat on the floor and usually had computers with internet access to boot.
Picture: Dejavu Motel in Busan, where I have stayed twice.
Walking to school. I realized this morning as I was walking to work that this was something that I was truly going to miss. I was going to miss walking around without clutching my bag to me and without looking behind me, listening to my iPod as I walked down the street without worrying that something would happen like the last time. I am going to miss this particular routine, even though I currently hate it because of the cold. Being able to walk around alone is still something that I can appreciate.
Picture: The street that my school is on.
Korean children. I don’t know what it is that makes them so much cuter than any other nationality, but Korean kids are gorgeous! I am going to miss seeing their smiling bespectacled faces, and I am (strangely) going to miss their choruses of “Lala teacher!” as well as their singing of Korean songs and Smurf themes when I walked into the room. Ah, children of Korea… I really will miss you.
Picture: A random Korean child at my taekwondo studio.
Chungdae. Having all the bars that I wanted to go to in Cheongju conveniently all in the same area was very, well, convenient! I didn't have to drive half an hour to get from one pub to the next like I did in Cape Town, and each pub had its own distinctive personality which all appealed to me at one point or another, unlike Grahamstown where all of the pubs seem to blend into one. Pearl Jam was always the top choice for a meal and a drink, Buzz became the place to relax, MJs was where you went if you wanted a little more of a party and RoadKing was where you ended up at the end of the night when you'd had one too many and needed to sober up. Come to think of it… that does ring a little of Grahamstown…
Picture: Buzz Bar on a Sunday night.
Noraebang. I have seriously considered opening up one of these back home. I love that you can have the experience of a karaoke evening without the embarrassment of having to stand up on stage in front of tons of strangers. It is your own personal indulgence to stand up in front of only your own friends and belt it out, not caring about whether you sound good or bad because no one is going to judge you - it's all about the fun!
Picture: Noraebang at the end of Grant's farewell. In this picture: Angelina, Thomas, Grant, Amy, Jess and Patrick.
Camaraderie. I love how as soon as you see a white person (or black person for that matter) you will jump on them like they are your Lord and saviour - another foreigner! OMG! My new best friend!!! Nowhere else would you embrace a foreigner so wholeheartedly as part of your group of friends while knowing practically nothing about them. But because we are all in a strange country where we don't really know anyone, seeing someone who could conceivably come from the same country as you, or at least the same country as someone you know, feels like an unbelievable relief. Foreigners band together in a way that I haven't seen anywhere else, and I love it.
Picture: The random South Africans that I bumped into on my first night at MJs. Jacques (who lives in Durbanville) and I ended up being friends.
Communal dining. Most Korean dining is communal. You order something for your table, rather than something for yourself, and you share it out between everyone. I love this kind of dining and find it more social than ordering your own meal that only you can enjoy. I like trying some of everything and love to see how everyone's personal preferences differ - someone might comment, for example, on how delicious the doenjang jjigae (smelly-foot soup) is, and someone else, upon trying it, will get a disgusted look upon their face. It is an opportunity to socialise in an entirely new way, and I love it.
Picture: Having some Shabu Shabu with friends.
Chopsticks. I have gotten so used to using them for absolutely everything, that I am sure I am going to miss eating with them when I leave. It will suddenly be strange to use a knife and fork for every meal especially when, as Neil recently pointed out, some things are just so much easier to eat with chopsticks!! Take salad, for example. It is so much harder to eat a salad with a fork - attempting to stab at individual pieces of lettuce with limited space on the prongs - than it is to eat one with chopsticks – grabbing clumps of salad between the two sticks and shoveling them into your mouth before your grip fails you.
Picture: Chopsticks over soy sauce with wasabi.
Korean food. While I have been in Korea, I have jumped at the opportunity to eat Western food pretty much whenever I could. Italian, Indian, Mexican, you name it and I was there. But in between my Western cravings, I did manage to get in a fair amount of Korean cuisine, and I think that there are a number of dishes that I am sorely going to miss. The list includes, but is not limited to samgyetang, kalmegi-sal, buddaejjigae, bossam and gimbap. I just hope that the Korean restaurant in Cape Town has some good specimens!!
Picture: Eating Bossam.
Cat cafes. Not having pets in Korea has sucked. As someone who has lived with pets for most of her life, it has been awful going without them. But what has gotten me through this tough time is knowing that I can always visit a cat café! Sure, it may have taken a trip to Seoul in my first few months here to partake in this guilty pleasure, but once one opened in Cheongju, all it would take was a 4,000 won taxi to Shinae and a 7,000 won cup of coffee to be able to play with kitty cats to my heart’s delight! I think I am definitely going to miss these cafes when I get back to Grahamstown and only have one kitty cat to play with. Oh well, Puddims will just have to endure my unending affection. Poor Puddims!
Picture: One of the beautiful cats at Hello Cat in Cheongju.
Shopping. Shopping here is not the same as it is back home. I am going to miss walking through markets, bartering for goods, wandering into shops like Fashion News and LPM to look at the pretty clothes that would hardly ever fit me and buying clothes that could fit just because they could! I am also going to miss shops like Daiso with their ridiculously adorable stationery and other bits and bobs for next to nothing. I am going to miss the street food, even though I hardly ever ate any of it, and I am going to miss the experience of shopping in Korea in general.
Picture: Shopping in Shinae.
Mini-stops. I have gotten so used to having three convenience stores right next to my house! Everyday bits and pieces conveniently located 70 steps from my front door! And if the Family Mart didn’t have what I wanted, the Mini-stop, only 40 steps further away, was likely to stock it. And if that mini-stop didn’t have it, I could just walk a little further up the road to the next one. They may not have had a large variety of groceries at hand, but they sure did have a lot of other things!
Picture: A building filled with shops, with a mini-mart at the bottom. These stores can be found absolutely everywhere.
Living alone. It has it’s ups and downs, but I think there are definitely going to be things that I will miss about living alone, especially when I compare it to living with my parents. I was reminded of one of the big ups of living alone just the other day when I spoke to my sister.
“Mom’s pissed at me.”
“Why?”
“I came home at 6am.”
My sister is five years older than me. We should not have curfews anymore, and yet we do. I know that when I go home, I will be expected back before 12pm, and if I am going to come home later, it is better not to come home at all. In Grahamstown I will not be restricted by a curfew, but I still won’t have quite as much freedom – I will still have to arrange my life around other people. I cannot wake up at whatever time I like and do whatever I like, because if I wake up then I will probably wake Grant up. And then there is Jono to deal with. I am not complaining. All I am saying is that it has been nice only worrying about myself for awhile.
Picture: My apartment - just big enough for one.
Fast internets. This is one of the things that I think I am going to miss the most. I am going to miss websites loading seconds after the enter button has been pressed. I am going to miss choosing an episode to watch and watching it minutes later. I am going to miss unlimited skype calls and internet downloads and a million other things that come with having fast, limitless internet. Oh, Korea… how I love your technology.
Picture: An image of what fast internet would look like, stolen from google images.
There are about a million and one other things that I am going to miss about Korea, and the more I write, the more things I think of. But I think that this list is an indication of just how much I am going to miss this beautiful country that I have called my home for the last year of my life. Hopefully I will return one day (as a visitor rather than a teacher) and relive the year that I spent here, traveling around the country on that wonderful bus system, taking advantage of that fast internet, reveling in being able to eat that wonderful food. Korea, I will miss you!
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