In Bali!

It's important to keep promises to yourself - especially ones that concern travel. And last year, when I was freezing and miserable in winter camp, trolling my facebook newsfeed (which was alive with pictures from Bali, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia) I promised myself the following:

Next winter, I will not be a chump.

In keeping with that, I booked a two week vacation in Bali! I am here now, arrived yesterday, and ready for adventure.  Since I really haven't explored very much yet, I have very little to report except this: Bali is delicious. The air is warm and so are the people. The island is lush, and "rainy season" still has a brighter, bluer sky than I saw all summer in Korea. At the internet cafe where I am now, a little girl, about 7 years old, is sitting next to be at a computer that is turned off, watching me and pretending to type,too. This, after a morning time spent reading on a private patio enclosed by palms waving in the balmy breeze, and breakfast that included watermelon juice and mangosteins.

I love Bali!

Riding the bus to work

Even ten minutes after, my heart is still pounding, my teeth are clenched and I am reliving the moment, the dreadrul anticipation in back-to-back, 5 second technicolor loops. I see his face, reactionless, blinking with molassas slowness. I speak my bit, mouth full of marbles, and look at the door. Will it open? Will it not? At this point, my tongue thick with nerves, my mind blanks and out restarts.

You're probably thinking that I did something terribly exciting, but the truth is, I was only riding the bus.

Taking the bus is, normally, a stress free affair. Of course, "normally" means after I learned how to read Korean and figure which bus to get on. And where to get off. And how to differentiate "this stop is" from the stop name. Those things down, riding the bus is a cynch.

When it stops for me.

There are convenient little red buttons to signal a stop, just like most city bus systems. But the stop is only as accurate as the driver. During mornings, rush hours, or other such crowded times, the bus drivers are moving, speeding every five feet and slamming the breaks every twenty seconds, trying to make their schedules. They listen to music, or the news.  Sometimes on the radio, sometimes on headphones. They have to keep their eyes on the road to avoid the skipping school children and crooked old ladies who wander into the street with abandon.

That is to say, they are not always paying attention to the passengers.

When a bus driver passes my stop, all I have to do is ask him stop.  Except, I live in Korea. Except, the bus drivers only speak Korean. Except, for the longest time, I could not figure out how to say "please stop the bus!" and ended up banging on the door despartely, pointing, saying the incorrect word for "stop", none of which was understood.

That added a few greys, I can tell you.

(although my hair isn't going grey, its going red, which is odd story for another time.)

Well, I finally learned how to say stop. After enough of this stress I asked for the phrase, the magic, the key that would let me be understood and released from the bus:

"Ee bohn-eh, Neh-riah-yo!"

"This is my stop!" when said clearly, releases me from the bus. But its a mouthful, and there's always a chance that I won't be understood, that the bus will keep rolling, that I'll be rocketing towards the end of the line while my school sails by the windows.

This morning, I should've known. The bus driver nearly mowed me down instead of picking me up. He was pumping the breaks so hard that I was snapped out of morning haze and thrown around in several accidental ballerina positions trying to maintain my balance. He was boppng to his headphones, completely tuning out the bus radio AND the bus TV.

I am, if nothing else, optimistic to the point of pure foolishness.

When my stop came, he opened the front door to let on new passegners, but not the back door to let me off. The bus started rolling, and the familiar panic set in.

"adjussi!"  I said, but he didn't hear me. Too many people blocking his review mirror, too much sound in the air. I shoved through the passengers, tunneling to the front. I had a 5 second window before we ridiculously far away from my stop.

"ADJUSSI!"  I was desparately shouting "sir" to get his attention. Finally, his head snapped my way. He blinked me into focus.

"Ee bohn-eh, Neh-riah-yo!" I pointed to the door. Time slowed like soup. I held me breath.

The door opened.

WHEW.

Five Golden Lings

In the name of being a cultural ambassador (and getting out of dealing with the increasingly thin lesson material provided for the end of the year), I taught my 3rd grade students to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas". It's a classic (at least from my childhood), and it can't be found on the Korean Top 40 holiday songs that seem to play all year round, including "Last Christmas" by Wham, and "Santa Baby", which routinely blast out of speakers in cell phone stores and coffee shops.

To keep the kids engaged all the way through 12 days - a daunting feat for this iPhone4/angry birds generation - I made a little dance to go with the song, and taught it in 3 installments.

It's pretty hilarious.

It's hard to keep myself from laughing when the kids say "golden lings", "tuttle dobs" and garble the word "partridge" out of the side of their mouths, but add in the fact that they're only 3rd graders, and tend towards all around silliness in general, and I decided it would downright grinchy not to film it and share the Christmas cheer.

I have LOTS to be cheerful about this season, because I am coming home! I will touch down in Detroit, Michigan for the first time in over a year, this Friday.

So here it is. From my classroom, from my students, to you.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Seoul: Lantern Festival on the Chunky-chunk (청계청로)

There is a small river that runs through the center of Seoul. This river is called the Cheonggyecheong. But, through an odd brain quirk, I seem to be unable or unwilling to pronounce it, so I call it the Chunky-chunk. 

It makes me laugh. Chunky-chunk river. Sounds like a cookie with chocolate and walnuts. 

Mmm...walnuts.

ANYways. The Chunky-chunk was once paved over for a highway, then later uncovered and restored to a rather unnatural, paved, but beautiful flowing splendor. Now, it's a wonderful place for the brave to dip their feet in and cool off, or just sit next to and enjoy the company of friends. And in November, there is a brilliant lantern festival. Here are some pictures from my frigid night capturing the river lights.

Making a holiday

Thanksgiving started with everything being about an hour behind schedule. In true holiday form, my careful plan to cook, clean and present myself as the American version of June Cleaver posing for the Korea addition of House Beautiful was smashed into panicky "get out of my cooking space, I'm wielding a carving knife" mode by one malicious, unpredictable element: 

Traffic.

In order to pull off my Thanksgiving ex-pat party, I ordered a pre-cooked turkey with trimmings from the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Seoul.

Of course...I don't live in Seoul.

So after pressing myself with unexpected intimacy against the strangers stuffed in the subway more tightly the stuffing in a turkey cavity, and waiting 45 minutes for a friend to help me drag the 17.5lb turkey I order back to my apartment in Bucheon, I climbed into a taxi, expecting him to zip of to the nearest highway and whisk me home.

You're a smart cookie - you know that's not the way it went down.

Instead, the cab crawled through the city to another highway, took a scenic detour and finally slow dragged his plump and pissed off fare (me) to Bucheon, disgusted, seething, and late.

Don't get me wrong - the turkey? done. The mac & cheese? Done. The rest? Being brought by friends. What had me in a utter panic was that I had less than 30 minutes to pull together what I considered to be my coup-de-gras this holiday season: the appetizer.

I had my party completely mentally mapped. I would pull the roasted-tomato bruschetta out of the oven just as the first guests arrived. We'd crack the wine and conversation would flow, keeping everyone mellow until dinner.

The reality was much less elegant. I was still chopping when the first guests arrived. I had a friend in the kitchen being my sous-chef as I fixed my hair and make-up and had nearly outrageous fits of OCS whenver an unauthorized guest stepped into my cooking space. My guests popped on my laptop and played my music, which was completely embarrassing - who wants friends and guests to know that you sort-of-accidentally uploaded your Aqua CD onto your new laptop so that could dance around to "Barbie Girl"? 

Thank goodness for wine!

We cracked open the first bottle and magic happened. People relaxed, stopped paying attention to me and my OCS antics - or "trying to help" as they put it - I served up my appetizer with a secret ingredient (bacon), and my friends tucked in with gusto. 

Then the real food came out. 

When you're living away from your family, the people you share the holidays with become a close substitute.  So to see my friends comfortable, shoes-off, chowing down in true turkey day style was the best holiday gift, despite the fact that I wasn't nearly as coordinated as I had hoped to be.

Towards the end of the night, a guy who had tagged along as a friend of a friend pulled me aside and said:

"Thanks so much for letting me crash your party. I've been feeling really homesick lately, and I thought it wouldn't be possible to have a real Thanksgiving here. But you're an excellent cook, and an excellent hostess. You actually made Thanksgiving."

If I had to say what I was most grateful for, it was that moment.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!