Shopping in Korea: A Contact Sport

I hate, HATE, H-A-T-E shopping in Korea. It's most definitely an exercise in futility and I usually end up giving up before I actually get what I need.

In shopping for clothing, there is the most blatant concept of nothing fitting me. I can usually find shirts, but I don't even try to find pants or bottoms of any kind that will fit my extra-long length. I'm 5'11" or 180 cm; I'm much taller than most Korean women. I pretty much don't shop for clothing in this country.

There is also the joy of grocery shopping in Korea. When I lived in Dangjin, I despised when I would run out of necessary foods and I would try to piece together a meal with whatever I had left in my apartment, because I just did not want to deal with the circus of being a foreigner shopping for food.

The grocery store I would frequent in Dangjin was pretty large, but I was still stared at and followed. I wish I could say I'm used to being stared at by now considering I've been in Korea for over a year, but I'm not. I wish that was different, but I'm still not comfortable with being stared at. It doesn't bother me when children stare at me, but when full-grown adults stare at me I want to smack the teeth out of their head.

I usually try to ignore it, but as of late I just stare back and most of them feel uncomfortable and awkwardly look away until they think I'm not staring at them anymore. Then when they think it's safe to stare at me again they look back at me and realize I'm still staring at them. This continues for quite awhile. It's been a fun little game for me, especially on the bus. I often wonder if the people who've been staring at me and hurriedly exit the bus are getting off at their actual stop or are just trying to get away from me because I won't stop staring at them. I'd like to think I've cured them from staring at other foreigners they encounter. It's wishful thinking, I know, but I'd like to think I've made a difference.

When I would be shopping in Dangjin, the store clerks would follow me around the store. They would pretend to straighten the shelves, but interestingly enough the only products that needed straightening were those that were closest to me. Coincidence? I wasn't sure if they thought I was going to try to steal something because I was a shady foreigner or if they were trying to be super duper helpful. Also, when I would be in the store for a few minutes I would notice the music on the store's loud speakers would change to English music. I even heard Michael Franti a couple times! I can't imagine they would play English-language music just for one foreigner, but I did notice the change quite a few times. I really appreciated hearing Michael Franti , or another American musician I knew, but it definitely wasn't necessary.

I was told from a friend about a foreign teacher that came to the Dangjin area a few years ago, she was one of the first foreign English teachers in the area. When she went grocery shopping she would have clerks and shoppers alike follow her around the store and look in her cart to see what she was buying. Within a couple weeks of her arriving in town, she began to notice signs under all the products she normally purchased. She asked her co-teacher what the signs said and she was told the signs said, "The foreigner buys this." She came unglued and threw a fit that there were signs at the grocery store broadcasting what she was buying.

I absolutely hate shopping in department stores. It's the custom in Korea to immediately greet a shopper and latch onto their side and follow them throughout the department. Obviously there is a language barrier, which makes communicating difficult but sales associates continue to follow you around and shove things in your face telling you to buy them. It's really overwhelming to be followed around incessantly and have things shoved in your face repeatedly. I would much rather prefer to be left alone and be allowed to find things on my own. If I need help, I will come to you kind and helpful sales person. It makes shopping a suffocating and claustrophic experience and needless to say, I don't spend much time in Korea shopping.

Skinship

Koreans are very affectionate people.
Obviously the young children hug and hold hands, but adults are very affectionate, too. It reminds me of being on the playground when I was a young girl in elementary school and holding hands with my girlfriends.
At what age does this stop? I don't remember. But in Korea it doesn't really stop. I will walk down the street and see men arm-in-arm or with their arms draped over another's shoulders.
They have a word here, "Skinship." It means the relationship one builds when affection is shown between people. My friends' hogwan directors said "Skinship" is very important in building trusting relationships with children. If a foreign teacher hugs, tickles or strokes a childs hair often, then that child will be more trusting, loving and affectionate in return. It's a very important aspect of Korean culture.
On the flip-side of that is the adversely opposite way Korean men and women view affection between the sexes once they've reached a certain age. I consider myself a very affectionate person, I always hug and touch my friends, both male and female. Koreans see this as a problem. Koreans don't believe men and women can just be friends, there must be a romantic relationship if men and women touch in any way. I have many male friends and I'm constantly asked if the men in my pictures or my male friends in Korea are my boyfriend. I try to explain that in the Western cultures it's very common for men and women to be just friends. This is a concept Koreans don't understand.
I've explained this particular cultural difference until I was blue in the face and it's like communicating with a brick wall. It's just something Korean people can't fathom.
I hugged my male adult students on their last day at the Foreign Language Institute and I could tell that many of them were very uncomfortable with the idea of hugging a female, especially a teacher, but some were much more comfortable with it and gave me bear hugs.
I've seen my adult male students, who are "tough military men," hug, lay their heads on each other's shoulders and otherwise touch often, and then when I talk to Koreans about homosexuality they say the "idea" is something that doesn't occur in Korea. I'm not saying that all men that show affection to each other are gay, but I just find it so interesting that "homosexuality does not exist" in South Korea.
A few of my foreign friends here in Korea are gay and one of the Korean teachers at one of the schools knows one of the foreign teachers is gay. The Korean teacher said he felt so bad for the foreign teacher because "their are no gay people in Korea and he must be so lonely." We made sure to inform the Korean teacher (after we stopped laughing) that this foreign teacher got much more play than most of us in Korea and there are MOST DEFINITELY gay Korean people in Korea. Just because the culture as a whole refuses to acknowledge homosexuality, doesn't mean it doesn't exist and thrive.

Balance

I started my new job in Korea approximately 5 weeks ago and I can't get over how incredibly different my experiences have been the second time around.
I guess one must experience the bad in order to appreciate the good.
My new job rocks. I work with adults who are already pretty good at English, so we just get to chat all day basically. I don't start work until 10:20 a.m. and I have a lunch break for 1 1/2 hours and then sometimes I won't have class again until 3:30 p.m. The schedule changes every 3 months with new students. So sometimes I'll have a 1 1/2-hour lunch break and sometimes I'll have a 3 1/2-hour lunch break. I finish my day at 5:20 p.m. It's flippin' fantastic and a far cry from my schedule at She Devil's House of Hell.
My students, so far, have been pretty amazing, too. They are so entertaining and so incredibly helpful. They always want to hang out, too. My students are always asking me if I want to go to dinner with them or go the gym together. They are quite fantastic actually.
I live on base, but my apartment is huge and I have many amenities I didn't have in my last apartment, like windows. Windows are awesome! Especially when you haven't had them for a year!!! I also have a stove (!!). Koreans don't really bake so having a stove is huuuuuge! Only two of us on base have stoves, so the other three Conversational English teachers are pretty jealous. It's amazing to be able to make things again. All my friends are jealous and rightfully so.
I also have a bathtub! Granted, when I sit in the bathtub, my knees are hitting my chin, but I am not complaining. It's amazing to take a bath again. I'm also very, very, VERY thankful for my double-sized bed. I had a single bed in my last apartment and I felt like a little kid. Although I really shouldn't complain. When a few of my friends came to Korea, they weren't given beds at all and were just given blankets while their school directors pointed at the floor.
My fellow English teachers on base are my neighbors and it actually feels like I'm back in college and living in a dorm, although we have our own kitchens and bathrooms and we're definitely lacking those pesky Resident Advisors...
I was talking to a friend the other day and he said it was just so nice to see me so chilled out and happy. He said he's never really seen me like that before. Three months ago, he said, I was so stressed out and hating life, but now I'm completely different. I told him now he got to see the real me and to see me happy.
Life is pretty good. I'm excited for the future and I'm glad I made the decision to stay in Korea a little bit longer.

Crazy Train

The last several weeks at the lovely E. Bo Young Talking Club will be time I will fortunately and unfortunately always remember. I've never encountered a bigger whack job in my life.

As per my contract, I'm entitled to a free return flight to my home country. I talked to She Devil about paying for a one-way plane ticket to New Zealand or Australia instead. I wanted to go visit my best friend in New Zealand and my good friends in Australia. The plane ticket would have been cheaper than sending me home, so I figured she would go for it.

Unfortunately I had to tell She Devil that I was going to be working at a different job in Korea, so she knew I was coming back to Korea. Therefore, she got this great idea that she wouldn't have to give me a plane ticket home, because I wasn't actually leaving the country. I told her since it was in my contract, then she was obligated to follow it and give me a plane ticket. She said it wasn't fair to her to have to pay for a ticket if I was coming back to the country. I told her it wasn't fair for me to not get what was stated in my contract when I fulfilled my end of the contract. She didn't see it that way; she just didn't think it was fair to her. I was really proud of myself, I didn't even raise my voice. Yelling got me nowhere with the psycho.

I called the Talking Club headquarters yet again and asked them how I should proceed. They then informed me that because I wasn't leaving the country, She Devil wasn't responsible for paying for a return flight to my home city despite what the contract said. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of a contract for these exact circumstances? Apparently contracts don't mean as much in Korea as they do in other countries.

I got off the phone and was thankful I was alone. I wanted to hit something so hard it would break and then break my hand. I was furious. I was getting screwed... again... and there was nothing I could do about it short of involving the Korean Labor Board, which would have cost more than it was worth and likely wouldn't have done much anyway.

I really hope Karmic justice is served with a heavy hand.

I tried every angle I could think of: trying to tell She Devil I had changed my mind and wanted to go home, trying to tell her the job was changed and my start date was extended, trying to tell her she was acting illegally and unfairly; nothing was working. At one point, she agreed to pay for the one-way ticket to New Zealand and then when it got closer to me actually finishing the job and needing a release letter so I could transfer my visa to my next place of employment, she backed out and told me she would either pay for the ticket or write the letter. She knew full-well that I needed that letter to transfer my visa, so I was completely stuck and she knew it all along. I've never been so close to lighting someone on fire in my life.

Apparently she had a few conversations with the hogwan owners in the area and they said she should give me enough money to buy a one-way ticket to Japan or purchase the one-way ticket for me. Somehow, they reasoned, that was a fair trade for not buying a return ticket home and writing me the release letter I needed. Umm, that equates to about $250.

I knew I was stuck and, more importantly, she knew I was stuck. I had no choice but to just bend over and get screwed for the 9,000th time.

I opted to take the money instead of the plane ticket, which ended up being a really good choice. The immigration office had to take my passport and alien registration card (which is incredibly frightening) for the visa transfer process and they ended up holding my documents hostage for 3 weeks, which makes any international travel aspirations moot. I couldn't even travel to the DMZ, a trip I had been wanting to take since I got to Korea.

I was tired of fighting. I'd spent a very long, stressful and extremely painful year fighting without any form of victory with this horned, incompetent excuse for a lifeform and I was just tired. I had to give her what she wanted to get what I needed. I was so close to calling it quits and just going home for good, but I wasn't willing to let her beat me entirely. I guess I still got some money out of the deal, albeit not what I deserved.

I Hate Goodbye's

The last couple weeks have been so emotional for so many reasons. On one hand I have the intense desire to commit murder on a daily basis because my boss is literally the puppet of Satan and, on the other hand, I'm so sad to be leaving so many of the kids I've been teaching for the last 12 months.
Many of my students have come up to me with frowns on their faces asking me, "Erika Teacher, why go?" It's breaking my heart. I had two young girls, holding hands, come up to me about two weeks ago and say in unison, "Erika! We are sad!" I ask them why and they respond, "Because you!" and they point angrily and intensely toward the door of the school where I work. "Why you go?" they ask. All I could do was apologize.
Many of my students have been telling me they are so sad and they don't want me to leave.
"We love you Erika Teacher, don't go!" It makes me so sad to leave the majority of them.
Today was my final day at Talking Club and many of the students have been giving me gifts they picked out and wrapped themselves with little cards they took so much time writing, with eraser marks and re-write after re-write.
"I love you, teacher! Thank you for teaching me! We will miss you!" the letters say.
One of my co-teachers, who was also one of my students in my ridiculously-early before the crack of dawn class, organized an entire booklet of cards from all of her students. Each card was written and decorated by each of the students. Then the teacher, Bella, drew little pictures of each student. The last page in the booklet was a letter from her telling me how scared she was initially of taking my morning class because she was self-conscious about her English skills. She went on to say that I made her very comfortable and she appreciated all the help I gave her and she is now much more confident in speaking English.
I burst into tears.
Despite ending the worst job of my life, there are so many things I will miss.

Jeju-rrific!

Wheeeew! It's been forever since I've been able to post any updates on my crazy life in Korea. This whole "no access to a computer" thing is really cramping my style.
This entry is going to be veeeeerrrryyyy long, so hopefully you readers will have a good hour on your hands or you may want to break it up in shifts. :)

Cheers!



My friend, Simon, invited me and our other friend, Ringo, on a hiking trip to Jeju Island. Jeju Island, or Jeju-do, (do, pronounced "doh", is the Korean word for island) is a large island about 62 miles south of the South Korean peninsula. It's about 44 miles long and 25 miles across.
Jeju-do is where many newly-married Koreans spend their honeymoon. It's also known as the Hawaii of Korea.
One can either take a plane to Jeju-do or a ferry. The summer weekends are usually booked solid for transportation to and from Jeju, as are the accomodations. But, lucky for us, we booked just in the nick of time! Woot!
Jeju-do is actually a volcano, which hasn't had a major eruption since 1007, and the highest peak in South Korea calls Jeju home. Halla-san ("san" meaning mountain in Korean) is approximately 6, 400 feet high, or 1,950 meters. I was frothing at the mouth to hike Halla-san and check out Jeju. This was a trip I'd been wanting to take since I made the decision to come to Korea. I was also excited to take the trip with Simon and Ringo, both Kiwis and highly unpredictable and entertaining.
Simon and I live in the northwest region of South Korea, near Seoul, and Ringo lives in the southern region of South Korea, near Busan. So we were going to pick him up along the way.
We had to catch a bus in Seoul at 11:30 p.m. on a Friday and drive down to Mokpo, where we would catch the ferry to Jeju. The bus took about 3 1/2 hours and I couldn't sleep at all. We arrived in Mokpo extremely early in the morning, when the bus driver parked the bus and we all waited for the ferry terminal to open. Still my attempt to sleep was futile.
Eventually the sun came up and we made our way into the ferry terminal and promptly layed down on the benches and attempted some more rest. Eventually Ringo arrived at the terminal and the three of us decided to take a walk around Mokpo.
There really wasn't much to see in Mokpo, so the walk didn't take too long. However, we did have a nice run-in with an ajuma (old Korean woman). She was walking ahead of the three of us, looked around in front and to either side of herself, then looked behind at us, saw us and let a giant and extremely audible fart loose. We all sat there stunned for a split second and then busted up in laughter. Welcome to Mokpo.
We mosied back to the ferry terminal and eventually it was time to board the ferry.
All the Koreans boarding the boat were fully decked out in their hiking gear. The Koreans don't mess around when it comes to purchasing treking attire. They go to special hiking stores and get the special hiking pants and the special hiking shirt and the special hiking sleeves for their forearms so they don't get sunburned, and then they have the special hiking jacket and the special hiking fanny pack, the special hiking hat AAAAANNND the special hiking stick. It's all color-coordinated, of course. It's quite a sight, as I'm sure one can imagine.
I've got my Chaco's, a tank top and quick-dri pants and I'm good to go.
We had a room in the ferry, so almost everyone immediately dropped their packs, laid down and tried to sleep. I did the same, but eventually Simon and Ringo got up and went on an exploratory tour of the ferry. I continued to attempt to sleep and I think I may have gotten about 45 minutes when our Nazi group leader, the Hiking Guru, comes flying into the room, turns on all the lights and announces "it's time for us to eat snacks." Apparently "nap time" is over and "snack time" has commenced.
The Hiking Guru decided to open every single package of food we had in the room with a pocket knife, which was a lot -- about 2 big boxes full -- and spread them all over the floor. At one point, one of the women in the group said, "Umm, Hiking Guru, I think we have enough food right now. You probably don't need to open anymore."
To which he replied, "I just like to cut things."
At this point I decided I'd had enough of snack time and wanted to see what Simon and Ringo were up to.
The boys had been wandering around the ferry and I found them easily enough in the main cafeteria area of the ship. They were headed up to our room when I intercepted them. Ringo handed me a bottle of beer and we ended up sitting down at one of the tables to play a Korean card game and drink until we reached Jeju.
We hit the ground running once we got to the island. We met our bus and our first stop was a lava tube, Man Jang Gul. It's part of the longest lava tube system in the world supposedly. The temperature changed about 10 degrees from the steps entering the cave to the underground tunnel.
There were various layers of lava in the walls of the tube and stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a large pillar formation that was made when lava poured in from a hole in the roof of the cave. It reminded me of the giant organ in Goonies.
There was a platform made of lava that supposedly looked like a turtle, however I didn't really see the resemblance. I kept hoping to see a bat, but to no avail.
After we left the lava tube we headed to Seongsan il chul bong (Seongsan Sunrise Peak). This is a tuff cone left over from the volcanic activity a long-ass time ago.
We hiked to the top of the peak, which wasn't all that high. I did appreciate the random pseudo convenience stores set up along the trail selling soju. That was a nice touch. Good job, Korea.
It was really foggy. We were told we would be able to see a gigantic crater full of beautiful foliage overlooking the sea once we got to the top. However, I can neither confirm not deny said beautiful landscape exists as we saw nothing but mist. But what a lovely mist it was.
Jeju-do supposedly has wild horses and apparently it's the only place in all of Korea that has horses. Though the only horses I saw were those attached to ropes walking around a ring with little Asian people snapping pictures. Those don't really strike me as "wild" horses, but the Korean tourists sure were enjoying them.
The people of Jeju are awfully artistic and they've carved little men out of the ubiquitous volcanic rock found in abundance all over the island. There's little stone men all over the island called Dolharubang (Stone Grandfather). Supposedly they are for protection for the island. However, I think they look like giant penises. Giant 3-foot-tall penises. So naturally, Ringo, Simon and I performed lewd and lascivious acts upon the poor Grand-stones. Turns out there are only about 40 of the original figures in existance today and we were dry-humping a few of them. Oops.
After we promised to call the Dolharubang, we set off for a waterfall. We first went to an area where we overlooked the waterfall from a temple. Then we walked down to the pool that the waterfall emptied into. By this point I was sweating like a race horse and I desperately wanted to jump into the pool, but unfortunately there were signs outlawing frolicking in the water placed all over the flatform where we were standing and the area surrounding the pool. We were also being watched by Capt. Hiking Guru and he's so excitable there is a distinct possibility he would have had a coronary if I would have broken the rules and jumped in the water. Koreans don't break rules. They don't understand the concept.
From the waterfall, we made our way around the island to the pension we were going to stay in that night. Pensions are basically hostels/backpackers that don't have beds. They come equipped with blankets and pillows and everyone sleeps on the floor. Our pension was overlooking the beach.
When we checked in, Hiking Guru tried to section us off in men's and women's rooms. Koreans have a hard time with the opposite sexes intermingling unless they're married. I immediately cut him off and said, "Nope, I'll sleep in here with my friends," and I plopped my stuff down next to Simon and Ringo's bags. We had three other chicks in our room and the other rooms were filled with both members of the opposite sex. For shame!
It was dinnertime and we made our way down to the front of the pension for a meal of boiled bulgogi and bagels. And, of course, beer and soju. The boys and I had been drinking all day. We started drinking beer on the ferry and then moved on to maekgoli once we got to Jeju.
I remember looking at the supply of beer Hiking Guru brought on the trip and thinking, "There's no way that's going to last through the night."
Sure enough, the supply of alcohol was depleted in no time. When we asked Capt. Hiking Guru where we could buy more, he said "nowhere," everything was closed by 8 p.m. and it was now approaching 10. "It's an island, things close early here," he said.
Ringo looked like he was about to cry. He turned to me and said, "Come with me."
So Ringo and I set off on an alcohol-seeking mission. We soon had a posse, which included Simon and a couple other alcoholics. We stopped at every business-looking building we could find. We came upon a restaurant that was closing, but still had patrons inside. We asked the woman if she had maekju (beer) and soju we could buy from her. We were in luck! We cleaned the woman out and returned to the party victorious!
Capt. Hiking Guru announced that everyone who wanted to hike Halla-san in the morning would need to meet the bus at 3:30 a.m. Simon had already made the decision not to hike Halla-san, but Ringo and I were still toying with the idea of hiking it. That was until we heard what time we would have to wake up in order to hike it. When we heard 3:30 in the morning, we both looked at each other and said, "The hell we are!" and continued drinking.
I've left a crucial element out of the story until now. The boys thought it would be absolutely hilarious to have a competition to see who could show me their testicles the most often and in the most creative ways. Needless to say, I saw way more of Ringo and Simon than I needed to throughout the weekend.
At one point I was sitting on a bench and Ringo came up behind me and said we should take a picture together. As he was positioning the camera in front of us to take the picture, he flipped it around so the LED screen was in front of my face displaying a zoomed-in picture of Simon's balls. I was not impressed.
As the night progressed more and more people continued to head to bed and one unfortunate soul forgot her camera and left it where the rest of us were sitting when she went to bed. Naturally Simon, Ringo and the rest of us still standing gave her a few special photographic mementos to remind her of the trip. It was really more of an anatomy lesson.
I have this affinity for skinny-dipping whenever I'm near the ocean. I don't know what it is. There's just something so pure and natural about the ocean and I have to get down to my most natural state to fully embrace it. So Ringo, Simon, the other guy still standing and I all stripped down and took a dip in the sea and then we finally went to bed.
The next day while everyone else was hiking Halla-san or otherwise exploring the island, Ringo, Simon and I decided to take a trip on a yellow submarine. Simon was obscenely excited about this trip. He was like a little kid, jumping around and squirming with excitement. I wanted to smack him after awhile.
We had to wait for a little while for the submarine tour so the three of us took a look around the bay. We went out to a lighthouse and we were lucky enough to see the Haenyeo.
Haenyeo are women divers who are famous and widely known throughout Jeju-do and Korea. Diving is only a profession for women on the island. They dive all year-round and in the past the divers would wear only loose white cotten clothing and used rope baskets to hold whatever sea-life they caught and gourds as floats.
Nowadays, women wear full-body wetsuits. In the past, the women would make up to 150 dives a year. Now women usually dive only from spring to fall.
Historically when the women dove in the white cotten get-up men were forbidden to look at the women. Divers were anywhere from 30 to well-over 60 years old. The population of the divers is decreasing, but there are still about 5,000 Haenyeo left in Jeju.
I was nervous that the women wouldn't appreciate us taking their picture, but when they passed us in their boat on the way out to find their daily catch, they were all smiles waving and yelling "Annyeong" and "Hello."
Soon enough it was time for the much-anticipated yellow submarine trip. The three of us were the only Waegooks (foreigners) on the trip and we were completely obnoxious. We took a shuttle boat out to the submarine and the three of us were audibly excited about the yellow submarine, clapping, laughing, singing and taking pictures. Ringo and Simon spotted a Japanese girl who then became the object of their affection and they spent the shuttle trip (and the subsequent submarine trip) trying to get her attention and her photograph.
I don't have the strongest stomach and the strong waves were becoming an issue. I'm sure the consumption of maekju and soju the previous evening were not helping matters, but I started feeling quesy -- really quesy.
We got down into the submarine and the waves had become 10 times more powerful. The saliva was increasing. I was sweating like an ape. It wasn't a matter of "if" I was going to puke, but a matter of "when."
Ringo and Simon took the opportunity to snap copious photos of me about ready to vomit. Assholes.
Once we got below the surface, the waves were no more and I felt better. I thought I might actually make it out of the yellow tomb of death without puking. I was able to momentarily enjoy myself.
We saw many beautiful fish and stunning coral, of which the highly eco-conscious and licensed submarine driver kept smacking into irreparably damaging for centuries. They even employed a guy to dive into the water and capture baby rays to stick on the porthole windows for our viewing pleasure. Of course I took pictures!
The waves of nausea came back in full force and in between the boys volleying back and forth between laughing at me, viewing the beautiful fishies and checking out the Japanese chickee I was trying to swallow back the inevitable.
I will be forever grateful to the Jeju Submarine Tour Company for providing little white plastic puke bags. They saved me from even more embarrassment. Luckily all I had in my stomach was pear soda, that's easy to throw up.
This was endless entertainment for the boys who spent the next several minutes snapping photos of me chundering into a plastic bag. At one point I thought Ringo was actually trying to be nice. He was rubbing my back and asking if I was OK. Turns out he was recording me on video. Assholes.
Luckily the vomit stopped and soon so did the submarine tour. Before we surfaced, one of the Korean women on the sub turned to me and said, "You! Number 1!" Both Ringo and Simon threw their arms up in the air and exclaimed, "Yeah! Number One!"
The Korean lady said, "Off! You Number One off!!!"
She was telling me to get off the submarine first. Hahahaha!
She blocked everyone else from getting off the sub first and made sure I got off first and then she followed me onto the shuttle boat and made sure I sat down and then she got me some water. It was very sweet actually.
I attempted to sit inside the shuttle boat, but after about 30 seconds, I realized that was a pretty bad idea. I headed up to the open air of the top deck and tried desperately to focus on a stationary object on the horizon. It worked for a half-second, but then I started puking once again into another bag. Awesome.
Thankfully the shuttle was swift and I bee-lined off the boat for stable ground.
The remainder of the day was pretty uneventful. We headed back to the pension where I promptly took a spot on the floor and tried to forget the fact that I just chundered in front of an entire submarine full of strangers -- and had it videotaped.
We had to wait around for the part of the group that actually hiked Halla-san before we could head home. Eventually they arrived and we all piled onto the wretched smelling bus and headed back to the ferry terminal.
We got to the terminal and it was absolute mayhem. All the ferries were booked and all flights off Jeju were cancelled. There was an impassable and lingering fog that was making air travel impossible. Thankfully our ferry tickets were pre-booked.
There were hundreds of bodies everywhere, all over the ferry terminal lobby. Lines for the ticket window were stretching outside and the ticket window attendants were screaming something incomprehensible into loudspeakers. I, of course, had no idea what they were saying, but assumed it was something along the lines of, "Good luck you sorry bastards. There is no way you're getting home tonight. Have fun explaining this to your bosses. You will likely be tortured with chopsticks and honor-killed during the next morning meeting." Or something along those lines.
Honestly, I wouldn't doubt it if that actually happened to a few people. Korean employers are a little intense and work is just not missed, no matter what the circumstances. One of my friends worked with a guy who's wife had a miscarriage. He was at work that morning and only asked to take the afternoon off to be with his wife. When I say Korean bosses are intense, it's not an exaggeration.
We stood, sat and laid around the ferry terminal for about an hour and a half and then finally it was time to go. People were pushing us to try to get ahead, people were cutting in line and standing all over everyone else to try to get on the ferry. It was like the island was going to blow up and this was their last chance of survival. We had to go through the gate single-file because we were being squished by hordes of people from every side. At one point, Capt. Hiking Guru almost came to blows with a man that jumped into line and cut the rest of us off from getting on the ferry. Thankfully he had a pocketknife... I was glad their were little Korean police officers there, but I'm not actually sure if they could have done much.
Once we finally got on the ferry, there were about three times as many people in our room and the ferry employees told us we were weren't allowed to lay down or extend our legs. Ummm, yup, luckily I can pull the foreigner card and honestly say I had no idea was he was talking about.
There were so many people in our room and all the Koreans were playing card games and drinking shots of soju. We were getting the stink-eye from them because we had the audacity to lay down or (gasp!) extend our legs in front of us!!! It was quite a great trip home. Luckily the more soju the Korean passengers drank the more they lightened up and didn't care so much what we were doing. Soju just brings people together; it seems to be a great equalizer.

Bloody Picasso and Dog Food

I was heading to my friend's apartment to watch a rugby game, but he lives out of town and so I needed to catch a bus. I'd never been there before, but I knew it wasn't too far away.
I hopped on a bus and called my friend to let him know I would be there shortly so he could wait for me at the bus stop.
He told me about the various landmarks that I would see along the way so that I would know where to get off the bus. He also said either himself or one of our other friends would be there waiting for me at the bus stop so I would know for sure when to get off.
I kept seeing various landmarks that could possibly be the ones he was talking about, but I wasn't sure so I kept waiting to see a familiar face. That familiar face was nowhere to be found. I kept searching for it at every stop. It just never came.
My friends kept calling me questioning me about my whereabouts. I had absolutely no idea where I was. Eventually, after about a half hour, my friend called and told me to get off the bus and just wait for the next bus heading back in the direction I had just come.
I did get off the bus at the next stop and landed in a random rice paddie. Absolutely nothing looked familiar and there was a random convenience store open, but no clerk. There was also a couple of small cages full of dogs that were barely being kept alive. They will be someone's meal soon.
I met some junior-high aged boys on the road and asked them if they knew where and when a bus would be coming along. In single-word sentences they informed me that the bus stop was just down the road and there would be a bus coming in about 30 minutes.
I stood at the bus stop, which was no more than a telephone pole, and waited for the bus to come. I was somewhat near some sort of factory that had smoke billowing from the stacks.
Big dumptrucks kept driving by me, too. There was one driver in particular who continuously drove on the road in front of me. He would head one direction and then 10 minutes later he would drive back. Each time he passed me he would slow to gawk at me. On the third drive-by he made a complete stop, whipped out a huge, very expensive looking SLR camera and began taking my picture. I was stunned and immediately turned my back to the freak and did my best to hide behind the telephone pole.
He eventually continued driving and I guffawed at his brazen dickishness.
But it didn't end there. He kept driving back and forth past me, every 15 minutes or so and each time he pulled out his camera and tried to take pictures of me. WTF? I was convinced he was going to grab me, throw me in his dump truck, chop me up into little pieces, take pictures of the pieces and then feed me to the poor malnourished dogs that were stuck in the cages that were way too small for them.
He drove by another time, stopped in front of me again and motioned for me to get in his truck. Are you friggin' kiddin' me, smalls? On what planet do you think I would actually willingly get into your vehicle with you and ALLOW you to murder me and take pictures while doing it? Psycho.
By this point it's raining. I called my friend, Reese, and explained the situation to her and said I just wanted her to know what happened to me in case nobody ever heard from me again. She said, "OH MY GOD!! Where are you??! I'll come get you!!!"
I ever so calmly exclaimed, "I don't even know where I am!!! Somewhere between rice paddies and my eternal grave!!! He's going to feed me to the poor dogs!!!"
That's when my cell phone battery began to beep as, of course, my battery was now dying. I can't actually make this shit up. By this point it had been about a half-hour and no bus was in sight.
Butcher-boy kept driving by and I was absolutely convinced I was going to become some sort of bloody montage of digital pictures for this freak. I considered walking to one of the little farm houses to see if I could borrow someone's phone to call somebody who could speak Korean to call me a cab. I thought better of it when I realized the only living quarters I could find was one that housed emaciated dogs in teeny-tiny cages.
I would wait for the bus.
I began standing behind an ancient decrepit pop machine that was near the telephone pole to cover myself enough from the prying eyes of Butcher-boy. Eventually, after about 20 more minutes, a bus came charging up the road and I nearly shrieked in glee and through my hands up in victory. I was not going to be dog food today! I've never been so happy to see a bus in my life.
After going all the way back into Dangjin, I called my friend who's house I was supposed to be at an hour prior and told him, screw it I'm getting a cab. Turns out, his apartment was literally 5 minutes from the center of Dangjin. I practically could have walked there.