All these places feel like home
I haven't posted in a while, but nothing much new is happening. I'll be back in the States at some point in October, not sure when yet. I'll be spending a lot of time in Kansas City visiting people, I'm sure. I'm also considering a tour of the East Coast, because I have a lot of friends in DC/NYC/Pennsylvania. Haven't figured out the logistics yet, but if you're willing to host me in November or December (November, more likely), let me know.
It's strange to know I'll be leaving so soon, even though I plan on returning to Korea again. I did some hardcore cleaning of my apartment today to hopefully make it easier to pack when the time comes. I got rid of a lot of old clothes that I never wear and some other assorted junk I had collected during the year. But I can still tell that packing is going to be a total pain and I'm going to have to get rid of even more stuff when the time comes.
Now it mostly just feels like I'm killing time until my contract is over. I have a couple of dinners planned with Korean friends, and I'm going to some lantern festival next week. I'll spend a few days in Seoul before I fly out of Korea to buy some gifts for people back home and spend time with the boy.
Living in Korea has not always been a particularly pleasant experience. In fact, it is a distinctly uncomfortable experience in some ways. It's the first place I've ever personally experienced racism. I'm unable to communicate on a basic level with most of the people around me. If I need to do anything more complicated than buying something off of a shelf, I have to either write everything out in Korean first or have a Korean friend come with me. I've had to make all new friends. I've never been stared at so much in my entire life. Yet the discomfort eventually settled down around me to the point of becoming comfortable. Korea got under my skin, and I'm excited to start all over again in Seoul in January.
It's strange to know I'll be leaving so soon, even though I plan on returning to Korea again. I did some hardcore cleaning of my apartment today to hopefully make it easier to pack when the time comes. I got rid of a lot of old clothes that I never wear and some other assorted junk I had collected during the year. But I can still tell that packing is going to be a total pain and I'm going to have to get rid of even more stuff when the time comes.
Now it mostly just feels like I'm killing time until my contract is over. I have a couple of dinners planned with Korean friends, and I'm going to some lantern festival next week. I'll spend a few days in Seoul before I fly out of Korea to buy some gifts for people back home and spend time with the boy.
Living in Korea has not always been a particularly pleasant experience. In fact, it is a distinctly uncomfortable experience in some ways. It's the first place I've ever personally experienced racism. I'm unable to communicate on a basic level with most of the people around me. If I need to do anything more complicated than buying something off of a shelf, I have to either write everything out in Korean first or have a Korean friend come with me. I've had to make all new friends. I've never been stared at so much in my entire life. Yet the discomfort eventually settled down around me to the point of becoming comfortable. Korea got under my skin, and I'm excited to start all over again in Seoul in January.