I posted today!

I actually posted again! 

Today I basically wasted time until about 1 o clock when I went to the main gate I was supposed to meet a bunch of my Korean/foreigner friends and go to a movie after being interviewed by KBS, the main Korean broadcasting station. 

However, to my chagrin, there wasn't going to be a movie, and I couldn't bring my Korean friend. I was so embarrassed because I asked him to go with me. I didn't know he couldn't go. He told me it was ok, but I was still really embarrassed. 

So about the whole KBS thing. We were never told where we were going or anything, but luckily it was really fun. We made kimchi (for reals), which was delicious, and we had lunch and spent time with nice Korean old people. I gotta say, actually understanding stuff and being able to communicate in korean is so much fun. 

This might be the dangerous part about study abroad. I kind of think as the whole experience of learning a new language as a mountain. At the bottom is the student who is newly arrived in the mysterious country which he/she is studying in. As the student progresses in his journey up the mountain (which can sometime be very steep), he/she is met with little townships along the way. Each township gives the student a sense of accomplishment and makes the surrounding time kind of nice. The harder a student studies and converses in the new language, the faster their progression up the mountain. Furthermore, as you go up this gargantuan mountainside, the townships get bigger and bigger, until eventually they turn into villages, and then to cities, metropoli and so on. At the very top is a shining eutopia, in which the student has successfully conquered the previously unassailable mountain. 

Right now, I'm sitting in a pretty big village. I honestly feel like I could stay here and just study until I reach that eutopic summit. I have real friends here. As funny as it sounds to say, I am definitely going to miss this place, and I don't think I want to go back home. Here, people are pretty much always happy to see me. I can go places, and people want to talk to me. People I don't know say hi to me randomly. I can actually communicate how I feel. I can make complex grammatical sentences. It really kind of makes me sad that right as I'm reaching the place I wanted to be in the first place, I have to leave. 

Also, and here's the crazier thing: I'm pretty sure if something did happen with N. Korea and the country was thrown into war, I (while being worried and hopeful that the South would win) would be happier than going back home right now. While that may sound radical, I'm pretty sure noone will actually read this entry anyways. I'm pretty much surprised anytime I hear from anyone back home, so that probably contributes to my feelings about going back.

Besides the trip, I just hung out with my friends and came back home. here's hoping I blog tomorrow.

For Now

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

I just need to get motivated

I can't believe I didn't blog AGAIN for the last two days. When I got home from ping pong stuff I just basically had no motivation because I was so tired. 

That's what my Friday was, basically. I went to class, and then went to Ping pong that night. between the two I cleaned my room and got a bunch of stuff packed up. I am packing just because I want to have my stuff on the way home. 

Also, I know that there is pretty much no real danger of this, but I'm also getting everything ready in case something should come of the N. Korea threats. Historically, those threats are made quite often. South Koreans aren't even really worried about it, so I know I shouldn't be. I would definitely rather be safe than sorry. 

Saturday

on Saturday I literally spent all day on the other side of Daegu, at a school called Keimyung University. The university is statistically better than daegu university, but not by much. Not like I could attest to how good the school is, because I spent 12 hours in the gym. 

So yesterday I was really excited because I had been working on playing a different style, which was really frustrating for everyone playing me because while it doesn't take much effort for me to perform the movements, it takes an incredible amount of energy for my opponent. Unfortunately, like something out of a movie, I won my first game and was very happy going into my second when I notice that my racquet feels funny when I use it. Inspecting it further, I notice the rubber is actually pretty messed up. I try to use it further, but it ends up costing me, and my team, a game. I had a backup racquet, but being as I hadn't played with that one for a long long time, I was pretty useless. Even though I won a game and almost won another, yesterday was the most frustrated I've ever been with table tennis. I know nothing comes easy, but with the time I've put into table tennis there shouldn't be a reason why I get dominated by someone that hard. 

Anyways, when all of my team had lost we went home and I went to sleep.

I am going to blog tomorrow. I will. 

For Now

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

P.S. this week I should have more videos up

Ugh....

Ok ok ok ok I know it's definitely been a week and two days since I last blogged. This entry might be the toughest one to write of them all. It's going to be tough because it's going to be a long post, but because I have to acknowledge now that for the duration of the trip, it's going to be me and myself. I mean, I have korean friends too, and a few that speak pretty good english, but this is going to be the test for me, I think. 

So yeah, instead of trying to play catch up forever, I'm just going to start anew with all this blogging business. I just have to accept that in twenty years (if this is still up I guess) I will just have lost that week. It's ok though, because basically I was just helping the Murray peeps around.  

Today I had my second Korean language class. It went ok. The grammar is definitely harder, though. It's going to take some serious work to make this grade turn out like my last grade. 

Well, I don't want to stretch a good thing (I actually posted) and I'm tired so I had better leave a little early. 

Also, I apologize for the whole no post/small post thing. I will be ok now that this one is out of the way (I hope).

For Now

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

It's that time again.... gotta catch up on the blogging

It should really be easy to just post every day, but unfortunately it hasn't worked out that way. I always get sidetracked or get downright lay when it comes to posting, and it's not really excusable. After all, if it wasn't for the fact that I didn't have class all this week I wouldn't even be posting now, considering that on mornings I have class I'm usually already gone. 

Thursday

Anyways, I believe that my last post was on Wednesday, so I guess I will pick up on Thursday. On Thursday, I was busy studying for my final on Friday, so I didn't really do much of anything except for prepare myself for the test as well as table tennis. The good news is that on Thursday I found out about another championship I can participate in with my club at a university here in Korea. The guys invited me to play with them and so now I'm in training again ha ha.

Friday

Friday started off good, with me waking up early and doing some last minute preparatory studies for the final. I was definitely surprised by the test's difficulty when I got in and looked at it. I expected the listening part to be difficult, so that's not really a big deal, but the writing part was much harder than the teacher told us it would be. She said there wouldn't be a need for extensive and obscure vocab knowledge, but indeed there was. I missed a few short answer questions merely because they were the only words I didn't know. Them's the brakes I guess. I'm honestly not worried about it, though, because I feel confident I knew the majority of the questions. 

After the test, we went out to Mie's for some comfort food, and then to Daegu with the Murray group. It was the first time they would meet their student aides, so I was hopeful they would enjoy the time with them, just like my group enjoyed our time. Seeing these student aides in action definitely made me miss the friends I made last summer. Just as the aides are really nice this year, our aides were great last year too. I was assigned to an aide that wasn't really familiar with Daegu, since he was from a city near Pusan. The group was Jennifer, Vicki, me, and the student aide. We saw a lot of downtown, and it was a great time, but I definitely felt like I wasn't doing a great job of helping show them around. There is just so much to see downtown, I wanted to invent a time machine so that I could have the luxury of stopping time and they could see all the really neat things I have seen. Maybe I'm supposed to feel like that, but it's definitely not a fun feeling. 

Anyways, the Daegu trip went pretty well, I think. It didn't rain, and everyone got home safe. 

Saturday

On Saturday, we were scheduled to go to Spa Valley, which is an amusement park in Daegu that offers a full indoor spa facility as well as an outdoor water park. It was going to be a great trip, especially since all the days leading up to Saturday were almost unseasonably hot. Just like in the movies, though, I woke up for a morning run on Saturday only to find out that the weather turned from nice and warm to not warm at all (almost cold in fact), as well as an unpleasant dreary gray color. Since it had also rained the night before, I couldn't go on my run. I went back to sleep, hoping that the weather would make a turn for the better. 

It didn't. We went to spa valley, and it was definitely very cool now. When we arrived, the Murray people really wanted to participate in the Dr. Fish experience, like I had in Seoul. Spa valley's Dr. Fish was considerably different than the one I took part in, though. In Spa Valley, the Dr. Fish area was pretty much just a wading pool full of the tiny little carnivorous fish. If you were still long enough, they would swim right up to you and begin feasting on all the nasty dead skin you had to offer. 

I was kind of hoping that this time it wouldn't tickle so much, because last time I laughed for twenty minutes straight. My hopes were quelled, quickly, however, because the fish were definitely just as ticklish as before. There was a new twist in my experience this time, though, in that my last trip to the public bath had left a smallish sore on my foot about the size of a pin head. It wasn't a big deal and was healing up as it should have been. However, I completely forgot about what it is the fish did, exactly (that is, I forgot the fish loved the taste of flesh). So, as I was getting my fish therapy, I started noticing that some of the bites were tickling so much as just aggravating me via slight pain. when I looked down, I found that the fish had smartened up and had nibbled my little sore to double its size or so. I couldn't blame them, really. Given the option of prime rib or sirloin, I would definitely pick the sirloin, so for those cute little fishies, given the option of plain-jane dead skin or real bloody flesh, it's understandable they wanted the real thing. I was wise to their plan, though, and then avoided the fishy prescription for the rest of the allotted time. After all, it was just as much fun to watch the others get nibbled on.

We finished our foot treatment, and all headed out to our own destination within Spa Valley. The place offered a public bath, several steam rooms, a couple of indoor pool rooms, outside hot tubs, and a large water park. The water park was cancelled out by everyone very early, because of the rain and the cold, so everyone wanted to try the spa type activities. Unfortunately for the Murray group, much of the spa activities were in the public bath, which meant that everyone had to be naked. I definitely can't blame anyone for not wanting to get naked in front of tens of strangers. As Americans, we're programmed to be afraid and ashamed of our bodies, especially in the eyes of those we share a common gender with. 

I was proud of the group, though, especially since quite a lot of them participated in some of the "naked" activities offered. I think 4 girls got massages, and a couple of guys went into the public bath area. That was way better than what I thought it would be like. It's such a leap of faith for an American to do something like that. 

As for me, I was familiar with the public bath "scene", if you will, and the novelty had definitely worn off. Instead of being ashamed and really nervous, now I mainly assessed the public baths on what they had to offer. Unfortunately, the one at Spa Valley didn't really impress me, so I didn't stay there long (mainly long enough to try the milk bath), except to get my shower.   

The rest of the time at Spa Valley for me was spent enjoying the water park with one of the workers in the international office, Anna. Usually, Anna has been nice to me, but I had a feeling that she didn't really enjoy my company. I know it's a silly feeling to have, but clues come from the comments a person makes, and their body language towards you, their demeanor, and so forth. 

I was definitely proven wrong in that regard, though, as she was actually really friendly towards me, and it seemed like all the non-verbal cues were completely changed for the opposite. I was wondering if maybe she had been a victim of the body snatchers, actually, because the change was so dramatic. All of that doesn't really matter, in the scheme of things, because I only care that I made another good friend here. We spent the rest of the day trying to take advantage of the water park's slides as they opened. Since the weather was rainy, the waterpark only kept enough employees to run one slide at a time, on an alternating schedule. So, I devoted the rest of the time to slide hopping, so that I could get a really fun time out of it. I did pretty much everything to do in the park, even though it was almost downright cold.

The park had an outdoor hot tub, so I used that to warm myself up again after splashing into the cold catch-pools of the slides. There were twisty slides and straight slides, long (and tall) slides, and short slides. We didn't make it to one, but with that as the only exception, I did them all (even the incredibly giant one that every water park has).

Along with the slide, I also did some other things, like rope walking, gymnastics on said rope over a wave pool, and even some high diving. It was all in great fun, except that on the high dive I definitely did something to my ear, whether it be busting my ear drum, or some variation of swimmer's ear. Anyways, it pretty much incapacitated me for a while. We were about to eave, and my ear was bothering me, so I decide dI would have a beer, to try and take my mind off the pain. Other pain goes away with a little alcohol, why should ear pain be any different?

Unfortunately, that hypothesis was definitely proved wrong. Amazingly, within just a few seconds, the pain I experienced was amplified greatly. I didn't understand it, and tried to just get through it. We went to Outback, and I got my food order in (Baby back ribs...it was heaven) but the pain just kept increasing. I broke down finally, and Anna helped me find a pharmacy. When we explained what happened, and how much pain I was in, the pharmacist just smiled and asked if I had any alcohol. Turns out, that if someone is suffering from an ear problem, alcohol is pretty much the worst thing they can do for themselves. It's one of the only pains which is actually increased with alcohol consumption. 

So I managed to eat and make it through dinner, and just as quickly as the alcohol had increased the pain, the naproxen (aleve) that the pharmacist prescribed, took it away. Not only that, but the ear medicine was definitely working (let it be known that only two days later, I am completely pain free, and can hear again. 

There's definitely something good to be said about the way in which Koreans handle medicine and prescriptions. many medicines (most, actually) are available over the counter, and the pharmacists usually know a good doctor to refer to if one is needed. The pharmacist is very skilled in knowing exactly what the patient needs, and it helps to cut down on the waiting time for treatment if the patient can get the medicine straight from the pharmacist. I, for one, was very happy with the care given to me, and the lady knew exactly what she was doing. While it may not be the best system, I believe there are certainly good things to be taken from the Korean way of dealing with medicine and patient care, in general. Maybe one day the U.S. will start taking notes (hopefully from everywhere, not just Korea).

Sunday

Sunday's activities involved going to Gyungju, a very famous and historical city about an hour and a half away from the University. The reason for going to Gyungu was to see the neat historical things it had to offer, like burial mounds of old Silla kings, buddhist museums, and other historical goodness. 

In its heyday, Gyungju was the seat of the most powerful city in Korea. With almost 1 million inhabitants, it can be compared to the size and the influence of Rome. It should be noted that even though the city was huge, and the kingdom...not-so-much, Korea has always had to deal with its powerful neighbors, China and Japan. Those foreign factors definitely kept the Silla kingdom from being recognized as one of the richest and most powerful civilizations to exist. 

Anyways, we definitely saw some incredibly interesting place there in Gyungju. We go to explore the inside of a burial mound, as well as go to a traditional Korean restaurant and enjoy the "Full meal" as it's called. We toured some famous palace grounds, as well as one of the most famous buddhist temples in all of Korea. The place was absolutely beautiful, and there were some neat famous stories to go with them, including, but not limited to: a giant bell which only rings because of the blood of an innocent baby, as well as a Romeo and Juliet-esque story behind the construction of a pagoda. It seemed like the Murray people had a lot of time seeing all the stuff there was to see, there. I know I enjoyed it (I had never been there before). 

Monday

Monday went by pretty quickly. I got to sleep in, and I even did some table tennis training. the guys in the building that I trained in were pretty helpful, and I got good practice in at the same time they were improving due to our playing time together. It's so much fun to play with the Korean people, here, because it's such an easy way to build friendships and talk with them on a 1 on 1 basis. 

I went to culture class, and had a good time learning about Korean pop culture. We learned about some famous songs, movies, an other unique cultural contributions to the world that Korea has made. After class, it was time to teach my Korean students about America. When I arrived, I was informed that it would be our last class together, and that were sad we couldn't meet again. Even though it was sad that we couldn't meet again, at least in a class setting, I at least had a good idea for a fun game. The Murray people were upstairs enjoying the bounty of a successful cooking class, and I knew my students needed to see just what kind of English they could expect to hear when they came to America. They get some of that from me, too, obviously, but the more speakers they can hear, I feel like the better equipped they will be. So, I set up a little verbal scavenger hunt for them to take part in. Their task was to as assigned questions to the Murray people and find out who fit the assigned little statements I had given them to look for. 

The scavenger hunt portion ranged from "Who is a professional cook?" to "Who just had a baby?". Along with the scavenger hunt portion of the game, there were also some "freebies" I gave them, which were questions they could ask anyone. The questions were like "I'm planning on studying in the U.S., what is the most important thing I should know?", and "What is your favorite thing about the U.S.?". 

All in all, it was a great activity for them, I think. They mingled in with the Murray people, and all three of them get the majority of the questions answered. Another good side effect of the activity was that Murray really got to see a better example of "average" Korean english skills. The students I have on Monday have good english, but definitely not the caliber of english spoken by the student aides. 

What makes that special is that they haven't learned yet what translates well, and what native speakers are more likely to understand. Therefore, the english they speak is many times just directly translated from what they would say in Korean. It really gives a look into the act of "in head" translation, as well as how Koreans would react to situations (observing this one isn't as hard, but in order to know what they're saying and thinking, having the direct translation definitely helps). The Murray people seemed to like it, and that's really all I could ask for. 

After the little activity, I said goodbye to the group and headed off to Hayang with the Murray gang. Hayang is a little town outside of the university which can basically be compared with the town of Murray itself. It might actually be a little bigger, but it's basically the same thing. There's not much there, in terms of just fun things to do, but there is shopping, and supermarkets, and houses and whatnot. In Hayang, I went with Helen, Rachel, and Caroline, and we kind of aimlessly walked around, searching for nothing in particular. We did happen to find a couple of Koreans who were really enthusiastic to talk to us, and even wanted to follow us so that they could continue asking questions. We managed to break away from them, though, as they were talking our ears off, and headed back home. It was a good day, and hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

Also, let's hope I can blog tomorrow, so that I don't have to spend two hours in front of my computer catching up.

For Now

Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

How can I not just blog every day?

Today's Wednesday! You know what that means: I forgot to blog yesterday! 

   It's alright though because yesterday was boring and I just kind of floated through the day until 3 o clock for my class. 

The teacher for that class is truly a unique person. He makes the whole course worthwhile. Not because he is a literary genius or because I want to be like him, but because of what we talk about (granted, he's a nice guy and not a bad person to be though). 

My teacher is definitely of the mindset that everything is coming together in a very unfortunate way for everyone in the world, especially America. He doesn't like Obama (not saying that's crazy), and he thinks we have no freedom. While I don't directly just ignore him, I have to admit that it's tough to swallow some of the things he says in class. I think it would be kind of cool for there to be a big rich guy roundtable where they want to completely control the world with their money. Why not? It's the stuff of movies, really. I honestly go out of my way to try and see his points and understand him, because if there's anything this country has taught me, it's to never just disregard anyone. I believe that, to be a productive person, you Must MUst MUSt MUST find something good in everyone and find something to admire. I don't believe that you can go around life just hating people or just casting people aside. 

I try so hard to see his points, his logic, and while I can appreciate his point of view, and him as a person, I don't know if I'm able to acknowledge that as a good lifestyle. Sure, there may be a diverse and complicated network of businessmen, bankers, and other rich men who only want power and will take over the world. sure, everything may be happening to put everyone into slavery. I can see how someone can make that inference. I'm not altogether too sure i want to believe that though. For one thing, who am I to be able to stop someone with billions of dollars. For another thing, what does that do for my life, to believe that it's all going to come crashing down just because of some rich selfish guy? Who wants that to cloud their mind all day? I can't control anything about that situation. that's basically just becoming a suicide cult member I think, because you have basically already committed your life to dying and unhappiness. I'm just too happy for that. I want to reiterate though, I can understand how someone would come to that conclusion, and am glad they think in such a high state. The world needs people to question everything, that's how we progress, I just couldn't do it to that extent. 

After class, we met with our SAPP groups and we went to celebrate Kayla's departure of Korea. We went out and had a great time.

Today

Today was good I guess. I didn't go to class, so that I could actually study. Since our test isn't going to be speaking, I know that I just need a working knowledge of the grammar rules, an ability to read, and some listening skills for the listening part of the test. So today I stayed home. It felt so nice. It's going to be tough going to the four hour class tomorrow, but I am going to go.  After all, we have the aforementioned final on Friday. 

After class today, or I guess I should say after the self guided study program I laid out for myself, I went to the chemistry lab. My professor was busy at first, but after a couple of hours of studying in the library, he was free. 

       We spent some time talking about why our reaction wasn't working. Basically, I have a week to come up with a satisfactory method for synthesizing our product. I am just a little bit off, I know it. I'm just missing one little detail, and I can't figure it out right now. I know it's right there, reaching out to me, it's just right out my sight for now. Hopefully before Wednesday I figure it out, because that's when we settle on the final approach to solving the problem. It will work, and I know I will get my head around it-I just hope it happens after the final so that I can spend time thinking about the final instead of my research.

I went out for a nice afternoon run, and it turns out that for one reason or another my performance suffered today. I don't know if it was because I forgot my allergy medicine this morning, had milk this morning with breakfast, the air quality was bad, or what was going on, but there had to be some reason why I was just exhausted while running. It was quite frustrating, really. I had been doing so well as far as running is concerned, but then today it's all downhill (figuratively, unfortunately). I am going to stick to my story that something messed with my performance, so that it has nothing to do with my actual performance. I'm pretty confident that I only have to keep running to improve, though, so I'm not worried. 

I also met the students from Murray tonight as well. They are a really nice group of students. Really fun to be around, and I feel like they are my own cultural babies. Just like I was (and still am) a cultural baby. I didn't know anything about Korea, I didn't know why they seemed so weird, they just were. I had never done any Korean activities. I had never done much. It's really exciting. While there might be a better analogy for it, I'm sticking with the baby one. 

Something kind of related, though, and pretty selfish, though, is a subject I have been thinking about for a while now. A month or so ago I met this guy in a presbyterian church, who had been out of the country for a while. He was nice and all, but he seemed so strange, so un-American. Not that he wasn't patriotic, because I only knew him for a few hours, but I mean, it was like he never got accustomed to our culture at all. It was like he was truly a foreigner, albeit one who had spent his life in America. So the reason for bringing him up is really quite valid when the reason I bring him up is brought to life. 

Am I that guy? Are they going to sleep now thinking about how strange I am? I imagine they think something along those lines around me (I'm not saying in any way that I imagine people think about me when I'm around), because even the people at home say that about me. Outside of the acceptable strange, though, am I just an alien? Am I one of those guys who talks about how he's American, but has been in another country for so long he's basically a mix of America and whatever country they are in? Am I still fun? Do I sound funny? How many faux pas do I commit every hour? I honestly have no idea why I think these things, but I think it has to do with my need to have a home. When I feel at home, it's an awesome feeling. I love for my home to reside in America though. I like my country. Am I some cultural hybrid now? I imagine that I am, but it's still kind of hard to swallow. 

Anyways, that's where tonight took me, along with my studies, so I guess I'm off to bed for my few hours of sleep. Nighty night.

For Now

    Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Only a few days left till the final for this section of the program

Unfortunately... I have a final exam Friday. So, my life is consumed with attempting to make myself study. I have been trying as hard as I can to make myself study. It's just as hard to do here as it was back home. 

In other news, though, here is a cool little link I found today:

http://matadorabroad.com/10-korean-customs-to-know-before-you-visit-korea/

Today has been ok. I did some exercise, and I also went to class. Class was good too, it wasn't so bad as far as mental taxation goes. 

Well, I don't know what else to talk about really. Nothing else is really going on and I'm just trying to get through the rest of this week.

For Now

   Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

Blinding Realization

As I sit in front of the computer for the umpteenth hour today, listening to the classic Otis Redding hit "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay," I think I may have had a blinding realization. 

Personally, in order to feel normal and to even maintain a respectable level of motivation I must must must must must must exercise regularly. That's the thing which has been bogging me down. The days which I exercise, in turn letting off steam and letting in the wonderful endorphins, I am able to function like I was back at home. Eating things which aren't healthy aren't as big of a deal, and I feel less bogged down. So, the conclusion for this little bit is that if you enjoy exercising, it's a great idea not to stop when you travel abroad. I hope I remember that for the next trip I take. 

      However, this principle definitely extends past just physical activity as well. It's the simple things which keep you sane that are the most important to keep doing when you're abroad. Whether it's partying, whether it's playing an instrument, sports, drawing, whatever it is, on a long trip (and especially where you're out of your element) it's incredibly important and even more rewarding than one might think.

Getting past all of that, I must apologize for not blogging for a few days. Nothing has really been going on, to tell the truth. It's true that on Friday we took a trip to a cool provincial park where a tea festival was going on, but besides that, my weekend has been less than spectacular. Mainly it's just revolved around studying and getting schoolwork done. I finished a paper I'm actually proud to have written and I am understanding more and more Korean as time goes by. 

To be honest, sometimes I feel like I'm not even on a study abroad anymore. I don't know if this is a normal feeling, or if this is the stage directly following the terrible culture shock stage, but I really feel as if I just live here now and that nothing is really even a big deal. I easily can deal with all the crazy things going on around me, and everything is getting much easier to bear. I know it seems like kind of a funny thing to write down like this, but to go from a state of mind where I hated everything, including my own situation mind you, to a state where basically nothing can touch me is personally astounding. Sure, I can't ignore the fact that I may have bad days still or that I am going to be missing home way more now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but for now, this feeling is just about all I can ask for. 

Deep inside myself I hope that this feeling isn't just a product of the aforementioned happiness at this journey being almost complete. I would love nothing more than for these feelings to be based only on the fact that I have actually come to terms with life here, that I've come to a place about as different as possible while still being in an industrialized country and still carved out a nice little spot for myself. I really hope that maybe I have conquered Korea, at least, the barrier keeping me from being happy in a place this different. I'm not complaining about being happy, I promise, but I would be very disappointed with myself if this happiness was only because I'm leaning on the idea of leaving. 

Today I went to church again. I go to mass sometimes with Kayla, mainly because I am kind of afraid of being alone here with just myself. I know it will be that way in ten days, but till then I will take advantage of being able to tag along with friends. I'm not a very religious person at this stage in my life, but going to mass has been nice. I can go there and just kind of let myself get lifted up by the encouraging message being taught there. I'm not sure if I will choose Catholicism if I do become religious, but I enjoy the shared happiness emanating from the room. It's a pretty nice feeling in a foreign country. But I digress.

      We went to church today. The church is mainly for english speaking migrant workers (it also functions as an easy way for Koreans to improve their english), and is also home to the catholic workers' center. What I never realized, even in my time as a landscaper, and all the time before today, how hard it must be to be a migrant worker. 

Life is tough, that's nothing new. Imagine going to a mentally taxing yet maybe physically mundane job every day. Life is tougher. Imagine being the only source of income for your family, which is in your home country, but you're thousands of miles away from them. Life is even tougher. To be a migrant worker, even an english teacher, must be one of the hardest things a human being can put themselves through. As a student, I'm still relatively independent. Sure I have a better half, a family, and a good life back home, but I'm in that awkward stage where my only real responsibility is to learn and carve out a place in life. I can gain personal satisfaction at least through my own personal growth and the process of learning. 

Migrant workers, though, their job is to produce funds for someone else. They aren't independent in the least. They are bound on all sides by familial obligation, maybe debt and the pursuit of alleviation, a real job, and maintaining a sense of satisfaction. I couldn't imagine being in that position, and I honestly respect each and every migrant worker who is providing for a family thousands of miles away. 

Church let out and it was time to look for interesting things in Daegu. Unfortunately, today, as well as being Mother's Day (Happy Mother's Day!!!!!), is also International Forget-Everything-You-Previously-Learned-About-Directions Day. It's sparsely celebrated in the states, but I hear is big in Europe. I managed to get disoriented several times somehow, and I think maybe it's due to the fact that basically Daegu looks like a tiny version of Seoul. The layout streetwise is the same, with the same subway time system for crossing streets, and the same style layout of its downtown. I was basically useless when it came to directions today. 

Thankfully, though, it was nice out and all the walking we did wasn't in the brutal cold or blistering heat. It was nice, and we managed to make good use of our feet as we walked to stores and shops. 

We made it back in good shape, I finished my paper for culture class (finally), and I went for a run. This is the whole exercise thing I spoke of before, and tonight was an amazing night for a run. It was cool so it was basically like being air-conditioned in transit. If I had the wind I would have been content with just running for hours on end tonight, but there was studying to do. 

Somehow, the more lost I think I am in Korean, the more I seem to just kind of fall into it. Maybe that's how the east-Asian languages have to be learned. Somehow, the english speaking part of our brains must be turned off, and we just kind of have to let the grammar rule (so to speak), even though it seems against everything we know. It's kind of like finding one's happy place really. Until you let everything go holding you back, and just let it happen, this language isn't going to come to you. I don't really know how to explain it other than that. I tried hard to equate everything, but everything about this language just won't let that happen. 

You turn the many words of english into few words in Korean. An eight word sentence in English may turn out to be 4 or 5 words in Korean. Dealing with that isn't as easy as just assigning multiple words in English to one Korean word. While that may work at first, that severely deprives one of finding the neat little complexities those strange verbs and conjugations hold. They just don't equate. 

Tomorrow it's looking like I'll be busy, but I think I may be able to publish another video, about the trip on Friday. We'll see how it goes. 

For Now,

  Aron Huckaba International Vagabond

The day back to classes

Today has been, well, to say the least, very very long. Actually, way over 40 hours to be exact. For some reason unbeknownst to me I couldn't sleep last night at all. It's not like I didn't try, I just couldn't.

Needless to say, my class experience today was less than optimal. Basically it was me fighting a really sick feeling and also being dead tired for four hours, and then me going home to try and feel better. Somehow though, like a magic switch, I went from being exhausted to not at all. I'm not exactly sure why, but I am just now getting tired. 

I talked to my mom tonight and it was fantastic. I really miss home a lot. I miss being there to help out at home and just be the big brother. It's going to be great coming back. I hope I can get a job lined up.

so today has been mainly wasted, really. Since I couldn't sleep last night I have been completely worthless. There's always tomorrow.

For Now,

 Aron Huckaba

Video #2 of the Seoul trip

Video #1 of the Seoul trip

reflections on a 5 day weekend

I'm going to try and document everything that happened in Seoul this weekend, but there's no telling how much stuff I'm going to leave out. 

We left Friday afternoon, and boarded the KTX without any trouble. The KTX itself was a beautiful work of engineering, sleek and powerful looking. During the trip to Seoul we reached speeds of 260km/h, which is over 170 mph. Needless to say, we made it to Seoul in under two hours. The atmosphere inside the train was really nice, and our seats were family style seating, which means that two of us (Kayla and Philip) rode in the forward facing direction and the other two (me and Adam) in the rearwards facing direction. It was on the KTX that I started to make some videos, and for the first time, I had working microphones. They work really well, and help to cancel out a lot of the noise in the environment. 

We got to Seoul at around 4 and headed out to the hostel. It would have been much easier to find if I hadn't forgot to write down the directions. I fully intended on it, I just forgot. Anyways, basically just finding the hotel turned into a hilarious hodge podge of looking for a PC room so that I could look up the directions, then not getting good enough directions apparently, then having to find yet another PC room and getting on the right track. Seoul is such a massively giant city, every street looks the same because of all the restaurants, clothes stores, and other shoppy whatnot. 

        The hostel was called The Windflower Guest House, and was actually pretty nice. The guys working the desk spoke Korean, but didn't look like your average Korean person. They also spoke a little English, which made everything easier. The room itself was nice, and was an 8 room suite thing which we shared with a varying group of people (Germans, Turkish, Americans, etc.). The hostel was just what we wanted, a nice secure place to sleep at night and leave your stuff during the day. I would definitely recommend The Windflower Guest House to anyone staying in Seoul. 

Anyways, the first night we were looking for stuff to do so we headed out to Insadong and to dinner. Insadong is a market which specializes in uniquely Korean stuff. Lots of souvenirs and lots of Korean treasures. The street itself is really nice, and while we were there the riot police were definitely there in force. I don't know exactly what they were doing there, but apparently there was the risk of protest all around the city, so the riot police were just making an appearance and looking strong basically. 

      We looked around and enjoyed the atmosphere awhile, and then went to dinner. We ate in this rally nice traditional restaurant which offered delicious and very Korean cuisine. Along with dinner we had the privilege of enjoying Korean wines as well. We had plum (delicious) and raspberry (also delicious) wines, which were well worth it. After leaving, I decided to take everyone to city hall and the area I was familiar with from the trip last year, especially since we had to be there at 8 the next morning for the DMZ tour. We ended up finding the place really easily (via taxi) and also went to an old stomping ground called Texas which had a fantastic selection of beverages. We stayed there a little while and left, so that we could get some rest.

      

Saturday started out slow, but we easily got where we needed to be and headed out to the DMZ via our reserved tour. On the tour there were some people from Thailand, America and Brazil. the American was a girl and the Brazilian a man and were both from China. The gentleman was evidently a diplomat and the lady worked for an environmental advocacy company, both in Beijing. This meeting with other foreigners definitely went along well with my past experiences, as the two were definitely quirky and unique. The Brazilian guy always questioned every statement made, like when our guide was explaining where the DMZ actually was, he continually restated the statement in the form of a question. Like this:

       

        Guide: This is the start of the DMZ, where (specific number) of people died.

        Guy:   THIS is the DMZ?

        Guide: Yes, this is the area where the armistice stated (blahblahblah)

        Guy:  THIS is the area (blahblahblah)

It was repetitive and still kind of funny every time it happened. It was also kind of dumbfounding, though, too, because this guy was a diplomat. Granted, he wasn't necessarily a full fledged ambassador or anything, but I definitely wasn't impressed with his manner or his intellect. I know how that might sound, but this guy is a diplomat from an up and coming country (Brazil) to one of the most powerful nations in the world (China). 

The girl was pretty unique too, in that it seemed as if she had a lot more going for her than the guy did. She explained what she was doing, and it sounded like she was a kind of lobbyist. She worked on getting environmental measures through to China, and knew enough for me to kind of believe her story about coming from Beijing. It doesn't really matter, I guess, I just really read a lot into what people tell me when I'm overseas because a lot of foreigners are a little different than they originally present themselves to be. I'm going to stop with the whole foreigner deal, though, because it's not really a big deal.

     The DMZ went pretty well, though, and seeing it again for the second time was neat. I definitely got more out of it, and the tunnel seemed much less back breaking this time. It was actually a lot of fun going again, because I got to see a lot of different things than what I did last time. 

After the DMZ, we were pretty tired. We were looking for a way to relax, so we decided to go to the Korean cultural staple, the Sauna (pronounced Sah-OOh-Nah). 

      Many, many Americans have probably never been to (much less heard about) a sauna, nor would many of them ever fathom of going. A ton of things contribute to the opinion I have that saunas are basically a collection of facets which American culture tells us isn't correct or is scary. 

     Going into the building, there were 3 guys and Kayla, the only girl. We all paid our money (only like 3 bucks for unlimited time) and headed to the locker room. We put our shoes up and grabbed the key to our locker. 

     The first thing about a sauna which is very different than what, as Americans, we are used to, you MUST be naked to go into the entrance. Before I continue, I feel like I should mention that guys and girls are completely separate and no co-nakedness is had. Anyways, you MUST be naked to enter the actual sauna, and it can be quite a shock at first to walk into a room with a bunch of naked people in it. 

            Surprisingly though, walking into a room full of naked people when you're already naked isn't nearly as bad as walking in when you're clothed (odd, right?). I was Incredibly nervous about going into the actual sauna, because everything I have ever been taught about my body as an American has only been about shame and about not being naked in front of lots of other people. Luckily, I didn't have a panic attack or anything like that and made it into the actual sauna with no real problems.

     How did I willingly walk into a room with 40-50 naked men and actually enjoy the experience? Well, as soon as I walked in to the room that had all the showers, hot tubs and steam room entrances I had two options. Either I could freak out, be awkward and weird about my body in front of the group of men ranging in age from 8-80, or I could just enter a state of mind where I became comfortable in my own vulnerability and just look without seeing really anything. I can basically liken the experience to just imagining the people as just entities, and not bodies or people. I noticed there were other people there, but I tuned them out and just focused on relaxing.

After about an hour and a half of going from hot tub to cold tub to steam room to hot tub I finished my sauna time, and I was INCREDIBLY relaxed. It was really nice, actually. Afterwards, we wanted to find a Korean oddity we had heard about, called Dr. Fish. 

       Dr. Fish is a neat service some coffee shop places in Seoul offer, where you can get your feet "treated" by lots and lots of tiny little fishes. We were so excited about finding this place, we headed off in its direction immediately after leaving the sauna. However, just like finding the hostel, we didn't have concrete directions, so whenever we got to the area we knew the cafe was located in, Gangnam, we had to find a PC room. 

       We got directions, but most to our sadness, couldn't find the place for a long, long time. The time walking on the tough Korean streets was footbreaking, and by the time we got to the cafe we were wore out physically and emotionally. 

       This is a good time to just reiterate how funny Seoul is. It's a giant, sprawling, multilevel metropolis with a myriad upon myriad of things to do, but, the incredible amount of enterprise there makes it incredibly difficult to find most things. There are signs EVERYWHERE, and people pretty much always crowd the streets, to boot. During dinner time every single restaurant is busy, all the fun ideas are already thought a hundred times over, and to top it all off, Seoul is a very hilly city. So, as a friendly public service announcement, I suggest getting detailed directions to the front doorstep of anywhere you want to go in Seoul. 

 Anyways, we eventually made it to Dr. Fish cafe place and had some coffee and bread while we waited on a spot with the fish to open up. We got the ok, and made our way up to the fish tank. I don't really know how to explain the feeling of these little fish gnawing at you, but I'm going to do my best. 

      Personally, I am the most ticklish person in the universe, especially when it comes to my feet. Every single nip by the fish was possibly the most tickling sensation I can ever think of going through, and there were definitely dozens of little nips going on every second. I was basically trapped in a never ending tickling torturous nightmare for 20 minutes. I don't think I have ever laughed that much, that loud, or for that long, especially in a public place. I definitely made a scene in that place, and probably proved every loud American stereotype every even thought of. It's not like I could help it, though, because in my mind, I was literally being tickled to death by dozens of tiny fish. Our time expired eventually and I took my feet out of the tank. 

    The feeling which followed is something I will never forget. I have never, ever, felt so good in my life. I think the feet might by the center of all happiness, because it was really like I had gotten a thousand massages and was definitely willing to run a couple marathons at least. I feel like if long distance runners would get the Fishy treatment every day they would be refreshed and ready for a harder run the next day. I'm not even exaggerating. My feet have never felt so good. 

After Dr. Fish and the Sauna we were definitely in a great state of mind, so we decided to go back to Texas. There we met a big group of Air Force guys who were on vacation. They were good one night friends and it was definitely an experience seeing how soldiers from foreign deployments felt first hand. 

      They seemed like they didn't enjoy their given job very much at all, and basically used the little vacation given to them by the weekend to let off a LOT of steam. They ranged from 20-23 and all kind of wondered how they ended up in the air force and in Korea. They were loud and basically your average college crowd, but I have to say it was fun just hanging out again with American type people. This weekend has been especially what I needed, especially as all the classes kick into gear and as all the required things I have start to run together. 

    Afterwards, we left for the hostel and day three.

On day three (Sunday) we lost a traveling companion, Adam. He went back to Daegu, and then there were three. On sunday we decided to go to Itaewon. It's basically where all the foreigners go for shopping and other stuff, which is only exacerbated by its close proximity to the largest armed forces base in Korea. We had a light lunch and then made our way to the Olympic park. I have to say, I really, thoroughly enjoyed the park, but was pretty disappointed as to how they kept up the facilities. The only arena I could tell was kept up well at all was the tennis stadium, which was more or less immaculate. 

         The park itself was incredibly beautiful, though, and was full of people enjoying themselves, as well as beautiful sculptures and landscapes. The world peace gat especially was incredible, and the street leading to it beautiful as well. It was exactly what I wish an olympic park was, basically, and am looking forward to taking advantage of visiting other olympic parks as I find them. 

           The most disappointing part of the park was the fact that one of the gymnastics arenas had been made into a cheap clothing market. I was expecting to go and see an arena with state of the art equipment and young athletes participating in training, but instead was greeted with cheaply made clothes and shoes. Not that that stuff isn't nice and all, it's just that I would really like to be inspired by world class athletes instead of by low low prices of brand name textiles. 

    But I digress.

 

The olympic park was very close to another very korean attraction, Lotte Department store and Lotte World. Lotte World is basically an indoor parody of Disney World. Not saying that the Koreans for sure copied them (they may be owned by them) but they definitely had two cartoon characters as their "mascots" who were very similar to the Disney Mice, their logo was VERY similar to the Disney logo, and I'm pretty sure I heard a Korean version of "It's a Small World" as well. The park was nice, though, and was definitely interesting. 

    Who couldn't have fun riding a roller coaster called The French Revolution? We rode balloons all around the park, rode a fun egypt themed adventure ride, and experienced very fun Korean theme park activities. I thought it was very fitting that the park was indoors, because Koreans, as far as I can tell, are all about convenience. The chance of a park being rained out is daunting, but move the park inside of a very popular department store, which is pretty much comparable to the mall of America in variety of activities, and you have something very enticing to Koreans. We saw a light show there, rode all the rides we could, and tried to ice skate in the rink there, but it was too expensive for the half hour we could have skated. I plan on going back to ice skate, and I hope it works out. 

Later that night we tried to go back to Texas again, but there was no other fun people there and we were very tired, so we left for the Hostel again. 

The next day Phillip left for Daegu, so we were short another traveler again. However, we still managed to have a lot of fun. We started our day off by going to Insadong and getting some fun looking around and shopping done. 

          We got done with that in enough time to head up to Seoul Tower and see the city turn from daytime to night. The trek up the mountain was a ton of fun, and definitely tough. On the way up we found all manners of little parks, and even an archery range. 

    At the archery range we got a lesson from a Korean traditional archer, who showed me the fundamentals to shooting a Korean recurve bow. I even got to pull it back and feel the tension of an important historical weapon. I wanted to try and shoot at the range, but the guy told me it would take at least two months of daily training to become familiar enough with the sport to at least not be dangerous to other people. It was fun while it lasted, though, and the men firing the arrows seemed absolutely mechanical about their accurate work. 

         After the range work we witnessed, we headed the rest of the way up to the tower. It was a long, arduous trek, but fun nonetheless. We got to the top of the tower, about 900 or more feet about Seoul, and prepared ourselves to watch the sun go down over the skyline. The observation deck was incredibly loud, and its evident on the video as well. The sun went down within the hour, and we got to see all the lights come on in the city. 

      

       Soon thereafter it was decided that we try and go to Dongdaemun, which is a very traditional market here in Korea that's supposed to be the best at night. We made it all the way there, via taxi, only to find that it was in fact closed. Sad face. Wasn't really a big deal though, considering we were pretty tired anyways. We decided to see if we could meet any foreigners in Texas, only to find it devoid of any western life. So we left, naturally.  

      What occurred afterwards is pretty frustrating and pretty funny really. I don't know how this all happened exactly, but somehow we became blacklisted by every single regular taxi in Seoul. We tried to hail at least 10 empty taxis, only to be simultaneously rejected by all of them. Some sped by and others slowed down only to speed away once they got a good look at who we were. 

     We walked for what seemed like forever somehow got into a premium taxi. They cost over four times a regular taxi, but the subways and buses stopped running, as far as I know, and we had no other option, considering the other taxis were not picking us up. Upon arriving back at the hostel, we collapsed onto our respective lodgings, and thankfully didn't catch whatever illness it was one of the other guests had (I was really hoping it wasn't swine flu). 

 

Today we woke up super late, thank goodness, and headed back home. It's literally consumed all of my day today to get caught back up again with everything and to post pictures, do this blog, and get the process of getting videos up started. I guess tomorrow I am going to do my homework, because it's definitely midnight already and I'm just now at equilibrium with the stuff I need to do and the stuff I have gotten done. 

How did I get this written?

Until next time,

    Aron Huckaba International Vagabond