They day I found wealth, love, and everything went right for the day

So I have been in Korea almost a month now, and it seems like time has blown by as I still feel like I just got of the plane last week.  Since I've been here I've fielded a lot of the same questions so I'll start by answering a few of them, then I'll tell you where my wealth is coming from. (and how you too may be able to find the same wealth).  My birthday was last week, and it was a pretty good birthday for being in a strange place with no "friends".  Several people asked "what did you do, where did you go for your birthday?", so I'll quickly fill you in. It was a Monday and pretty uneventful.  I was never much for celebrating in the states, so it was no letdown that it was just another Monday here. But for being in a new country, Korea was quite nice to me. 

When I got to work I had a present and an envelope on my desk.  Inside the bag was an adorable little plant that I named "Irene" after the co-worker that gave it to me.  In the envelope was a Starbucks gift card from my boss, and then my Korean co-teacher that sits next to me gave a little box of chocolates that were quite tasty.  I assumed that was the extent of my birthday acknowledgement until the lights in the teachers room went off and in came a cake with candles that made the room glow.  So I got cake and a song, and then my day of teaching started.  Most of my kids did not know it was my birthday, but magically they were all good for me.  I appreciated that.  When the day was over, I went home, had the slice of cake I bought from the bakery the day before with a glass of milk and chatted with my family before bed.  The following day my favorite student gave me a folded up piece of paper with a picture saying "happy burthday yesterday, I love you".  It was sweet and it was perfect, and I was reminded of why she was my favorite.  So that was my birthday for those who have asked and never got a response.

So as usual I have continued making mistake after mistake here in Korea, mostly surrounding the public transportation and just getting turned around.  Well that all changed this weekend.  If I can learn to be on time to the bus stop, I have mastered the bus system.  So now I am making other mistakes, but due to trial and error I'm rounding the learning curve pretty quickly.  I have also been getting asked about friends a lot.  We'll that's been a slow process.  It's hard to make friends when you

don't have friends.  So for the first few weeks I was feeling a little frustrated that I didn't have built in friends here.  But once again, it's coming around.  I've met a few really nice people here and they have been super helpful in showing me around, introducing me to more people, great food, and keeping me company on the weekends.  I've met people that aren't exactly "for me" and then I've met people who I really liked and would gladly hang out with anytime and get to know better.  So for those who have been asking what the friendship front looks like...rest assure that it's getting better every day. 

So today I decided to brave the bus system again and attempt a bus transfer as church is all the way across town.  We'll other than being late for my first bus, I got a little late but without issue.  Afterward I was chatting with a guy "Drew" I had met the previous week from Georgia about tablets and Kindles and books when up came an old Korean man.  He was super friendly and pretty fluent in English and struck up conversation. He apparently introduces himself as "the Man from Heaven" and is a little nutty but good hearted all the same.   During the conversation he proceeded to question the relationship between myself and Drew and we assured him we were just friends. After Drew left, he continued to talk to me about our relationship and that perhaps we were a match made in heaven.   I did not know it at the time, but apparently Koreans like to play matchmaker and think everyone should date and get together.  I thought it was unique to this guy, but apparently its a common thing among older Koreans (so I'm told).  He then asked where I was from.  When I told him Texas, his eyes lit up and he got very excited.  "You wealthy" he said.  He proceeded to tell me he wanted to go to Texas, and buy himself some land so he could dig up oil and bring it all back to Korea and be rich.  I'm not sure if he just used the motion of digging with a shovel for conversational purposes or if he really thinks its possible to dig 8 or 9ft and strike oil.  I agreed that there were people/companies in Texas making a lot of money off oil, most people don't have oil in Texas.  He asked if I had land, and I explained my family has a few acres in Texas but that they weren't on top of oil.  "Have they dug to see?" again making shovel motions. 

adorable cupcakes that are unrelated to my blog :)

So from that point forward everyone who walked was told that I was going to be wealthy and that they were going to be envious of my wealth.  No one understood what he was talking about but I got a kick out if it anyway.  (If I don't make friends, I'm going to tell myself  its because they are envious, because we all know I'm likeable :) Before leaving he again asked me if I would like him to play match maker in order to get my made from heaven relationship going.  I assured him that I would be okay and did not need him to play match maker, so he settled on waiting till it happened and then being able to say "what a good couple". Not sure if he is just the funny crazy old man or if he is the modern day Asian cupid sent to find me a husband.  Either way..I like him, he's funny.  I wish I knew him when I was in high school looking for that sort of dedication out of a friend wanting to hook me up and play matchmaker. 

The rest of the day went quite well.  I met a lot of really great girls at church, got to eat at my first traditional restaurant where I had to take off my shoes and sit on a pillow on the floor, and was taken to a great bakery. This one had some western style pastries and I got a chocolate chip scone that was better than most in the states (aside from Julie's famous homemade chocolate chip scones aka The scones that will land a girl a husband) and I was a happy camper.

As a side note, I have officially started washing clothes and hanging them to dry isn't quite as terrible as it sounds, however I have found that my drying rack quickly turns into a catch all for clothes.  So I we'll see if I can actually learn to hang them up.  Korea is getting better every day and I'm slowly but surely figuring out how to live successfully and happily in Korea.  And for my parents and those that have asked, I will try to soon post a video or some pictures of my school and how my schedules works at school.  It's pretty fantastic!

Bus 39 to Nowhere, Sea Salt, and The Stairway to Heaven (my best day yet).

So I've been here almost 10 days and so far I've only posted my apartment and my mix up at the love motel.  There have been so many more things, and in my head I write blogs as I am experiencing new things, but I never seem to thing about it when I'm sitting at the computer.  But now I am, and so I will.

So we will start with last weekend. When I decided to move to Gwangju, I was put in contact with a friend of one of my best friends, who has been living in Korea for almost 4 years and lives in my city.  So they (Steven and Miranda) invited me to church, and instead of having to find it on my own (which I wouldn't have) they invited me to stay the night Saturday night and they'd take me Sunday to church and then show me around downtown afterward.  So we got on a bus Sunday morning and went to breakfast where I had some Korean version of sticky chicken fried rice that I thought was pretty good although I miss not being able to soak all my rice dishes in soy sauce.  We then took another bus to the church.

We got there a little early so we went up to see if they were having a prayer meeting we could join.  SO up the stairs we go, and round and round we went.  I learned during the journey up we were headed to the 6th floor, which I had already calculated as twelve turns as there were two sets of stairs between each floor.  When we got there, there was no one there.  So down we went down 6 floors and had a cup of coffee and back up we went.  I have never in my life climbed so many stairs for Jesus or anything else for that matter (11 up and 11down), but it was worth it.  I liked the church a lot.  There was a good mix of foreigners and Koreans and the service was all in English.  (yes, I secretly snapped a photo from the inside of my coat)

Afterward, I had the chance to meet a few really nice people before we went back down the stairs and back on a bus to downtown.  The bus seemed easy enough (which I later learned was a facade.)  Once downtown I was drawn a map, and shown where foreigners hang out, good places to eat, and then got the chance to take fun pictures of nasty Korean food and bad English signs (which I posted on FB).  We then ate lunch and it was the best meal I've had since I've been here.  (I couldn't get a good picture of it and we ate most of it before I thought to try and take a picture)It cleared out any sinuses I might have had as it was spicy, but it was super tasty and cooked at our table on this flat round skillet thing.  Not Genghis Grill style or anything crazy.

That evening we met up with two of their friends Damien (a Belgian) and his Korean wife Juhyang at a coffee shop to play some games.  What Damien failed to mention is that the game he wanted to play, all the cards were in Dutch.  But we played anyway, and I had a blast.  I drank coffee, ate a pastry, and played a Dutch game in a Korean coffee shop with a Korean, a Belgian, and a guy who lived in Arlington TX before moving to Korea. It was an all around great night, and hands down my favorite day start to finish.

So skip forward a week to this weekend.  Friday night I was told about a band playing at a local bar foreigners frequent by a coworker of mine.  I was told it was Korean Rockabilly and that the bass player played a stand up double bass.  I was sold, and so I went.  I took the taxi as I was running low on time and didn't want to be late. I saw a cowboy hat, two Gretsch guitars and an upright bass and suddenly didn't feel so much like I was in Korea.  I had a good night and turned in early by Korean standards hailing a cab at 2am. 

So today my one goal was to tackle the bus.  So I googled what bus I would take if I wanted to go downtown and found that the #9 and #39 should both get me there.  So I walked to the bus stop and the board showed that #39 would stop there and there were two other foreigners there which made me think I was on track to find downtown.  On the bus I learned that they were from South Africa just before they got off the bus as they were at their desired destination just a few stops from where we started.  So I listened to music, read my kindle, and road and road until no one was on the bus but me.

A few minutes later the bus stops and the driver starts talking.  They don't usually talk, so I gathered by context clues that since I was the only one on the bus that I had taken the wrong one and this was the last stop for that bus.  So I got off.  Bus 39 took me to nowhere (or the last stop before the bus transportation station) with nothing around that was open and I was the lone foreigner hanging out on a bus bench with no idea where I was going or what bus I would take to get me there.  So I walked.  I knew that worst case scenario I could put out my hand and taxi home, but I saw lights in the distance and knew a

neighborhood was nearby, so I decided to explore.  I still don't know exactly where I was, but at least what I found was a place with people, and open shops, and plenty of taxi's to get me home.  So I decide to eat something while in the area and found a little street stand and for $2 got two sticks of food.  One with some sort of meat and one with a potato thing on it rolled in some sort of chili powder.  Since it was only $1 a stick I considered some of the other mystery things but decided one stick per hand was plenty. 

So off I went through the streets of an unknown neighborhood with dinner in my hand looking at all the restaurants that had fresh seafood tanks in the front so you can either eat live octopus or have freshly cooked octopus (your choice I assume).  Once done, I grabbed a $4 taxi and went back to my neighborhood where I grabbed a pastry at one of the local bakery's.  It this soft bread thing with cream cheese inside and some nuts and grains on top. It's quite good. I was cold and thought that coffee, a pastry, and snuggled up with a movie sounded pretty delightful. Then I went by my new favorite little local grocery/corner store to buy coffee and one or

two groceries.  I wanted to try out my new rice cooker a girl from work gave me so I thought I'd grab a bag of rice and such to make dinner on Sunday.  When I got home, I realized that I had purchased a 3lb bag of sea salt.  I'm sure the man at the counter thought I was crazy for wanting that much salt. Maybe I'll find a recipe for a sea salt scrub or something.  If you have any ideas let me know.  Until then, I'll try a little harder to pay attention to the white stuff in the giant bag.  Who puts salt in a bag anyway?!

 

So my night was not exactly as I had expected.  I never made it downtown, I did not master the art of using the public transportation system, and I did not purchase anything I can cook for dinner Sunday. 

But I don't mind.  In Texas, I probably would have been frustrated and miserable.  But I'm not in Texas, I'm in Korea.  And the great thing about Korea is...I have no expectations.  Everything is an adventure.  So my goal was to learn to ride the bus and I did.  I learned a $1.20 lesson that I still don't get it and will try again.  I had a plan to roam downtown. Instead I found my way out of nowhere to a different neighborhood that I got to explore while eating my $2 dinner of meat and potatoes.  So tomorrow I will pay $10 to take a taxi to church so I actually get there, and will take another $1.20 shot at trying the bus back home.  Until then, I'll happily stay at home, drink coffee, have a piece of pastry, and fall asleep watching a movie on Netflix.