Now, on to the goody goodness.
Between the last post and today, a great many things have transpired. Not the least of which was a trip to the land where everyone speaks English and charades is not a prerequisite for communication, where you can walk into restaurants with your shoes on, where the national food does not look like someone violently slayed a cabbage, the land of Chipotle, and best of all, where I am just another average American and no one stares. How joyous! You can probably, and correctly, guess that I was more than ecstatic to go home for a treasured 7 days and see my family, friends and my nephew Alex. The flights from Seoul to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to Chicago lasted for about 17 years in Meg-time, but were thankfully uneventful and safe.
Sidebar: If you haven't guessed, I love America, however, it has to be said that America sometimes seems to operate on a principle of counter-productivity. Exhibit A: the Atlanta airport where there are menial tasks being done for no reason or purpose other than to waste my precious minutes in America. Upon arrival in the Atlanta airport, all international travelers (there were hundreds of us) had to go through a passport/visa checkline type dealio. Literally, streams and streams of people were lining up to get through this checkpoint. The hordes of people in line stretched out of the immediate waiting area, around the corner, down the street, across 4 tarmacs and all the way to Alabama I'm pretty sure. When I got to the front of the line, I found that there was no shortage of checkpoint desks, but there were only three open. Three. Out of about 40. America! After that I had to proceed to a baggage claim area, even though I was not at my final destination, go through customs where they didn't do squat to my bag and put it on yet another conveyer belt located approximately 20 feet from the first one. Yay exercise in futility. Luckily, I made it to my connection with about 14 seconds to spare. Thanks Atlanta!
I arrived in Chicago, safe, sound and exhausted. Mom, Dad, Chris and Hannah were there waiting for me and my eyes have never been happier to behold such a sight. After some
leftovers from Ditka's restaurant as a midnight snack, I crashed hardcore in hotel-pillowy-blankety-goodness. The next morning we had a delicious lunch at Maggiano's downtown (savory meal in America#1; also, pictured to the right, me and Daddy on Father's Day), hit the outlet mall in Michigan City on the way home, got a flat tire (yay AAA!, also American, if you didn't know), and made it home for dinner with Annette and Alex, who is running and crashing all over the place. Booger be curious!The remainder
of break consisted of lunches and dinners at my favorite places around South Bend (savory meals in America #2-23, approximately). I visited the old stomping grounds on campus, went to the bookstore for the sole reason of buying The Shirt and discovered that it looks like someone vomited, ate peas and then vomited again. I stopped by FYS to say hi to Elly, Mrs James and the new front desk workers. I almost reverted back into my "First-year-of-studies-office-can-I-help-you?" ways when the phone rang, but then again, maybe not. I met up with good friends, ate good food, and even made it to Oyster Bar and Corby's.I saw everyone I wanted to see (Pam, Marty, that most
definitely includes you two, Ju, Bryan, Mike.) I ate everything I wanted to eat (feta, Chipotle, but not together, Maggiano's, Five Guys, Mommy's cooking *sigh* and more). I did everything I wanted to do (shopped for jeans because everyone in Korea weighs about as much as a toothpick, so jeans that fit my rather curvy curves are hard to come by and fitting rooms even harder to come by). I even went to Target and got shoes on sale! yay meg.The flight back was direct from Chicago to Seoul and I made friends with a Chinese man next to me who was trying to learn Korean and English at the same time. Knowing what battlefields learning Korean as an American and learning English as a Korean are, I responded with, you are most brave good soldier; I tip my hat and best of luck to you sir.
Operation Visit America, Eat Chipotle and Smother My Nephew With Kisses: SUCCESS.
Now, back to Korea. Some have told me that culture shock doesn't really register when you first immerse yourself into a new country. Rather it hits when you go back home. Some say that you don't come back the same person to your native land and people expect the same Meg, but they get a different Meg. I don't know about all that, but I do know that returning to Korea after being pampered in luxurious Englishy comforts for a week was a bit difficult. I know that living here is challenging what with the whole not speaking Korean thing, but I discovered that I had grown very habituated to daily life being an uphill battle. It was not until I had gone home and subsequently returned to Korea that I realized how much I missed effing English. English that sometimes doesn't make grammatical sense, English-speaking people who get my terrible jokes, picking up bits and pieces of dumb peoples' conversations and having a private chuckle to myself. I am immensely enjoying my time here, but home is home and I don't think I'll ever belong anywhere else.
Joking aside, it's time for the serious stuff: MUDFEST. Read: literally a festival of mud. No, really guys, it's a festival of mud. A fest o' mud. Hence, mudfest. This wondrous event, it appears, was con
cieved upon the notion that if you make mud, zillions of foreigners will come play in it. And that's exactly what we did. We boarded a bus from Cheongju at 8am Saturday morning, by 1030 we were covered head to toe in mud and splashing around in the ocean. Besides the DJ Festival, best time in Korea so far. Literally, throngs of foreigners and Koreans come together and engage in mud centered activities. Painting yourself with mud, mud wrestling, mud obstacle courses, mud throwing, mud slides, and most important: MUD. Mudfest is held at (보경)Boryeong Beach and this little ocean-side town on the west side of Korea opens its doors and turns on its hoses for thousands of muddy, irresponsible young'ns. Oh, to be young and at Mudfest in Korea. Seriously if you're going to come to Korea, plan your vacay around Mudfest. Mudfest mudfest mudfest. Get the picture? (but really, the picture is of one Philip George Drendall with one polychromatic peabrain sporting not only mud, but a bonnet and dress as well.)I was skeptical about how much fun it was going to be. The cost was a bit more than I was willing to pay and I wanted to make sure I got my money's worth. Let's just say I was reimbursed in fun-dollars with interest.
Besides these diverting activities, I've been teaching (DUH), playing some futbol (which is a subject for another blog post, perhaps very soon or when I happen to get pictures of my team), eating lots of kimbap and just living the life in Seoul.
Until next time lovers, friends and lovers of friends.
