An update, two weeks late

This is an email I sent on December 26. I didn't have time to post it here as I spent the next week traveling. Then I forgot it. Now, finally, an update, two weeks post. It's still fairly pertinent.

I'm drinking a Coke, High Fructose Corn Syrup and all. I just ate a Skippy peanut butter sandwich on the closest thing to white bread I've had in a decade.

I must be missing home.

I moved to the most Puget Sound-ish city in Korea in an attempt to allay the homesickness. Didn't work. Mountains here are 400 meters tall (I miss the sunset silhouetting the Olympics). Whole wheat bread means they didn't quite turn all the flour white (I miss Franz breads baked the same morning). The only non-Korean food here is quasi-Italian or pizza (I miss Ethiopian, Thai, Moroccan). Korea's homogeneous (I miss walking around Greenlake hearing 10 different languages). It RARELY rains here (and when it does you can't enjoy it for dodging the hordes of umbrellas -- Yesterday in Busan, every Korean I saw had an umbrella, save two who were carrying open wine bottles! :D). Most roads here are tollroads or full of traffic signals (I miss cruising for hours, through multiple climates, without slowing or stopping).

But, as I told my cousin, things are exactly how they should be. I've been sick a lot lately, which comes with new germs and new foods and new stresses, but that hasn't slowed me too much. I've been working on curriculum for a UN sponsored English camp to be held this January and trying not to miss the conveniences of the US too much. Things like warm cookies, aesthetics and carpet.

Korea and I are fighting right now. It's normal culture shock sort of stuff, but it's exasperated by the lack of tolerance I have when I'm tired, stressed and sick. I did find a ticket home for Christmas, a ~$170 round trip non-stop to Vancouver. A short train ride and I'd be home. Only the government taxes on the ticket totaled nearly a thousand dollars. ... So I'm spending Christmas in Tongyeong.

I've more journalistic entries in the works, but progress writing is quite slow as I don't have ready access to a computer. I'm scrounging to afford a computer during post-Christmas sales, but until then I have about 30 uninterrupted minutes a day on my school computer. The PC rooms I used to frequent are now off limits to me -- too much smoke, too little ventilation.

Vacation's just starting up here, and officially began the 24th. I'll have the 24th, 25th, 26th, 31st, 1st and 2nd off. Then I've two weeks of English camps. Following those Lauren and I have tickets to Thailand for two weeks. I'm very excited about the potential for warmth, Thai food and more people to more easily communicate with (from what I hear, there's more English speakers and foreigners in Thailand than Korea).

I've been silent so much here that now, after three months, whenever I get a chance to converse, I talk like a stampeding cow. My head shuts off and I dump a thousand word essay in the lap of the person I'm talking [at]. Then I realize it's been minutes since I inhaled and I relapse into silence. It's not the most effective way to win friends and influence people.

At the moment I'm headed to Busan, the closest metropolitan city (3+million people). Museums, Western food, and a doctor are all on the docket. It being Kwanzaa here, and Christmas where you are.

If you want a good laugh, here's an article about some Korean children, not unlike some children from the US. Politicians vary little, throughout the world.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/18/content_10525584.htm

Gotta go, the bus leaves soon.

Happy Hanukkah to Jews. Happy Kwanzaa to those of African heritage. Merry Christmas to Christians and consumers. And Happy Holidays for everyone who goes in for that sort of thing.