Week 3

My lovely friends and family,

Good News! I am alive:) After the third day of sleeping the fog began to lift and the humanity crept back inside me. AH, no stomach pain-- what a novel idea:)

On the health end of the spectrum, my life was further complicated when I discovered that one of my multiple mosquito bites had developed a nasty infection. Yes, for some reason with all the other discomfort I failed to question why the bite was still itching and burning. Yay for infections! A woman can't live without them....

Besides my health concerns this week passed relatively uneventful. The most interesting thing to report is my trip to Seoul.

So Saturday morning I caught a bus to the central Seoul bus terminal. From there I managed to get lost in the ridiculously nice mall that is attached to the bus terminal. After wondering about for a bit I spotted an older westerner. After I asked for directions to the subway he very graciously went out of his way to guide me through the convoluted path to the station. I have noticed that when I meet other Westerners in Korea, they are typically super friendly. I suppose going a couple of hours or even whole day without participating in comprehensive conversation results in feelings of isolation. So decreased opportunities to fully express oneself causes an increased value to the limited opportunities present.....
Once I got on the subway I experienced further issues following 30 minutes of travel in the wrong directions. All of this was very frustrating, but I persevered and eventually arrived at the Coex mall exit. {On a side note the Seoul subway system is pretty comprehensive, but unfortunately travel on the trains is not exactly rapid. Yet in comparison to the LA metro: I think travel speed can be compromised for greater accessibility.} A lot of the malls, including Coex, are underground. I was surprised by the amount of designer apparel at the mall. The place is packed with gucci/chanel/ect. Also to my great delight there was this adorable sandwich shop called Linas. You can't appreciate the fantastic-nature of a ham and cheese sandwich, until they are not readily available:) After dropping off my stuff at the lodging school the provides in Seoul, Lauren(fellow teacher) and I hopped on the subway to meet Tedd/Michael(other instructors) and Erin(Tedd's friend) at Seodaemun Prison. The Prison was used by the Japanese to torture Korean patriots during its colonizations. It felt very sad learning about the site's history. Another example of humans brutalizing other humans. Although I know a lot about psychological desensitization, I am always astounded by the terrible potential that lies dormant in every individual. The prison struck me with a double-whammy when I was reminded of the Korean comfort women( Korean women that the Japanese sexually enslaved and then murdered). The fact that those men and so many other individuals(since the beginning of time) can overlook the personhood of another legitimate human beings makes me want to vomit. There is no accurate way for me to express how these crimes sicken me.
From the prison we went to North Seoul Tower. The tower is a random structure planted on the side of a mountain. The view was spectacular: I could see all of Seoul and further into the country. My thoughts about this experience are a) Seoul is frickin humongous b) I love/hate young Korean couples. So they are super adorable; the girls are always absolutely beautiful dressed in dresses and heels(basically at all times) and the guys, who seem to cater to the women, are just as well dressed. It is slightly overwhelming to see so many couples that are way too cute constantly. I am both jealous and taken aback( I wonder about the content of their relationships). On the tower patio we watched some Korean b-boys/girls. i was very humored to watch their performance. Their hip-hop is a lot softer than the hip-hop I am used to watching. The girls performing seemed very shy initially and basically remained that way throughout the performance.
Following the tower we all rambled down to Hongdae, one of the club districts that cater to university students and young foreigners. Hongdae is a trippy area, where I saw the largest amount of foreigners in 3 weeks. Still most of the folks appeared to be Korean students. I finally got to dance, even if it was to house music:) A lot of the foreigners I observed appeared very skeezy, but it was late at night in club district....
Well let us hope I can avoid the skeezes and have luck finding my Korean husband:)



Sending my love,
-Holly-