Counting Down (again...)

At the risk of sounding cliche, I just don't know where the past twelve months have gone! Can you believe I have only 5 more days of teaching in Korea!?!?! What happened? Where did the time go? And how am I already 24? Whoa... 

I bet you're all thinking to yourselves, yeah cool, that's great, congrats and all, but what's next? Well, dear readers, let's talk a little bit about this future of mine, shall we?

Let me start out by sharing a very simple fact about myself. I am not much of a planner. At all. I am a chronic procrastinator opposed to anything even remotely involving decision-making, especially of the large-scale life-changing variety. When confronted with a decision to make, I generally just clam up, refuse to acknowledge that I am in the midst of a decision-making situation, try to weasel my way out of said decision-making situation by convincing myself that the whole thing is not really all that important anyways, before finally at the last possible minute, doing something about it. It's a ridiculous process filled with lots of anxiety (and animal metaphors). 

So for those of you looking for more concrete answers than "Yeah, I still have no idea..." here's what I know so far. If it's not specific enough for your liking, please refer to the above paragraph. I'm serious, it's unhealthy how bad at planning things I really am. 

July 27 -- Last day of teaching. Sad, (but also definitely not...)

July 28 -- Fly to Tokyo. At 8:40 in the morning. Bienvenido a Japan!!!

August 5 -- Fly back from Kyoto to Seoul. (See that gaping hole in the middle, the part about me somehow getting from Tokyo to Kyoto? Just let it be...)

August 6ish -- Take Kimchi back to our Bucheon vet for one final checkup, before...

August 8ish -- Fly to Cleveland

(September-ish -- Begin Korea round 2. TBD)

The last two dates are extremely rough estimates (emphasis on the rough part), so please forgive me if they are totally wrong. Something about not having any America-bound plane tickets yet to speak of plus the whole flying with a puppy thing. Yeah, there's a lot of room for change. I will try to keep you posted on my tentative itinerary, but since it turns out getting out of Korea is just as complicated a process as getting into Korea, I might not have the time. 

Cheers!

 - Christine - 

E-Mart

I’d always thought Walmart was a pretty neat place. I mean, it is the one-stop shop right? Better prices, everything you could ever dream of, all available for 24 hours a day? Barring some debates about its negative impact on the world, something about globalization being totally evil, I always really liked Walmart.

Until I found E-Mart.

Turns out E-Mart trumps Walmart in so many ways, I decided it was high time to make a list about it. So here you have it, my fourth official Korea list: Reasons why E-Mart Kicks Walmart’s Ass, hereafter REKWA.

REKWA #1. Location Location Location.

If I walk out the door of my ninth floor apartment right now, I will be standing in E-mart within 3 minutes flat. I have yet to find a Walmart that convenient, anywhere. 

REKWA #2. Dry Cleaner.

In any given Walmart, you can generally expect to find a pharmacy, a photo development center, and an optometrist (bare minimum) in addition to the shopping center itself and the mandatory Subway in the entryway.

Have you ever seen a dry cleaner in a Walmart? No, how about a nail salon? Veterinary clinic? My dear E-mart has all of these things and more. Try this on for size. On the first floor, we have a food court, portrait studio, pet store, veterinarian, optometrist, dog groomer, pharmacy, photo development center, and dry cleaner. On the next floor we have a nail salon, a spa, and a hair salon, as well as a sitting area for the resulting bored children. On the bottom floor, we add in a vitamin/supplement shop and a pretty extensive wine collection. Oh yeah, and there’s the store itself too. Pretty magical, really.

REKWA #3 . Footprint.

If you look at an aerial view of Walmart, you’ll see an expansive building surrounded on all sides by acres and acres of parking lot. Not only did some developer have to cut down forests and kill wildlife in the immediate footprint of Walmart’s unreasonably wide-set main building, but also in the obnoxiously large parking lot surrounding it. And that’s not to mention the impact of increased traffic on the environment surrounding the entire complex. And no, Walmart, those scrawny little trees planted at the ends of the rows don’t make it any better.

Commence angry fist shaking… (and queue this song)

Korea, on the other hand, has become an expert at condensing buildings to fit into the increasingly dense space it has to work with. Instead of building outwards and taking up more land space it doesn’t have, E-mart decided to build up and down, condensing its store into a much more efficient three-floor design. The groceries are located on the bottom floor (two floors below ground, which keeps the foods cooler while exerting less energy), the sports supplies and clothing are located on the middle floor, and the basic home supplies are located on top. Furthermore, the expansive parking lot has been condensed into a multi-floor parking garage located on the four floors above the store, completely eliminating the need for such an absurdly wasteful sprawling lot. Oh yeah, and they threw a park on the roof, making the whole structure just a slightly elevated version of nature.

REKWA #4. Hot Babes.

In Walmart, you have friendly little yellow smiley faces plastered onto prices tags pointing you to where the sales are. In E-mart, you have smiling Korean chicks dressed in ridiculous miniskirts standing at the end of every aisle. If you’re into that kind of thing.

REKWA #5. Boxes and Bags.

I remember one particular trip to Walmart back in my college days in which the woman bagging my recently purchased items placed exactly one item into each bag. I wish I was kidding. Prior to this incident, I had been naïve to the dangers of placing shampoo and ranch dressing in the same plastic bag, lest the outside of their bottles (gasp!) touch each other, but thank goodness she was there to help me…

Commence second angry fist shaking...

In Korea, the bag situation is much less stupid. For one, you have to pay for every bag you need, about 10 cents for paper, and about 70 cents for plastic. It’s not very much money at all, but it makes you stop and question if you really need that extra bag or not. The default bag they give you is paper, and you need to gesture vigorously if you really want a plastic bag. And even then, they won’t call it a plastic bag. It’s a recycling bag.

Even better, you know the thousands and thousands of cardboard boxes they use to ship products to the big name distributors? Instead of smashing them in some back room and leaving them outside in the elements to eventually be taken to a landfill somewhere, they cart them downstairs for customers to take instead of paper or plastic bags. Lots of really, really good ideas Walmart should take note of. 

REKWA #6. Samples.

When is the last time you got a free sample at Walmart? I'm talking a real sample, not a knife demonstration, or whatever else they're waving around shouting about.  

It's hard not to end up with a stomach full of samples at E-mart. Oh, is this mandu? Sure I'll try it? And bulgogi? Why not? Maeil milk? I don't even know what you are, of course I'll try you! 

Mmmm yum! 

So there you have it. E-mart rules, and Walmart drools. And by "drools," I mean is  a horrendously wasteful company that needs to seriously reconsider some of its environmental policies before it can expect to see me as a customer again. And maybe stick with the smiley faces for a while, I don't know if the States are ready for hot greeter babes just yet... sorry!

Cheers!

 - Christine - 

Busy

You're all busy people, right? Balancing work, pets/families, personal projects, planning for the future while simultaneously living in the now? I assumed after finishing college, I would have infinitely more time to spend doing things I wanted to be doing (i.e. not studying), but silly me, turns out the working world is pretty exhausting too. Who'd have thought it...

In short, I have a lot of exciting things happening in my life right now. Things of the T-minus 8 weeks left in Korea variety! Can you believe it's been almost a year? It seems just yesterday I was sobbing on a plane out of L.A. and landing myself in a Korean Love Motel wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into. Somehow, I managed it all then. But now I'm completely busy and overwhelmed again. How does that work?

So dear readers, since you all understand what it's like to be busy, you'll completely understand my current busyness and flaky blogging habits, yes? And you'll forgive me for being too lazy to write an entire post even now, and settle for a meager set of new Bucheon pics, yes? It has been a while, I suppose. I'm glad you understand, you're very kind that way ^ ^


















Thanks again! I promise I'll try to write something more substantial sometime in the relatively near future...

Cheers!
- Christine -

ps. In other news, I haven't heard anything new about the puppy situation, so looks like Kimchi gets to stay in Korea! Assa! Thanks for all your advice and warm wishes!

Deportation

I would like to begin by giving you fair warning - this post is really just me venting about Korea. If you are not interested in reading about the (literally) second qualm I've had with Korea, you should maybe X out of this window now. Furthermore, if you are outright disgusted by the idea of having a video thrust upon you featuring, say, an eight-month old Yorkie puppy I happen to know (yes, a video this time!), then you should really, really consider getting away from this website now. Maybe even closing out your browser, turning off your computer, and running frantically with arms flailing into the nearest bit of nature, as far away from all technological devices as possible, just to be safe.

As I briefly mentioned last time, I'm having some difficulties with Kimchi versus Korea.

Flashback to Monday night. I came home from work to find a poorly translated note on my door from my building administrator. It said,

"Complaints came in on my dogs do not look. If you encounter this problem in the future will be deported."

Poorly translated, like I said. But scary. Deported? I started pacing around my apartment, wondering what exactly the note meant. Was Kimchi making too much noise? Was I being an inadequate Puppy Mama? Was this like the Korean-dog version of child services? And if so, where were they for this guy? I took Kimchi out for a long walk, determined to get her tired enough that she wouldn't start barking. I did so the next morning as well, to the point that she needed me to carry her the last stretch of the way. No barking out of that one, for sure.

At work, the next day, one of my Korean co-teachers pulled me aside to discuss the situation. Not only had my building administrator left the poorly-translated note on my door, but also called my supervisor to let him know that my dog was being obnoxious. I asked her what details she knew, since I had none, and she told me that Kimchi was apparently behaving really badly. The complaints stated that it sounded like not one, but many dogs along with giant parties coming from the apartment. She looked at me gravely, and warned me that I needed to be careful.

Many dogs? Giant parties? Really, me?

I had some doubts. Unlike many of the other Korean dog-owners I've met, I have put in quite a bit of effort to (gasp!) train my dog. If I say, "SIT," Kimchi sits. If I stop walking, Kimchi stops walking. I know it seems almost unfathomable here, but yes, I decided to train my $500+ puppy, and that has included teaching her not to bark.

In addition to taking her on twice-daily walks, I began checking on her multiple times during the day (no barking). I stopped leaving her alone at home if I could help it; if I was heading out to sit at a cafe with a mocha and learn Korean, then Kimchi sat too. If I was going out to get galbi with my coworkers, then Kimchi got galbi too. Even sitting on an open-air patio amidst loud music and drunk people staggering by our table, Kimchi didn't bark once. Despite my growing doubts that she was really the one causing all this ruckus, I started feeling paranoid making any kinds of noise in my apartment, for fear that they would complain again and deport her right then and there. For goodness sakes, I turned off Animal House halfway through because I was afraid someone would hear a "giant party" coming from my apartment. It has not been a fun week at all.

But here's the kicker. Friday night, I left my apartment to take Kimchi on our second long walk of the day, only to hear a party coming from the other end of the hall. Like door wide open, 6-8 loud Korean voices emanating from within, party. Awesome, Korea. If you want to complain about noisy neighbors that sound like they're having a party, maybe complain about the ones actually throwing a party. In a language I don't speak. That would be great.

Furthermore, Korea's not exactly a quiet place to live in to begin with. I live nine floors away from an elementary school that often has these "announcements" which are about as far from quiet as possible. I'm not exaggerating that they're really just a man screaming into a microphone for hours at a time. Sometimes it sounds quite militant, like he's rounding up the students to go march on the North, and other times it just sounds like jibberish. Even more jibberish than Korean already sounds to me. In short, they're super annoying and should really make anyone think twice before complaining about any other noise violation they could possibly have.

So here it is. Dear Korea, My puppy is not the obnoxious one.



At this point, I am almost that certain Kimchi's not to blame for these complaints, but at the risk of deportation, I may try to switch apartments in the next couple weeks to assuage the situation. Even though deportation would mean I save money on shipping her back to the US (kidding, kidding) this Puppy Mama's not about to let that happen. Wish me luck!

Cheers!
- Christine -

USA v. ROK

Remember me?

I apologize for yet another blogging hiatus, but oh man, I've been busy lately! We're nearing the end of another semester at work, so I've been stuck doing extra paperwork, grading, and classroom management which leaves me just drained at the end of the day. Add to that the TEFL certification class I've been working on, and a recent custody battle I've been thrust into over this one for apparently barking too much and throwing crazy parties (진짜!?!) while I'm away. Which is almost certainly not the case, seeing as I, unlike many of the Korean dog-owners I've met, have trained my dog to do things like sit, stay (and not bark). Let's just say it's been a frustrating week...

But you know what makes frustrating weeks all better? Burger King, and Korea Lists. Assa!

Now when I was in college, I took a class about Intercultural Communication. Without going into too many specifics about any individual cultures, the course as a whole taught us to be aware of the fact that different cultures are, well, different, and that crazy as they may seem to us, they really do work out just fine.

Obviously, Korea and the USA are fundamentally different in a number of ways, and that my friends, is the theme of today's third official Korea List. USA v. ROK.

In the USA, if you go to a baseball game, you will probably expect to find hot dog and peanut vendors walking up and down the aisles of the stadium. In the ROK, you can expect to see them selling dried squid.

In the USA, if you are dashing onto a subway and the doors start to close on you, they will probably stop. In the ROK, they will crush you. K-doors are merciless.

In the USA, women can wear cleavage-showing tops, and no one will care, but if you wear short shorts and heels, people will think you're a slut. In the ROK, short shorts and heels are no big deal, but if you show any more cleavage than Hilary Clinton, watch out. They'll think you're Russian.

In the USA, we try to save energy by turning off unnecessary lights at night. In the ROK, not so much.


In the USA, at least half of young Americans can't find Iraq on a map. In Korea, my students can not only find, but also spell Liechtenstein.

In the USA, coffee shops open early in the morning, so you start caffeinating before the sun comes up. In the ROK, the bars are still open at that time, why in the world would you have a coffee shop open before 10am?

In the USA, Boy Bands stopped being popular in the 90's. In the ROK, they're still going strong.

In the USA, candy and flowers might be appropriate gifts for a favorite teacher. In the ROK, designer socks are acceptable.

In the USA, the -> <- elevator button is really just there to make you feel better, but never actually does anything. In the ROK, the button works every time, and is great for not only barring creepy people from getting into your elevator, but also crushing them. Remember, K-doors are vicious.

In the USA, people make fun of Cleveland almost as much as they make fun of Detroit. In the ROK, people think Cleveland is awesome and wear Cleveland gear proudly. Thank you Choo Shin- Soo. Sorry, Detroit, they still haven't heard of you...

In the USA, you do your makeup and hair in the morning, and then maybe check it once or twice throughout the day. In the ROK, you should carry a mirror and comb around with you at all times, just to make sure you're always looking good. Classrooms and crowded subways are especially good places to do this.

In the USA, we mark the start of a new school period with a bell/annoying buzzer. In the ROK, they play a little song.

To be continued... Have I ever mentioned I still love Korea!

Cheers!
- Christine -

Russian

This morning, I took Kimchi out for a walk before work per usual. Having accidentally pushed the snooze button one too many times, we were constrained for time and forced to take a brisk twenty-minute jaunt around the block rather than strolling and lollygagging around the park for hours, playing with every puppy we meet, like we usually do in this beautiful spring weather.

As we walked past a bus stop at around the halfway point of our walk, an oldish Korean guy saw Kimchi and bent down to pet her, still per usual. He started jabbering at me in Korean, to which I shrugged and muttered in my broken Konglish “Aniyo… ugh, Englishi?” (Translation: “No… ugh, try English?”). As in I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. This didn’t seem to deter him, however, and he kept right on yakking. Then he leaned in uncomfortably close, pointed at my face excitedly, and exclaimed “Ooooh Russian!”

Ooooh aniyo!

Big deal, you may be thinking. Some Korean guy thinks you’re Russian, that all white people look the same. (Which is ironic considering white people think all Asian people look the same, right?) Take it as a complement and get over it….

But here’s the thing about Russian women in Korea. Kind of like all Americans in Korea are either teachers or military, all Russian women are prostitutes. Obviously. (Or so says rampant stereotyping.) So in essence, by “Ooooh Russian!,” what this creepy Korean guy really meant was “Ooooh prostitute!”

Awesome. Thank you for that.

Trying to politely mediate the situation, I replied “Aniyo, Miguk.” (Translation: "No, American.”) As in your last comment was rude and this conversation is quickly becoming sketchy.

Apparently not one for taking a hint, however, he continued blabbering at me. “Ooooh face Russian! Good Russian style!”

Maybe this is just me, but if I were to describe my wardrobe of GAP cardigans and jeans in 3 words, prostitute would not be one of my top choices. Also not death metal, biker gang, or grunge. Just, no.

After suffering maybe 20 seconds of increasingly uncomfortable semi-conversing with the Korean guy, I snatched Kimchi away, bid him “Annyeong” and booked it out of there. This was certainly not my first encounter with an awkward Korean guy, nor was it my first time being accused of being Russian, but for whatever reason this particular conversation left me especially offended. Being mistaken for a prostitute just puts a little damper in your day, doesn’t it? Kind of makes me want to grab a vodka and a babushka.

Cheers!
- Christine -

Wrong

This past Saturday, like most other Saturdays, Kimchi and I spent a couple hours playing with other puppies in Jung Dong Park. Every Saturday around 2pm, this otherwise empty park turns into a veritable puppy cafe (minus the cafe part), with dogs, their owners, and whoever else happens to be in the park running crazy all over the place. It's great, and much easier than dragging Lil' Kim all the way into Seoul to socialize with other dogs.

Now dogs in Korea are, dare I say, quirky, for a couple of reasons. For one, most dogs in Korea are tiny. As I've explained before, most people in Korea live in apartments and don't have such things as space or yards for big dogs to run around in. Makes perfect sense. Solid reasons for sticking to Yorkies, Poodles, and Schnauzers.

Sometimes, however, Lil' Kim and I encounter a big dog and it's kind of awesome. After doing a double take to make sure I'm not imagining said big dog (I swear, they're really rare!!!), I'm one of the few people who will go up and play with them. Brave little Kimchi too. In contrast, a lot of people who have been living in the ROK for a while are used to just the 5 pound puppies and don't know how to react to the bigger guys and just back away...



Just look at this big guy. He was super sweet and friendly! Except that he drooled on me, which is not particularly friendly at all. (Taemu, the little guy under my feet liked him too)

So most dogs in Korea are small, check. Now for my second reason why dogs in Korea are quirky. Their owners think they are people. Not so much in how they treat them (although that certainly happens too), but more so in the clothes and makeup they wear. You read me right, makeup.



Look at the little white guy in the middle. Yes, the one wearing matching shoes AND blush. Only in Korea...

So wrong!

- Christine -

UMMS

After months of waiting, I would like to present you with my second official Korea List: Unfortunately Misspelled and/or Mistranslated Signs, hereafter UMMS.

UMMS are a part of daily life here in the ROK. The number of Koreans speaking English is steadily increasing, many children attending English-only pre-schools and kindergartens (raising questions about how much this next generation of Koreans is really learning about Korea, but that’s a rant for another day). English is chic, and more and more stores are showing their flair (and willingness to accept foreign business) by incorporating English words and phrases onto their signs.

Unfortunately, a good number of these well-intentioned English signs just arent’t quite right and could have benefited tremendously by a quick look-over by a native English speaker. Of which there are over a million in Korea. All of whom would be willing to spell-check such things for maybe the cost of a beer, tops. (If you are Korean, and about to put up a sign in English, please, please let me help you!)

Here are a few of my favorite UMMS from the past seven months, in no particular order:

UMMS #1. Hoers.

I discovered this gem at the Busan International Film Festival back in November. "Hoers" was a valiant effort by the festival's organizers to inform the foreign population in attendance about the schedule, but unless they intended to warn the audience that people would be ho-ing at certain times, (Operating ho-ers) the sign just didn't make sense.



UMMS #2. Origin.

More of a UMMM (Unfortunately Misspelled and/or Mistranslated Menu) than a true UMMS, but still a classic. In this particular pizza restaurant, they allow you to choose your own crust. Terrific, right? Sadly, their list of crust choices somehow got lost in translation, leaving you to select from Gold, Nude, Cookie, Origin, or Cheese Cap. I would venture to guess that Gold is a fairly normal, well-baked dough, cookie would be appropriate for a dessert-pizza, and Cheese Cap is the same as stuffed-crust. Nude, however, has me baffled. And Origin? Oh my. Any native English-speaking person could have added the essential "-al" in all of .25 seconds, helping this poor menu make much more sense almost instantly.



UMMS #3. Yoyr.

This grammatically incorrect UMMS comes from a design shop down the street from my apartment. To begin with, "yoyr" is not a real word. Sorry, Korea. Secondly, even the corrected "Drop your old design to the trash..." doesn't make much sense. The preposition you're looking for was "into" or even just simply "in". E for Effort, though.



UMMS #4. Moning.

I found this gem in the front of little cafe on the opposite side of Seoul. Kudos for catching their own spelling mistake, but their correction still made me giggle.



UMMS #5. Interrior.

Another example from Bucheon. Exactly how many r's does the word "Interrior" have?



UMMS #6. Chiness.

The Chiness restaurant is infamous in Bucheon. Not only did they write "Chiness" (perhaps a combination of Chinese and Chess?) on their sign above the window, but also directly on their window, and even behind the window on some decorative wall installation. They're absolutely rocking the misspelling thing. It's such a blatant and ridiculous misspelling that I would go to the Chiness Restaurant just to say I'd been to the Chiness Restaurant. Brilliant.



UMMS #7. You baked my mother?

This final UMMS comes from a cute little cafe I pass with Kimchi everyday on the way to the park. I understand what they're trying to say. Homemade pies baked with Mom's heart and soul. Sadly, however, this particular translation sounds quite gruesome and a little like they baked my poor mother into a pie :(



In conclusion, Korea, I love you. But please, please let me help you spell and translate things!

Cheers!
- Christine -

Macro Mode

When I first moved to Korea, I was concerned about Bucheon not being a big enough city. I wasn’t really looking for it to be a Korean NYC, per se, but I wanted to make sure it was big enough to give me the urban feeling absent from my life in Ohio for the past however- many years.

Six months later, I’ve settled into my city lifestyle, adjusted to there being a 9-lane freeway outside my front door and a rainbow of lights lining the street that literally never turn off. I’m used to relying on bustling public transportation, vying my way for the next taxi in line, and having a coffee in hand wherever I go. You would think that at some point the novelty would wear off, that I would occasionally miss the quiet country bumpkin lifestyle I had back home, but there’s something so engaging and inspiring about living in this city amongst so many people who can’t speak my language, that I’m really going to struggle leaving!

I think part of my positive regard for Bucheon, as for city life in general, comes from the fact that I think there’s something inherently beautiful about cities. I’m not arguing that cities are beautiful in a traditional sense. Matching buildings blend together in grayish monotones of cement and concrete. Cigarette butts lie scattered on the gradually cracking pavement. Tacky neon signs light up at night, extending on for miles. Litter lies abandoned in the gutters, and on everything rests a thin layer of black grime. Of course, none of this is particular to Bucheon alone, rather the same could be said of every city I’ve ever visited.

I think what makes cities seem beautiful to me, in part, is the textures. From the patterns of the sidewalks to the grainy look of the asphalt on the streets to the intricate details on drain covers, to me, there’s something simply artistic about these little intricacies we pass over every day without notice.

Thanks to the fabulous Nikki Raasch, I discovered the macro setting on my camera, and decided to start documenting what I mean. In this group of pictures, I focused on mundane textures that I found around me in Bucheon. There’s nothing intrinsically Korean about any of these pictures, these sights are more or less universal and could be captured in almost any city in the world.

(Note: Feel free to click on the images, most of them look MUCH better full sized! Also remember this is my first time using macro mode, so please forgive me if I did it wrong…)









































Thank you for humoring my faux-artsyness yet again. Finishee!
- Christine -

Snow

It finally snowed in Bucheon. It’s not much snow, maybe seven or eight centimeters tops, but for literally the second time in my life, I’m pretty excited about it.

Let me start out by apologizing for my poorly-timed blogging hiatus. Remember that respiratory whatnot I had back during Chuseok? Well it’s never really fully gone away, and the week before Christmas was the worst I’d felt in a long time. I spent an entire day in bed unable to move, my head hurt so bad. If I had such a thing as a sick day, I would have used it, but of course, why would my hagweon that prides itself on being the overachieving academy open when all the other academies are closed give its teachers time off? In short, I felt just terrible for most of the Christmas season, and I have come to the conclusion that I will probably continue to feel more or less sick for the remainder of my time in Korea…

Regardless, you know what’s exciting about Christmas? When I woke up Christmas morning, sniffly as ever and thousands of miles away from the family I usually spend my Christmas with, I still had that Christmas morning feeling. I’m not sure how best to describe the Christmas morning feeling, maybe warm, maybe childlike excitement, or maybe almost fluffy even? Pretend you know what I’m talking about, even if I’m still struggling to find the right words to describe it. (And of course what added to my Christmas away from home was the overwhelming number of letters and gifts people went to the effort to ship all the way around the world for little old me! I feel so loved, thank you all!)

But let’s return to the topic at hand, snow. It would be an understatement to say that I merely dislike winter. My negative feelings for the season are actually so strong that they overflow into the adjacent season of fall as well, the dread of my impeding least favorite season marring my opinion of the otherwise prettiest season of the year. It’s bad, I find every excuse I can to not go outside for a good three months of the year. Granted, I come from northeast Ohio, where lake effect snow and getting several feet dropped in a single day is not uncommon, but still. I hate it all.

Yet, when I looked out my giant wall-sized window and saw that it was snowing outside, I couldn’t help but smile. Call me sentimental for the winters I’ve grown accustomed to, but I couldn’t wait to go outside and run around in it! Let me emphasize how strange this is for me, this is literally the second time in my life I’d had this feeling. I distinctly remember, the first was in 2007 when I lived in Austinburg. It was a lazy day of winter vacation, it had just snowed, the sun was out, and everything outside was just sparkling. Typical me, I decided to take some pictures...











And with that photo shoot, I can honestly say January 2007 was the last time I enjoyed a day of winter.

... Until now. Who knows, maybe it's just the Ohioan in me that no matter how much I hate winter and everything the season entails (namely, snow and being cold), I'm supposed to be excited to see the white fluffy stuff. I'm lucky this year, Korea doesn't get nearly as much as snow as I'm used to, so I'm only trudging through maybe 8 centimeters now (I'm trying to figure out this whole metric thing the rest of the world uses...) on my lengthy trek to work (next door).

Per usual, I decided to spend the past few mornings taking long walks in the snow and (you guessed it) taking pictures...































I guess I've never really experienced, nay, appreciated snow in an urban setting before, but I think it's really cool! Very different than the snow I'm used to back home in my natural country bumpkin Austinburg. I took most of these in one of the big parks near where I live, which has a huge frozen lake (at present, anyways) standing amongst all sorts of traditional Korean relics (like the folk straw-roofed hut, with icicles) surrounded on all sides by uber-modern apartment complexes. It's a pretty awesome part of Bucheon, and I really like it... (even more so when it's not freezing outside!)...

So there you have it. For literally the second time in my life, I can say I enjoyed a snowy day. Korea, what are you doing to me!?!

-Christine -