xteethx

Miscellaneous

This site has been hiccuping a bit yesterday but seems okay now.

It’s been one month since I left for Korea. I know this because I ironically left for Korea the day Halo3 came out, which was Sept. 25. I’m still busy trying to meet up with the last of my relatives and friends that I haven’t met yet, and meeting up with new friends so my social life is gettin’ kinda hectic, it’s gettin, it’s gettin kinda hectic. I barely have enough time to post about it before a ton of other things happen.

I’ll start off with meeting Laura, a friend of my friend Ellen. It’s kind of weird to have dinner at someone’s house if you’ve never met them before and only been introduced to them via email but I’m finding that it’s the norm here. Once I got to Laura’s though, we talked as though we were always friends and it was nice to have met her husband and baby boy too. They cooked me my first American meal here, which was penne with spaghetti sauce and Betty Crocker brownies and it couldn’t have tasted any better. I was glad to have gotten along with them so well and we exchanged different advice about living here.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to live as ex-pats. They have worked in at least four different countries for a long period of time. (they met while working in Europe) I’m sure living in different countries must be exciting and rewarding. At the same time I wonder if it’s stressful and how much you must miss home in the US. I just found out that my cousin’s cousin who I met up with in Tokyo last year already moved to London this year.
I guess the lifestyle is doable until the kids are old enough to go to school.

Speaking of school, I visited my aunt’s classroom last Saturday. The students she teaches are really cute and it was nice to see her classroom.

Later on in the day I finally got to visit my other cousins and their kids who stayed with us in the US last year. We went to the public bathhouse together where we soaked in communal hot tubs, sat in saunas and yes, exfoliated the dead skin cells off of each others backs.

I’ve also been meeting new people at Jubilee, the church I currently attend. It reminds me of Harvest in some ways because the service is contemporary and casual and they sing a lot of Hillsong United and Passion songs. Most of the congregation is Korean hyphenated and there’s a few whites, blacks, and other ethnicities.

It’s not surprising that most kyopos (korean foreigners) seem to be in Seoul for a temporary time; few are here for the long run. Most people want to teach for some time, intern at some company before heading back home or do some other type of gig. People are here for a myriad of different reasons.  In my first small group meeting, we had to introduce ourselves and what we do. This one guy in our group said he was contracted for another 4 years and I had to ask him what he did since I was curious about which company would make a contract for that long. He said he was a singer and then a couple minutes later, I realized that this guy was the singer from the US that seems to be well known in young Korean-American circuits. I felt kind of sheepish after asking him that, esp. because I realized then that he was also the praise leader lol. He is simply known as Tim, and I found him to be very laid-back and easygoing. He showed us his new album that came out today so it was nice to have seen it before it was released.

Anyway while I’m thankful to befriend a lot of kyopos or foreigners, I’m also thankful to hang out with my family and befriend Korean nationals here too. I want to see the genuine experiences in Seoul and practice Korean.  My mom’s younger sister and her family treated me to my first kalbi dinner here in Seoul so I was pretty happy today. It’s these little things that my family here do for me that make me thankful and made my transition here so easy.

Beer+ kalbi + kimchi = :) Sohui my cousin, always makes sure that the best customer service is given. It kinda amuses me cause I could never ask for ‘service’ (basically, free bonus food) and for refills of this dish or that dish the way she does. It’s cute and endearing.

When I got home, I found out that my uncle and my cousin were going to perform ‘chul’, or paying respects to their deceased parents. It’s a tradition where they bow down before a table full of food offered to the deceased mother or father. All I could think of was how much work my aunt put into preparing all that food. After the rite is over, the food is eventually eaten.

I should be go to bed as it’s 2:30! I’ll be meeting up with my cousin’s friends tomorrow for our first language exchange so I’m anticipating a lot more hand gesturing and laughs.

Here’s a random pic du jour: