Home

I’m home. I’m on my laptop, sat upon my bed, drinking a jukalash cawfee (chocolate coffee), and I’m comfortable. Korea has gotten to the point where it feels like home.

That sounds more permanent than it’s meant. Illinois was my home. Iowa never felt like home but Bangor did for a time. And I left all those places and came to Korea and one day I’ll leave Korea too. I’m okay with that. I’m always okay with leaving home as I’m not much for feeling sentimental over that stuff. I miss my dog. I miss taco bell and I miss hockey nights with the one-eared freak, but I was okay with leaving Illinois.

Korea has turned into home, seemingly suddenly but I've been here three months and the realization was sudden though the process was not. I know where the Lotte Mart and Emart Traders are and I know my budget and how much I always go over. I could get to the DMZ if I wanted or to Busan or Seoul and I know the prices of KTX tickets. I know how to get places the KTX doesn't go and how to speak to the cabbies. I know when to say “Ne” and what hand motions to use to say no to emphasize “Aniyo.” I no longer worry over dealing with the cashier at the 815, though sometimes I’ll get some chicken and they’ll point to it and say something I don’t understand and I imagine they’re saying “This is dog, you know,” just because it gives me a laugh and I know it’s not true.

I plan to go at the end of my year here, so June 2014, but who knows? I can’t speak for the future but I can tell you that right now I’m home.

I got some Oreos

How many cookies were you allowed as a kid? After dinner, if I remembered to ask, I'd get two and some milk. Two Oreos or two fudge stripes or, around Christmas, two peanut butter blossoms. Two thin mints or two tag alongs. Sometimes I tried to apply this rule to brownies or pieces of cake. My parents just cut the piece in two.

One summer, I spent my afternoons with a friend, Max, and we'd go swimming at The Racket Club nearby and I was amazed after lunch when Gruba, his mom, pulled the flimsy plastic from the crinkly foil packaging and just left the Chips Ahoy! for us and his three younger brothers to devour. As many as we wanted! The youngest couldn't reach so he'd have to rely on the good nature of the rest of us and usually when we pulled two or three cookies from the container, we'd toss half of one his way. The five of us only got through three of the four rows, but still! The allowance of cookies was a greater freedom than recess.

But even after that experience, I still always settled for two Oreos as a kid. It was the rule. I'd break them apart and make double stufs or if they were double stufs already, quadruble stufs. Or I'd lick off the cream and just dunk the cookie in the milk. Sometimes I'd be feeling depressed and I'd do nothing special to the cookie before letting it soak, and as my thoughts fell upon my elementary troubles, I'd forget to withdraw the cookie and it'd crumble to the bottom.

I allow myself a box of cookies a week. Each box is generally the same: each serving is wrapped with foil. Some boxes have each cookie wrapped. Others follow my rule of two. But Oreos--they're for when you want to indulge. They're the treats among treats. They're not more expensive than the next brand, maybe $1 for two foil packages. But each contains five cookies.

These Koreans spoil me. 

Place Holder

I have stories from Busan and ones from Hulk's camping but I probably won't be posting too many.

If I do, they'll go here. 

Burnt Galbi

Minnesota’s girlfriend, Wisconsin, is Korean. But she doesn’t speak Korean; she grew up in Wisconsin and I don’t know if she was born in America or what. But she looks Korean enough that when we went for dak galbi (short rib barbecue) tonight, the waitress would address her in full-speed Korean. Wisconsin navigated it perfectly with “Ne” and nods. To the waitress, she was the guide showing a few waygooks around the city.

The place was crowded, even by Korean standards. I think we almost got turned away because there was no room, but I can’t be sure because Australia was handling it since his Korean exists and ours is limited to a dozen words between the three of us, but a table cleared up and they cleaned it as they sat us. After wiping off the spills from the last patrons, some guy came in with white burning charcoal and stuck it in the center of the table and put a grill over the top. Then the waitress came back with six big cuts of ribs and some mushrooms and tteok (rice cakes) and she cooked two big cuts of ribs in front of us then left us to take care of ourselves. It’s not that hard, right? You flip the meat when it’s ready and then eat it when both sides are cooked.  This was my first time going for dak galbi, but it’s not so different from bulgogi (fire meat, barbecue, I think beef) and samgyeopsal (pork barbecue).

But we burned the meat. And the waitress scolded Wisconsin for it. The boys weren’t to blame—we were just dumb waygooks. But a real Korean girl should be familiar with dak galbi. 

The Champ

Australia and I went to the boxing gym tonight, 한국의 BEAT 한국의, which we went to a few weekends ago but it was closed. We met the Korean champ.

He was very friendly. And patient. He spoke almost no English and I don't speak any Korean but Australia knew enough to get by but still, if I had known we'd be meeting the Korean champ, I'd be too scared he'd knock my face in. He asked me if I liked Tyson. 

Explaining that we just wanted to pay for one night of training was hard but we eventually we were told we couldn't do that. There's another gym by Cheonan Station where they speak English well because the instructor is married to a waygook (foreigner) from America. It's about a 15 minute cab ride there. We might go. Or we might train with the Korean champ for a month and see how it goes. 

The Korean boxing gym just says [korean] BEAT [korean]. 

Sorry

So Minnesota just arrived Thursday and we went out and had a drink and I sat there and tried to explain to the waitress that I don't drink but she brought a beer anyway and someone else drank it.

LA and Canada left this morning. While we waited for Director Lee to pick up Canada to take him to the train station, we sat around and chatted and they imparted the last bits of wisdom we'd soon forget. Negotiate everything. E-Mart has pretzels and American bacon. Canada also gave us things he couldn't take with him (toilet paper, slippers, books, pancake mix). Then it was time to go. We helped Canada carry down the luggage.

Well, Minnesota has been staying at Director Lee's. So when he picked up Canada, Minnesota hopped out and all the stuff we were taking from Canada's apartment was still in Canada's apartment.

So we showed Minnesota around: Here's how you turn on the hot water. Here's the AC remote. Here's the gas, etc. Oh, and by the way, all this stuff that's in your apartment is ours now.

Sorry we ransacked the place right in front of you.

Spinal Chord Soup

The hagwon provides lunch on school days. The Kinder kids eat in their rooms with the Korean teachers, and the native teachers eat in an empty class. There are always rice and kimchi, then usually a soup and maybe octopus, snails, seaweed, ham chunks, acorn tofu, regular tofu, or fiddleheads. Sometimes I don't know what it is but I just stick it in my mouth anyway and swallow quickly if it tastes bad. Normally I eat it before asking Canada what it is in case the name or ingredients chase me from the experience.

Today I ate alone.

Canada was off preparing to leave on Saturday. Australia hasn't been eating with us lately. Sometimes the elementary Korean teachers will sit in if they came in early to get work done. But today I was alone.

Cook-teacher came in. She doesn't speak English or understand it. She knows a few words like thank you, hello, and, apparently, soup. She dragged me into the kitchen and got a bowl, the same the students use with pokemon on them and are sized for a smaller stomach. First she dumped in a big bone. I was in the doorway so I couldn't see if there was any meat on it (there wasn't) but I saw there was no broth yet. So she dropped the ladle in the vat for what I figured would be the soup. No, she got me another big bone. Then she poured some broth in.

She handed the bowl to me and I said "kamsamnida" (thank you) and took it back to the table and actually looked at the bare bones. There was a little meat, but mostly the bowl was filled with bones. And not just small fish bones or chickens bones. They were vertebrae. I think from a cow.

I could see spongy marrow and the traverse processes (which look like wings on either side). They were definitely vertebrae.

Each bone was so big I could hardly stick my spoon in to get the broth so I picked up the bowl and drank it. It tasted like bacon soup.