The List

I have less than 5 days now in Korea, which is hard to believe and, honestly, a little scary. Change is hard.

What I’ll miss about Korea:
- Being able to hop on a bus with some friends and pay a tiny amount of money for a daytrip.
- Kimbap places, even though I only eat two things there. I like that it’s cheap, I like my two options, I like the soup and pickled radish that comes with it. I also like being able to use my little amount of Korean to successfully order food, thank the waiter/ress, etc.
- Having a job that’s relatively easy but pays a lot, letting me lead a lifestyle where I don’t need to worry about money as long as I don’t get too crazy.
- My friends, and the people who I meet and have great conversations with randomly. My expats.
- The random crazy places in Korea, like coffee shops with trees in them and mom and pop restaurants that have TP on the table in buckets with weird engrish written on them.
- The concrete jungle, which is an eyesore to some but still interesting to me, who grew up in a rural area. I love trees and nature, but bright colours and people are also interesting.
- Palyongsan, and the lake. I had some great times out there.
- Heated floors, and being able to lay down on the floor.
- Jimjilbangs.
- Stationary stores.
- Having rice and soup with a meal (when it’s good). I like the balance.
- Maya (and to a lesser extent, Bombay, but Maya is my favourite Indian restaurant).
- Changwon.
- Sometimes, the children. My kids were pretty damn good most of the time.

What I won’t miss about Korea:
- Kimchi. I couldn’t just ignore it, there were days where there was so little for me to eat at lunch that I would make myself eat a portion of kimchi for the calorie content and whatever nutrients it has. I hate the taste of it (unless it’s grilled, then it’s good).
- Spicy food. I don’t get it. Why does my mouth have to be on fire and my nose have to run while eating? I’ve had meals here where my lips were burning for a half hour after.
- My bathroom. It’s better than some bathrooms, but it’s always cold, the sink drains funny, and the shower cannot maintain a steady stream or a certain temperature. Also, I don’t have a separate area for my shower (which is normal), so my bathroom floor is all wet for a long time after a shower. It is a little amusing, however, that we’re all used to just putting on sandals in each other’s bathrooms now.
- Hearing the world outside my apartment come to life at about 7am or so every day.
- Grade 6 students who are being difficult just to be difficult. Especially when they apologize insincerely for something they did only to do it again a few seconds later.
- Spitting ajosshis. Ajosshis with their trucks and loudspeakers.
- Traffic.
- Hospitals. (I do have to admit that one of the nurses, despite not being able to speak English well, was very caring and attentive to me and genuinely did her best to help me when I was there. I also really liked my physical therapist.)
- The social hierarchy. Most people who have spent time here probably know what I mean by this. The oldest person is the most important and has the most say (often), and information gets around through a strange sort of system that I don’t understand.
- Koreans leave doors and windows open in the school even when it’s freezing cold. I’ve heard that it’s for air circulation, and to prevent headaches.
- Koreans who laugh when I speak Korean, even when I’m doing it properly. Koreans who laugh when I speak English to them. Korean children who are so amused by the fact that I said something in Korean that they completely ignore what I said, such as “sit down”.
- Deskwarming. I love knitting and crocheting, and there are things to do like reading, but 3 hours a day, 5 days a week at my desk? Really? That’s aside from any actual lesson planning.

I really wish I could love this job. I do. It’s funny how, after a year, it’s starting to feel like home around here.

Why was Gyeongsangnam-do spared?

From the Korea Times:

This is a map of Korea, showing the record amount of snowfall she’s received recently. It says on the site that the entire peninsula was covered, but that’s not quite true. Look at the bottom, right-hand section. See that patch of greenish-brown? It contains Busan, Masan, Changwon, Jinhae, and a few other cities. I live a little bit north of the point of the tail that’s sticking out into the water.

As much as I miss a real winter and snow, this amuses me greatly. If you want to see snow, ShadKat has videos of snowfall (the second one) and cleanup (with something that is *not* a snowplow) from their apartment in Yecheon, Gyeongbuk.

What’s Next?

I’m not doing another year here in Dynamic Korea. I thought about it, but in the end the fact that I don’t like teaching elementary school kids won out, along with a few other things such as not liking Korean food and being allergic to spring here.

I’ve had my last regular teaching day, which was last week, and my last deskwarming day on Monday. I just have 2 weeks of winter camp left after my current 2 week vacation, then in January I’m going on a tour of Europe with TopDeck tours. Why TopDeck? My younger sister, who I haven’t seen for about a year now, works for them. It feels like I’ve been saying “my sister is a tour guide in Europe” in every other conversation, so I apologize if I’ve said this to anyone more than once. Anyway, I’m going on her 18-day Winter Getaway tour which goes through 9 countries, some of which I haven’t been to.

I’m nervous about the trip. I’ve never been in a hostel before, and most nights we’ll be staying in one. I’m worried that I’ll have too much stuff; I’m shipping a lot of things home, but I can’t ship everything, and I don’t want to ship my laptop. It’s a long trip, but I’m also excited about it. I didn’t get a summer trip, or a Christmas break trip. I haven’t had a long vacation aside from day trips or an overnight stay in ages.

During that time, this blog will be Live from Europe, and I’ll post about my adventures when I can. I don’t leave until January 21st, so I have a while to get ready before that.

Something I Noticed

I’ve been traveling a lot. By a lot, I mean weekly, which is very different from when I first got here. On Friday, I went to Gongju with a huge group of teachers from Masan. The week before, Busan aquarium. Before that, Daegu on Saturday and Daejeon on Sunday (Daejeon was just to give the cat I was sitting to his next sitter, but still, almost 3 hours on a bus each way). Before that there was a lull for a couple of weeks where the furthest I went was Changwon, then another Busan trip.

I kind of like doing this. This lifestyle allows for me to hop on a bus with a friend and some snacks and take a day trip with plenty of spending money, and not having to worry about expensive transportation. The traffic can be a little crazy, though, as was the case coming back from the aquarium.

* * *

Gongju is about a 3 hour busride north-west, not far from Suwon. About 3 days before the trip – which I went on with co-teacher E – H informed me that she heard on the news that Friday, the day of the trip, would be the coldest day yet. It was pretty cold too, and it actually snowed, but we still had fun.

E and I were running about 5 minutes late to meet up with the buses, but it turned out we could have been 20 minutes late. Four native teachers just didn’t show up, causing the rest of us to wait. We finally got going though, 2 buses worth of us, and we were all given snack bags with 4 or 5 clementines, water, very sweet bread/cake things, and white chocolate wafers. On the way over, a microphone was passed around and we all had to say our names, where we were from and where we taught. Later, it was passed around again and we (the native speakers) had to talk about special things about Korea. I talked about Palyong Mountain, and I noticed a few others mentioned the mountains as well.

Our first stop was a tomb, where I was approached by someone who recognized me from this blog. Hi Jenny! We got someone to take our picture next to a statue (I love how warm my puffy coat is, but I hate how I look in it for pictures. Blech):

Jenny’s also from Canada.

Here are the burial mounds for royal tombs from the outside:

They had dark, stone tombs for us to duck into. At first I didn’t understand why we were just standing in there as more and more of us piled in the tiny room – shouldn’t some of us leave? – and then the guide came in and started talking about the room.

The guide’s english was so-so, so I didn’t quite catch the whole thing. Here’s the view walking back down towards the buses:

We also went to a museum after, then went out for lunch. The place we went to was famous because either the current or former president once had lunch there. I’m not sure why that should make a place famous; did he go there more than once? Was it his favourite place in Gongju? I’m sure he’s had lunch in several places over his lifetime. Anyway, we had soup and some side dishes. I usually don’t make a fuss about my vegetarianism here, but it was meat soup and hard to eat around. I got some that had kimchi and sprouts in it, and also had rice and sesame spinach.

It was snowing lightly when we walked out of the restaurant, and we stood around outside for a few minutes before piling into the buses to driven to the next location. The snow thickened as we climbed a mountain trail up to a castle. People were reaching out to touch it as it floated from the sky, and as it formed small, veil-thin piles on the ground. For some, it was the first time they had seen snow in years. (For me, it was the first time since last January). I found out later that about 5 years ago in Masan they got about a foot of snow, and that was the most in a long time. I miss the snow. For me, it’s not winter without piles of it as far as the eye can see, and being able to wake up in the morning to see a blanket of it outside after a nighttime snowfall, untouched and almost blinding in the sunlight.

Here’s the view from the mountain:

Sometime after, we went to the Museum of Natural History:

This section here, water and rocks, had a little podium in front of it proclaiming it the Amazonian River. In the distance you can see both the Buddha, and the virgin Mary. The dinosaurs scattered about are their children.

(Mary is the white statue.)

Inside were fossils, planetary models, rocks, gemstones, mummies, human anatomy models, and so much stuff to look at that the hour or so we had was nowhere near enough time.

They had huge chunks of amethyst in a few different cases. I used to be a geology geek and collected rocks (there’s still a pouch of them somewhere in my parents’ house). One of my favourites was amethyst, and stones that were sliced like this, so you could see a cross-section.

A Canada goose:

Turtles:

There was also a great mammoth display (Mam Mo Seu, in Korean), but unfortunately that picture didn’t turn out. (Is it just me, or does everyone who has a camera that costs less than $500 Canadian spend about a quarter of their picture taking time trying to find a good setting? I really need a good camera with lenses).

We were supposed to have dinner somewhere, but were told on the way back that the restaurant was full and couldn’t seat us all. Instead they ordered all of us burgers from Lotteria, and we stood outside in the freezing cold waiting to be handed a paper bag containing a burger and half-sized can of Pepsi. There was a vegetarian option at least; a burger with a patty made of breaded cheese, with lettuce, two slices of tomato, black olives and mayo. It wasn’t bad.

Avatar or In a Rush

I watched the movie Avatar with a friend last night. I saw the trailer for it a while ago, blue people jumping through trees in a gorgeous looking jungle, and knew I had to see it. So last night, we attempted to find out what time it was playing on the internet first. The website was confusing and all in Korean, and we also had to walk her dog, so we decided to just take the dog to the nearby cinema and check the times all in one go. We got there to find that the next one would be playing at 7:20; it was 7:15.

We ran back to her apartment with the dog, grabbed whatever we needed, and then walked back to the cinema, thinking we might be able to make it. According to the clock, it was now 7:27, but they let us in anyway, and we just missed the first couple of minutes. We sat in the front row, which had foot stools. I had to crane my neck a bit to see the screen properly, but otherwise it was comfortable, and I could feel the sounds through my feet.

Avatar is a great movie, visually. The plot isn’t bad, but the main draw for me is the world it takes place in, and the creatures. I also liked the Avatars themselves. I don’t think it’s a new concept, but the closest thing I could think of to it is the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, where 11-year-old motherless children are synched up to giant robots to fight aliens. But they’re actually in the robots. The people in Avatar are in a building in coffin-like pods, while their essence is in the Avatars in the jungle.

Afterwards, I didn’t want to walk all the way to the bus stop (it was cold), so I got in a cab. Normally, when I get on a bus from that area, it’ll take me 40 minutes to get home at that time of night. A taxi, about 30-40 still. This guy? Just shy of 20 minutes. He was speeding the whole way back, and chose roads that no one else was on. Luckily he was a good driver.

Integration

KwangdongBrian has just pointed out this news article to me from The Korea Herald. From the article:

“A plan to integrate Masan, Changwon and Jinhae in South Gyeongsang Province is gaining a decisive momentum as it has been approved by all three city councils. “

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I won’t be here for it most likely, but Masan, Changwon and Jinhae, for me, all have their own personalities. I can’t see them meshing as a city, though I see the advantages. A bigger budget, more recognition from the rest of the nation, maybe an increase in tourism. The combination of the three would make a city of about 1 million.

This might be sentimental, but I like Masan small like this (well, “small”. A city of 480,000 is not small to me). I don’t want it to be 1/3rd of yet another big city.

I admit that the merge makes sense, though, Changwon and Masan are practically the same city in terms of location. If I want to go to Changwon, I get on a regular city bus and sit for about 40 minutes. We cross a short bridge, and then I’m in Changwon. I’ve only been to Jinhae once, the cherry blossoms city, and I don’t remember how far away it was, but I have a feeling the city lines also touch.

The more I think about it, the more I don’t like this merge. Let the three cities be. There are some people who are opposed to this, but the article doesn’t specifically say why.

Edit: Kwangdongbrian also linked to an article on his site that talks about those opposed to the integration, though still not in great detail.

A Typical Day

I don’t think I’ve posted what a usual day is for me, so I’ll do today.

Friday. My alarm is set for 7:10am, but I’ve been watching a friend’s cat who clearly doesn’t like the alarm, so he gets me up a little earlier than that. I have breakfast and coffee, take an elevator down 13 floors, then walk to the bus stop. My walk is uneventful, I don’t live in a busy part of the city and while I see some people, they usually ignore me. Almost every day, I see a woman walking a young girl with incredibly curly hair that reminds me of a friend, Kat, from home.

I take the bus 2 stops, and get in school around 8:40. Depending on which bus I happened to step in, I actually arrive sometime between 8:35 and 8:45, but no one is bothered by this as the late arrivals are rare. When I enter the school, there are usually some grade 6 kids there sweeping, greeting the teachers with “Anyeonghaseyo!” and then “Hello Da nee su!” for me. Some of them can say my name right, but I rarely hear Denise, it’s usually Daneesu, Dennis, and, sometimes, Tennis. Tennis amuses me. I can just imagine that kid trying to tell someone else about their foreign teacher named Tennis.

I make my way up to the 4th floor by stairs, which is a long and agonizing exercise, but somehow, I get there. This is the grade 6 floor, so sometimes I’m greeted by grade 6 girls who say “Danisu! My name is…?” and wait for me to tell them their name. I know about a dozen of them because of this, though they are still impressed for some reason. Only 1 of the boys cares, and for a long time he accepted me calling him Daewoo until one day he realized what I was saying and said “no! Jaewoo!”.

I open the sliding door to the teacher’s room, say hello to whoever happens to be there, and they say hello back. This happens a lot over the next 10 minutes; someone new comes in, we all say hello, they say hello.

In the middle of the room, there’s a big table divided in the middle by a bookcase. I sit on one side beside the grade 5 co-teacher, and have an array of books there. I store my bag and purse in the cabinet, get some water or green tea (or juice, if I’m lucky) from the kitchen area, then look over what I need to do for the day. Usually I have 30 minutes, so I read, or talk with H beside me. Today is grade 5 day, so H and I leave a few minutes before the bell wings.

We go back down the stairs and outside, walking down a covered cement-tiled path to the building that has the cafeteria, and classes for grades 4, 5, and one more that I don’t remember (maybe kindergarden and grade 1). We go all the way back up the stairs to the top, and by then we’re both making faces in shared pain. We joke. We go to the 5-6 room, which is at the end of the hall, away from the others beside the washrooms. There, we greet the 5-6 homeroom teacher, who is a sweet young woman probably my age who has the misfortune of being the teacher for the worst grade 5 class.

Now, it’s not that they’re bad. Not all of them, and some are nice kids, but they are loud. They are also sometimes rude, and they do not listen. I walk in, say hello, and usually they say hello back. Sometimes they will start off with “hello, how are you? fine thank you, and you?” or “hello my name is ____ nice to meet you!”. They are all tiny mimics. I put my book on the desk, write the lesson name and number on the board, and get the computer cd rom ready. I turn on the tv. During this time, H is trying to get them settled in their seats. For 5-6, this can take some time.

When I’m ready, I walk to the front of the class room, look them over, and start trying to get them to quiet down. Sometimes this involves a simple finger-to-lips motion combined with “quiet please! let’s start!”. Sometimes I have to hit the desk bell a few times, sometimes H has to step in further. There are classes that cannot start without my co-teacher making all the students put their hands on their heads and close their eyes while she admonishes them in Korean for about 3 minutes, but that’s grades 4 and 6.

I say hi, ask them a question or two in English, then start the lesson. There’s usually a video on the cd for them to follow, and then listen and repeat where they have to say back what I say. I ask them questions throughout this time (it’s usually about 15-20 minutes) and sometimes H will speak up.

After this, today, was game time. In the back of their book there’s a section with pages of cards for each lesson, so they cut out the cards, and then, in pairs, arrange the cards between them. This took an age for 5-6, for no apparent reason. The idea is that if I say something like “Let’s play soccer!” they need to grab that card, and whoever gets it first can keep the card and say “sure!” The loser says “Sorry, I can’t!”. The actual motivation is stickers; after we play the game once, we play it again with students coming up to call the cards, then H gives the winners stickers. It’s a status thing.

At the end of the class, I attempt to reign them in and say “thank you, see you next time!”. H and I leave and, for this one, we both say “oh my god they were so bad today”, and this makes us feel better.

We go upstairs to a break room with the other grade 5 homeroom teachers, where we will be for 20 minutes. There’s a table, a computer, chairs, a fridge, a kettle, and lots of tea and coffee, as well as a beautiful view of the mountains. Here, they all speak Korean and occasionally say something to me, and they have snacks. Today they have honey in hot water and something that I thought was a normal bun, but had something way too sweet inside.

After 20 minutes, we go down to teach 5-4, and they are angels. Angels. It helps that they are being compared to 5-6, but they’re quiet, without me having to tell them to be quiet. They listen. The only complaint H has is that they are sometimes too quiet and shy.

We spend 10 minutes in a smaller breakroom that has the same things the other one did, and have an orange each. There is almost always fruit on the table here, and I love tangerine oranges. We do 5-5, class goes more quickly so we add hangman at the end of class. 10 minutes in the breakroom again, another tangerine, one of the homeroom teachers offers us coffee just before we leave. We decline, saying we need to go teach.

5-3 is much the same, although I think this is the one that started with a boy walking up to me, doing a little dance while saying “hello, how are you? nice to meet you! my name is ____” before dancing off back to his seat. This is also the one where, during hangman, two boys start saying “oh shit oh shit” because they were wrong.

After that, we had lunch, and it’s disgusting. It involves a lot of seafood and parts of crabs. I have some rice, some lettuce and some salty bean sauce that I forget the name of, then head back to the teacher’s room in the 6th grade floor. I prepare for Monday’s classes by listening to the CDs and looking through the teacher’s guides, make a word search, and plan with my co-teachers there for a few things. I spend most of the time until 4:40 on the computer, writing, knitting while listening to my ipod, and reading.

At 4:40, I walk out of school with H, and at the street where the busstops are we say goodbye, as she is heading back to Changwon. I get on the bus, go 2 stops, then walk home.

Books

Occasionally my raison d’être, at least for a few hours (or more, if it’s a very good book). I love books. Here, surrounded by a language and culture that is not my own, more than ever I love books. I always have at least 3 on my nightstand, and usually find myself with so many that I have to give them away to make room for more.

When I was little, my parents taught me to be frugal. I bought books sometimes with my meager allowance and babysitting money, but mostly I borrowed books from the library. Sometimes I’d trade them in at a second-hand store for credit, to buy more. My father instilled in me early-on the importance of the library and getting books from there, so that was my main source, mostly at school.

When I left home for University, I was into reading long fantasy series’, so I would buy huge paperback books that I would devour long before the next one was released. I was usually reading more than one book at a time for some reason. Then I’d sell them, once on Ebay where I managed to make a lot of money because the buyer assumed I was selling hardcover, and then agreed to let it stand when he realized he had assumed wrongly.

Sometime when I was living in the US, I had an ipod and started listening to audiobooks. I also learned to knit and crochet then, so this combined into the perfect addiction; Jane Austen while knitting. Terry Pratchett while knitting. Now, The Sword of Truth, while knitting. I still read physical books, but audiobooks are their own special category; I don’t think we ever get too old to have a story told to us, or at least, I hope we don’t. I’m 28 and not about to stop.

During this time, between the end of University and up to about 2 years ago, I horded books. Along with my ex and friend, we bought All The Books. I have distinct memories of leaving Books a Million with bags so heavy we groaned all the way back home, not having a car at that point. There were bookcases of manga, science fiction, fantasy, and fiction in the form of physics and game programming books, how-to manuals, and ufo/mystery books. We would move them from apartment to apartment many times, and carefully (with only a tinge of annoyance) place them back on the bookcases. This was usually my job, as I have a Virgoan thing for organizing.

I remember buying a bookcase in Charlottetown that a man made with mahogany wood. It’s still in my parents’ house. He brought it to my apartment himself, and I paid maybe 20$ for something that he had made in his garage, a work of art. I can picture it now, I think it just has knitting books in it at the moment, some piano scores, maybe my Idiot’s Guide to Yoga and some other random books.

Now, in Korea, I have two cases for my books. They’re not “real” bookcases, in the way I’ve gotten used to. The desk that another expat gave me has room for books, and there are about a dozen in it. I also bought a bedside table, which is really just a wooden box that has room for books, and it currently has about a dozen as well. It was stuffed with more last week, but I brought a lot to a knitting meeting and gave them away. Of course, I also came home with 2 others, but I needed more to read.

Here, I give them away. I give books to friends, or leave them at Jazz for someone to pick up. I pay money for books, money that I don’t even think about because it’s disposable, and this is one of my necessities.

My new favourite author is David Sedaris, though I’m also trying many others. Shopping for books in Korea is an interesting experience; usually, in a bookstore, I’ll find the classics in English. I bought and read Little Women because it was there, and I had to do it. There are bigger bookstores, and I’ve embraced using What the Book , which is a store in Seoul that ships to my school within 2 business days if the books are in stock.

Sometimes I go to Daewoo department store and look at the two shelves of books there. Well, two cases, though they don’t get a lot of new ones often, I think.

Right now I’m going through A Thousand Splendid Suns, and listening to one of the Sword of Truth audiobooks.

I heart books.

Busan

Two Saturdays ago I went to Busan with 3 friends. None of them had been there before to just explore, and I hadn’t spent much time there either. I’ve only been to Busan once to get to the fast train, and another time I followed a friend walking around an underground mall, then went to a bookstore. This time, our goals were a temple and a beach.

One of our first stops was a mall to get some food and work out where to go. We found a chess board with 3 pieces, so we set about trying to get checkmate in 7 moves. Turns out that it’s not easy with only 3 pieces total.

After that, we did a Max Rider ride, Alice in Wonderland. Max Rider is basically a car in a dark, curtained off room that shakes you around (the car, not the room). You wear 3-d glasses and watch a movie in front of you while the car jolts about and vibrates. I did one a few weeks ago that jerked around a little too much, but this time was better. I also didn’t wear my glasses this time (my actual ones, I wore the 3D ones) which helped. There was a gaggle of Middle School girls there who tried very hard to tell us things in English and asked how we liked it when we came out.

We went to Burger King next (ew. I had onion rings), then I went on a small trip around the mall looking for a place to buy batteries for my camera. We were in a mall filled with mostly strange designer clothes and jewelry, so I couldn’t find any. Fortunately, we found some in a store on the way to the temple.

I don’t remember the name of the temple, but it’s near Haeundai beach, and very beautiful.

This butterfly was on a stone underneath the buddha and his disciples. I can read hanguel, and R can read some of the kanji/Chinese, but we didn’t have the skills between us to read the whole thing.

While roaming, R met this dog which he named Mu. I was content to have a gate between us, though R reached right in and pet him. I’m not really a dog person.

I went in one of the temples, which had a sea of small Buddha statues inside. While I’m not religious, and not Buddhist, I felt the need to bow as I stepped in. Judo and hapkido training, I guess. I walked around the room quietly, soaking in the serenity as I looked at the hundreds of small, green buddhas lining the wall, stacked up like one side of a pyramid. Before walking out I bowed again.

A lead us instinctively to this market, which we found while trying to get to the beach.

Polka Polka hair club!

I loved the beach the moment I saw it. It’s strange for me to see tall buildings and mountains at a beach. Usually, for me, a beach is out in the middle of nowhere and might have some houses/cottages nearby, and a forest. Even though it was the off season, there were loads of people – most of them dressed in fall clothes. We were down to t-shirts and rolled up jeans, wading in the water.

We noticed a man early on walk by wearing only a speedo. Later, as we were walking down the boardwalk in hopes of finding tourist shops (there were only restaurants), we noticed about a half dozen of these people, which we named the International Speedo Club (they weren’t Korean, as far as I could tell).

After that, we found a place that sold tacos to have supper (I think it’s called The Fuzzy Navel), and I had a veggie burrito, which was delicious.

On the subject of veggie food… it finally happened. With about 3 months left, I made the switch a little while ago from vegan to vegetarian. It was not working, and I had arrived at a point where I wasn’t eating well because I couldn’t find the food I usually go for back home, as a vegan. Even being vegetarian is a challenge here, but it’s easier.

Glasses

Sometime early-on in my hapkido career, before I realized that I should just not wear glasses during class, they fell off during a throw and got a little bent out of shape. I ignored it, this happened a few more times, and then eventually I found myself with a pair of glasses that I hated and needed to be adjusted.

Did I go to the optical store to have this done? No.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to try contact lenses. I’ve only had to wear glasses for a few years, and I have to say, I’m not fond. They get dirty, they need to be adjusted, they look funny, they bounce around, I could go on with the whining but that’s probably enough. One of my co-teachers agreed to go with me, as she also wears glasses (and contacts), but the first time we had to cancel our outing because she had sudden obligations at work.

We planned to go two days later, but I was sick. I was sick for the whole next week with a very sore throat and laryngitis (ever have to whisper through classes for a week? It’s surprising how quiet the students will be when they have to be to hear you, I was amazed), so I didn’t go then.

Finally, today after work we took the bus to her optical store, called SunSee. The man working there was very kind, and liked that I was Canadian (he had Canadian brand contact lenses). He tested my glasses for their prescription using some sort of microscope, then ushered me over to a machine to test my vision. I’m not sure how it worked, I sat in front of it with my chin resting on something, and a picture focused and unfocused before me. I’ve used this in Canada before, but I don’t know how it works and it still amazes me. (I tried to ask in Canada, but the nurse claimed she didn’t know.)

After that, I did an eye test where I had to read numbers. During this time, another person working in the store fixed my glasses (I had mentioned that too, at the start). I didn’t notice that it had been done so quickly, so was pleasantly surprised when I put them back on.

They wanted to sell me some glasses, too, and while I was interested in looking, I’m not really compatible with Korean glasses. Most Koreans have “big faces” compared to me, and all of their styles looked ridiculous on me. I eventually declined, and we started in on the contacts.

He again mentioned the Canadian-ness of the brand, and both coteacher and he asked me if I was sure I wanted to try, as this was my first time. I said I was, so I was sat down in front of a mirror, then was told to wash my hands. I’ve never seen a lens in person, so I was surprised at how malleable it was. One was moistened, placed just so on my finger, and I was told to put it on. I watched my coteacher mime how to do it, tried, and… blinked. And blinked again. Dropped the lens, the man picked it up, cleaned it, put it just so on my finger once more. This time I was told to push up on the upper lid, too, so I obeyed. Failed. Tried again, failed. A few more techniques were tried, and eventually I realized that it was not going to happen. I apologized, said that I couldn’t do it, and then we moved on to my coteachers business of getting contacts for herself.

I might try contacts again, but for now, it’s not important.