Culture Shock Has Landed

So this weekend I finally made it out of Haseong and headed down to Seoul both Friday and Saturday night.  As soon as school let out on Friday, I hopped on bus # 2 for the hour-long trip to Songjeong, and then took the Seoul Metro system for another hour into Itaewon, the main 'foreigner area' of Seoul.  The subway was incredibly nice and easy to navigate, with actual clean functioning public restrooms in every station and full cell phone service on every train.  I appreciate the fact that subway systems are pretty much the same no matter where you go, which makes them a lot easier to figure out than local buses.




In Itaewon, I immediately found the nearest hamburger joint, Kraze Burger, which was overpriced but worth every penny since I was craving a real hamburger like nobody's business.  Then had a mocha for dessert at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf across the street.  Yes, Coffee Bean.  Occasionally there is something to be said for global corporations and brands... it feels like you can find a taste of home almost anywhere you go in the world, even if it's just McDonald's (which, btw, I ate for lunch on Saturday... I had the bulgogi burger, which is a Korean style of meat... I will have to go back a few more times, because they have other things on the menu you can't get elsewhere, like spicy chicken fingers and shrimp burgers).  I went to a nearby bar and made friends with the only group of people there, 2 South Africans and an English girl.  I ended up spending the whole evening with them at various bars and it was a lot of fun.  They have all been living in Korea for 2 years or more, so were able to give me some tips.  Sometimes I feel bad for people who are really shy because traveling would just be so much lonelier.  I don't know what I would do if I was incapable of walking up to random people and just talking to them.  It's not something I usually do, but when the necessity arises...

Friday night I stayed in a jimjilbang, which is a Korean sauna.  They are everywhere because Koreans believe in the regular use of hot and cold pools and steam baths to maintain their health.  You can also stay in them overnight for a minimal fee (11,000 won where I stayed, which is like $9) so a lot of foreigners and drunk Koreans who can't get home will stay overnight in a jimjilbang.  I will never do this again.  If you want any actual sleep, it is just awful.  There are no rooms, just a giant, low-ceilinged sleeping space where everyone grabs a mat and a pillow brick, stakes out a spot, and crashes.  There was so much noise between the snoring, shuffling around, weird sleep sounds (moans and whatnot), and the pipes behind the walls that pumped water to all the sauna stuff downstairs and heat to the sleeping room that I just couldn't fall asleep.  Don't forget that you're also on a thin mat on a wooden floor.  I "slept" for 3 hours and jumped up to leave the second that the subway re-opened so I could get home and sleep for real.

I ended up sleeping through most of Saturday AM in my bed and then woke up, showered, and headed right back to Seoul.  4 hours on public transit that day!  This time, I had actual plans, meeting my friend Jenna who I used to work with in New Zealand, and a big group of her friends (it was some girl's birthday party).  We went to (believe it or not) a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  The place was so popular and so packed (with ONLY foreigners, naturally, not a single Korean who wasn't an employee) that we had to wait for an hour to be seated and then when I saw the menu, I nearly had a heart attack.  Everything in Korea is usually so cheap (for instance, I can do the entire 2-hour trek from Haseong to Itaewon for about the same price as ONE Muni ride in San Francisco) that I was shocked to see the insanely overpriced food on the menu.  I guess Mexican food is a real luxury item here, which makes sense, but still.  A plate of enchiladas that looks like something you'd order at Chevy's was 29,000 won!!!  That's like 25 bucks!!  It was crazy.  But surprisingly, the food was decent.  When I've eaten Mexican food in NZ and the UK, it's been utterly terrible, so I wasn't expecting much, but I'll give it a semi-thumbs up.  Later on, we all went out in Hongdae, which is the other big foreigner area, but with a lot more Koreans mixed in since it's near a few universities.  I foolishly assumed Jenna and her friends had a plan for sleeping since everyone lives outside Seoul, but their plan was "stay up until the subway opens," which I just couldn't do.  I ended up at the jimjilbang one more time only because I had no other options, but honestly, that is never happening again.  In the future, if I know I am having a night out in Seoul, I am booking a bed in a hostel in advance.  18,000 won for a bed in a 4-person shared room is worth it.  Jimjilbang suck.

Sunday was a stupid day when culture shock hit me hard and all I wanted to do was be depressed and cry.  I was angry that I couldn't contact anyone from home (no Internet in the house until I get my damn alien card), I was exhausted from spending two nights in a row in freaking jimjilbang, and I was all sorts of emotional about a million different things... most of it actually had nothing to do with Korea at all, but a lot of personal stuff from before I ever got here.  I am still trying to get over Sunday but that personal stuff doesn't just go away overnight and I am working on it.  I think a lot about the fact that I have probably permanently ruined the best thing I've ever had in my life from the only time I can remember being really really happy, and I feel like it's eating away at my insides.  Constantly.  All of it makes everything here so much worse, and the culture shock so much harder to deal with.  But I guess I need to lie in the bed I've made for myself.  Because I can't be a quitter, not this time, not anymore.  As isolated as I am in Haseong and as much as I wish I were still back in SF, I need to suck it up and figure out a way to deal with it and not let it stop me from living.  I have a foreign teacher's orientation this Wed-Fri for all the public school teachers in my province, so hopefully I will be able to meet a ton of new people who live relatively close to me; Jenna also informed me of Meetup.com and CouchSurfing.com, which I've known about in the US for a long time, but are apparently quite helpful in Korea for meeting other like-minded foreigners.  I think once I start to get out and see touristy stuff on the weekends and socialize a bit more, things may get easier.  I sure hope so anyway.