sea lion woman.

Much has happened that I want to write about since the last time I blogged. Therefor, this post will hold stories from multiple days, possibly out of order in both days and events. If you can keep up and follow, may God be smiling upon you.

I just finished a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to fill that which was lost after my first official run in Korea. I have walked much, going somewhere to somewhere else, but this morning I adventured out on my first exploratory run that ended in bliss. A special thanks to a racing mind, sunshine, lush green vegetation and motion inducing music in the form of Feist, helpful elements to a really fantastic run. While following the line of roads on the way out of town, which mean less buildings and more trees, I stumbled upon a hill and got excited. Running up the hill, while matching all of my steps to the guitar strings being strung in Sea Lion Woman, I found the rush I was looking for, and also felt a little silly upon remembering I was in a public place.

There is a man that drives around the streets of Cheonan with watermelon in the back of his truck, speaking in Korean, loudly and passionately, something along the lines of, “Come, buy my watermelon!”.

Saturday was a good day. While standing outside the movie theater after watching “Get Smart”, I was alone waiting for my movie buddy, and I realized, in the midst of so many people, that I was really in the minority. I fear that sounds arrogant, but it’s not a place I have often found myself in, and it was eye opening. This overwhelming feeling was followed by the consumption of krispy kreme donuts, which will bring most anyone, including myself, back down to a comfortable level. Sitting there, I recognized and acknowledged two things: I love donuts, and men in Korea carry purses for their wives and girlfriends. This is almost as perplexing to me as the watermelon truck guy. I thought just one of the men was crazy in love and felt a need to do anything to help his companion, and then I looked around and saw men carrying plaid colorful bags, Louis Vuitton, white bags with ornate buckles and ornate straps in one hand, and their companion’s actual hand in the other. I was in awe. I tried to picture my dad gladly carrying my mom’s purse for her, and laughed a little out loud.

A few highlights without going into too much detail: Lunch on Saturday was Samgyeopsal. And it was so very delicious. Fresh. Spicy. Vegetables. We cooked the meat on a grill in front of us, added garlic, onion, some salty concoction that was the perfect balance of flavor, with kimchi and a spicy salsa like dip...wrapped it all in lettuce and shoved it in our mouths. My reaction was a little over the top, to some, but it was overwhelmingly tasty...and easy...and fresh...and cheap.

I also played some surprisingly fun ping pong with potential new friends, and had my first encounter with Korean beer, which wasn’t as awful as everyone has made it out to be.

Yesterday was by far the most difficult day since I have been here. Don’t worry mom, I am fine. But it was that slap in the face that I will inevitably spend a lot of time alone. I had a conversation with Mary about it before I left, that this reality was the one thing I was concerned about, and while in my apartment for hours, having not uttered a word the entire day to anyone, I realized I was in the midst of what we had been talking about...what I wanted to be aware of. I am ok being alone. There have been many seasons of my life where that was the case. But never in a foreign country, where I cannot communicate well with anyone around me. I was able to pull it together, get some essentials at the grocery, including a mug with which I can drink tea and instant coffee (gasp!) from. And then I called Houston, and walked there to see a familiar face, and finished the evening with a lovely walk and conversation with my new barely-known but much-liked friend Hyerin. And then I started to breath well again.

A conversation with family, and the hearing of the nephews voices can scatter light into even the darkest of days. And smiles from strangers are very helpful, instead of looks of awe and confusion at the foreigner.

I also had some ice cream that was, honestly, helpful.

Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend today. I don’t have the mental energy to re-write it, so make sense of it if you can. Also, this is one of those parts that’s out of order, so apologies to all of my orderly readers.

“I managed to pry myself out of bed around two in the afternoon, and I got ready for the day, still with a sick, dissatisfied feeling in the deep of my gut. I put on a bright yellow shirt, and skinny jeans and red shoes, and ventured to the lote-mart to get a mug to make tea in, and a usb chord to upload some pics onto the internet. I stood in the food court, contemplating getting something for dinner, and there is someone yelling out something in Korean, touting all of the benefits of the vegetables you are looking at, prodding people to buy. There are so many people in there, and I can tell if what I am looking at are massive carrots or sweet potatoes, and I begin to feel completely overwhelmed, my mind is racing in fear and confusion and I just want to put down my basket I am holding and run. So I stand there for a minute, and pull myself together, and decide I am not going to let the produce department win. I put a massive carrot in a bag, and point to some fresh garlic so that a woman can help me get it, and some potatoes and tofu, found the salt and pepper and olive oil, and then decide it's ok to go. I walk out and open the bottle I thought would be water and take a swig of some clear flavored energy drink, and laugh.”