I have been sick. Very sick. About a week ago I started to get a little tickle in my throat which suggested the onset of a cold. What I had no idea at the time was though, how much it would kick my ass. Korean colds suck!!!! New germs, new place, new type of cold!
I went to Busan last weekend to visit Chris. Ended up spending most of the weekend asleep because I was so sick! He was great and went all around Busan finding me medicine. He first went to the Korean pharmacy and came back with some sort of pellet type things that you chew and wash down with a warm liquid. I have to say, it was the worst tasting thing that has ever entered my mouth. The ‘pellets’ as I called them, were the consistency of crushed up crackers…or something. Taste? Somewhere between cement and rotten dog shit. The liquid was horrible too, but it wasn’t as bad as cement and rotten dog shit, so I can’t recall its exact flavor. The Korean medicine didn’t do much for me and Chris, determined to make me feel better, called half the western population of Busan to track down real medicine for me. And what do you know, he was successful! A friend of his had a pharmacy on her, which included….NYQUIL! Amazing. Never was I so happy to see Nyquil in all my life. I took that and then slept most of the afternoon away. I had a horrible sore throat, fever, almost no voice, earaches and just felt like shit.
After sleeping some of the afternoon away, I pulled myself out of bed and we went and wandered for a bit around Busan. I was very tired and still felt very bad, so we didn’t do much. We did eat some amazing street food, though! Some waffle thing with sweet cream type stuff inside, some fried piece of dough with like nuts and peanut butter (?) or something inside, and then Korean style sushi (kimbap, I think?) that wasn’t very great. Then we went and ate Italian (gasp!) food in Korea! It was delicious and the restaurant was PURPLE!! It was cool. After all the eating and walking, I was pretty wiped and ready to get back in bed. So, unfortunately, that was about the extent of Busan I saw! Even though it wasn’t the weekend that had been originally planned, I was still very thankful to have a vigilant nurse looking out for me and brining me pellets and Nyquil.
I have been sick since then. Had it been later on in the year, and not the 4th day of work, I would have called in sick on Monday. Monday was the worst day. I felt like death warmed over. By that point, a horrible (and painful) cough and annoying and constant runny nose had also set in. I was clearly very sick. In Korea, Koreans don’t really believe in staying home when sick. So, going home was never suggested. Many people did suggest I go to the hospital however, but “after work, in evening”. AKA, don’t take time off of work. Many people I went to orientation with are currently sick as well; apparently it is sort of a Korean rite of passage. Everyone gets really sick when they first get here. I at first was worried about the social acceptability of blowing your nose in public, coughing, sneezing etc…Then, I just stopped caring because I felt too bad. I am sure the people in my office hate me and all my sick sounds I have made this past week, haha. Sidenote, haven’t been able to find soft Kleenex here, my nose is not a fan.
By Wednesday, I was out of my foreign medicine and went in search of a Korean pharmacy. I managed to explain cough syrup and cough drops with my Korean dictionary and miming abilities. I was hoping to avoid any more rotten dog shit pellets and succeeded! The cough syrup turned out to have a picture of a vanilla bean on it. I smelled it, smelled like vanilla. Then I took a shot, and yep, tasted just like vanilla. Was it vanilla? Who knows, TIK. I did manage to score Halls cough drops though, which have been a lifesaver. I brought some over, but burned through them quite quickly. Having to teach and yell/talk over 35 middle school girls has taken a toll on my voice and without the cough drops, I wouldn’t have been able to talk at all. The pharmacist also gave me pills for, “my nose”. He pointed and said, “take.” The box is awesome. It has three elephants on it; one sneezing, one with a dripping nose and one blowing its nose. How cute! Gotta love Korean medicine. The grand total for cough syrup/vanilla, two packs of cough drops (American, no less) and elephant nose pills was 6k won or somewhere around $6 USD.
I am on the mend now. Runny nose is abating and so is the cough. All of the other symptoms have seemed to disappear. Let us hope it is all gone by next week!
Whenever I travel, I always bring medicine with me. I usually have a supply of cough drops, Vicks vapor rub (I don’t leave without this; can be used to take away pain from coral burns, sunburns, great to put under your nose in smelly public transportation situations and of course for coughs), cold medicine and antihistamines, in the least. Why? It is not because I don’t think medicine doesn’t exist in other places, but when you are sick and in an unfamiliar place, the last thing you want to do is go on a trek looking for stuff to make you feel better when you feel like shit. Especially when you don’t know exactly what you need, where to get it or what it looks like or is called. So, to play it safe, some always comes with me. But, I forgot Nyquil, I had Dayquil, but no night stuff. Fail!!! So, thank god for Chris and his friend Anne! I have blown through my medicine stash and since I know now there isn’t Nyquil or any equivalents here, I will be having them sent over and other medicine replenished. I hope this is my last bout of illness for the season, but you never know and I don’t want to be caught without anything again!!
In other news, my classes continue to keep me on my toes. Classes on Tuesday were canceled completely (for testing, common occurrence here) so I sat and planned. I really needed that because I still felt horrible and it was good to conserve my voice.
Yesterday, I had the class from hell. My co-teacher was there for the first two minutes and pointed to a girl (in front of the whole class) and said, “reeetahted student.” Ummm, okay, thanks? I hope they didn’t understand. Then, she left. The student does happen to be severely mentally disabled and I am unsure as to why she is in a mainstream class at all. Oh well, TIK. After the teacher left, the class continued to escalate out of control. I did not have much of a voice by this point (was my last class of the day) and it was hard to quiet them down without it. I took possession of many interesting things this class. A few drawing/doodling notebooks, pens and oh…a knife. You know, the usual stuff. Yes, a knife. I confiscated a KNIFE off of a 7th grade Korean girl. WTF?!?! She was like, “teachaa, WHY?!?! Mine!!” I had to move a student to the front of the room for screwing around and then moved knife girl to her seat. Class was horrible. I was glad when it was over. I saw the co-teacher at lunch and she asked how they were. I said horrible. Told her about the knife. Her response? “oh”. As if taking a knife off a 12 year old is a common experience. Ahhh, WTF did I sign up for? TIK.
Taught my first real lesson today (had been teaching lessons about me, introducing myself) from the textbook, which I planned. It went great! Co-teacher said I have great methods. Somehow, everyone is talking about how well I teach and that it is due to my many years of experience teaching….not sure who or how that rumor started, but I am going with it! LOL!
I just saw the class from hell from last week and they were 100x better this week. Just laying down the law last week and showing them that they can’t screw with me, apparently worked! Which was great, because I was dreading this class because it was so awful last week.
As I was heading back to the teachers room after a class today right before lunch, I was informed that we would (all English teachers) be going out for lunch. Going out is always an interesting (albeit awkward) experience. I was told we would be going for sushi….sweet! Something I could actually eat and I wouldn’t have to dodge meat or meat-related questions. Korean sushi is not like Americanized Japanese sushi…it is just big ass slabs of raw fish. I was completely overwhelmed when I saw everything. There were at least 8 courses; two soup courses, a bibimbap-like course (rice, veggies and fish eggs), the raw fish slabs over dry ice, salad, some stir fry thing, kimchi (of course), delicious coconut prawns, traditional style sushi eventually showed up (called kimbap….I think), marinated fish, fried fish, grilled fish, kimchi fish and more! I get a bit of stage fright with chopsticks when I know I am being watched. My fingers become all paralyzed and then they ask for a fork…and I am mortified. But, I was also a little thankful because I was starving and I knew this lunch would be rushed because we had to return to school. I am a very slow eater with chopsticks, especially when having to pick up small items!
The first thing out was clam soup…the clams were still in their shells. I saw them and thought (this was pre-fork), “you have got to be fucking kidding me. How in the hell do you eat clams with chopsticks?!?!?” Apparently, you pick the clam up with the chopsticks (one of the hardest things I have done so far in Korea) and slurp out the clam. It took me about 10 minutes to eat five clams. LOL. Next was the raw ass fish. I thought, how bad can it be? I have grown up eating fish and other sea life. I like it very much. So, I went in for the kill. I picked up a slab of raw fish and stuck it in my mouth. Crunched down and…bones. The bones were in this fish and I was supposed to eat them. They were more like cartilage, but still very strange. The flavor was…weird. It was a very strange tasting fish, very pungent and had a sort of smoky flavor. If someone didn’t like fish, it would probably make them gag. I was hoping to avoid any more of the bone-in fish, but my co-teacher said, “eat, eat, very expensive.” Ahh, SOB! So, I ate 3 more slabs and then was able to avoid it as more courses came out. Most of it was excellent and extremely fresh. We were seated on the floor and I knew my legs had fallen asleep, but I didn’t realize how much. I went to stand and literally had no feeling in my left leg and fell forward against the wall. Ah, fml. So embarrassing! My leg was like jello and I didn’t even have that tingling sensation, it was so freaky! The entire walk to the car I was hobbling like it was broken because I still couldn’t feel it. No one said anything…just looked at me strangely. Oh man, what they must think of me.
I have had many Ifuckinghatekoreawhydidicomehere moments this past week. The combination of being extremely sick, having to work, and still adjusting did the trick for that to come out. I think it is just about out of my system, so that is good. Whenever you go abroad to live (or travel for an extended period of time) there is always an element of culture shock. Depending on where you are going and where you are coming from, the degree may very significantly. It usually goes something like this: I LOVE Korea (or wherever)!!!! Then, I uggggh I fucking HATE Korea!!!! (or wherever), then homesickness, then you settle into your life and love it and towards the end, the cycle repeats. Now, that is not an exact science, but I think it is fairly common for many of these elements to happen. I feel, process and experiences things very deeply. So I usually go through these steps quite quickly (I think). I think I am starting to transition into the settling in phase and enjoying life phase. I hope that I will stay there awhile! The I hate this place phase isn’t very fun and I am glad to be out of it!
I am settling into the school routine and am getting used to my little lemmings following me around. It has become fun. One thing that has been an adjustment to me that I wasn’t prepared for before coming, is the issue of modesty in Korea. Shoulders/cleavage/chest/neck in Korea are not things to be seen. It is equivalent to say, wearing an extremely short skirt in America and flashing butt cheeks. It is not ok, but they are fine with the short skirt, butt cheek thing it appears. I have been hyper aware of the no cleavage/shoulder thing, but didn’t realize how many of my sweaters show parts of my shoulder. I usually avoid showing shoulder by wearing another shirt underneath or wearing a scarf. Today, I had a scarf on and I moved it to adjust and retie, and for probably 15 seconds, a large section of my shoulder showed. There were a few 7th grade girls in the hall and my male coteacher. The girls screamed (wildly), “ooooooh teachaaa sexxyyyyyyy!” and kept screaming it. I was mortified. As soon as their eyes went wild with excitement, I thought, “oh shitttttttttttt!!!!” My shoulder was exposed literally less than 15 seconds, but I might as well have flashed them. Oh well, TIK.
I’ve also discovered a new trick for quieting my class down without wrecking my voice. I roll my tongue (like to roll rs in Spanish) I can do this for quite a long period of time and I don’t strain my voice; plus it works every time! They always freak out; I don’t know if that is something done in Korea, lol. But, they seem to like it! Whatever works, right?!?
I completely re-arranged my room and finally finished unpacking and setting it up. It feels much more homey now. I have at least 100 pictures up of my peeps on my wall to remind me of home! Speaking of my apartment, I came home yesterday…to my door open. WTF?!? I was really freaked out at first and went to find my Ipod and camera (which were in plain view, had my laptop with me) but they were all accounted for. Nothing seemed to be out of place, except that my bathroom door was shut, which I absolutely knew I did not do. I just kind of shrugged it off and asked a few locals about it later. Apparently, the landlord (Mr. O) will come check on you/the apartment periodically when you’re new…and often leave the door open. But, I guess it is okay because….TIK.
Another interesting (although maybe I shouldn’t blog about it b/c it might seem pathetic, haha) thing I have been adjusting to is working full time, 5 days a week. I have worked less than 3 months full time…ever. Why? Well, most of my life I have been in school. Most of my summers (except the one where I worked full time) I have been traveling. So, I’ve never really done the whole full-time job thing. Man, is it exhausting! Why do people do this?!? No, seriously, why? You get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. Then, you get up, go to work, go home and go to bed. And again, and again and then one more time for good measure. Every week.Ugh. Rough. I know I sound like a pathetic spoiled little brat, but it is real. So, don’t hate! Adjusting to full-time employment is exhausting. Why do we spent so much of our time doing things we don’t enjoy? I would for one much rather have way less money and spend less time working and more time living. Naïve, perhaps, but this sucks. Already imagining my escapes to foreign tropical places…
I am hoping that this weekend will be better than the last. I have some fun things planned, will write about them next week! One of the fun things includes…a trip to COSTCO! I have visions of bread, cheese and cereal dancing in my head. Costco is one of the only places to find cheese and I am way too excited. And ps, I have lost and/or misplaced my camera cord, so I can’t upload pictures. ) : When I find it or buy a new one, new pictures will be up for your enjoyment!
Write soon.
Love,
Kimberly
PS: Communicating with everyone back home has proved to be quite difficult/damn near impossible with the severe time change (17 hours to PST, 14 hours to EST). You are all getting a window into MY life via this blog, you should all shoot me some emails or Facebook messages every once in a while so I can hear what is going on with you! I miss everyone terribly and have been ridiculously excited by the few Facebook messages and emails I have received. So, get to writing!
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